Midwest Guest

Photo Friday: Rosa Parks bus at The Henry Ford

Little did Rosa Parks know that when she boarded city bus 2857 in Montgomery, Alabama, one December day in 1955 that it was the beginning of a ride that would change history, help strike down restrictive segregation laws in the South, and advance the cause of civil rights in the United States.

The original bus, found rotting away in an Alabama field, now sits proudly restored at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan.

Check out yesterday’s story here at Midwest Guest to learn more about Rosa Parks and this historic bus.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

See the bus Rosa Parks rode into history at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan

Rosa Parks, the “mother of the civil rights movement”, moved to Detroit, Michigan, in 1957, so it only seems fitting that the Montgomery, Alabama, bus she rode into history after refusing to relinquish her seat to a white man in December of 1955 followed her to Michigan.

We’re fortunate to be able to view the historic vehicle at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, which lovingly restored the bus after three decades of neglect when it sat rusting away in an Alabama field. The story of Rosa Parks, her move to Detroit, and her influence on the civil rights movement throughout the years is interesting enough-the story of what happened to the bus at the center of her story is intriguing as well.

Other African American women violated Montgomery city ordinances dictating strictly segregated city buses before Parks’ historic refusal to move, but Montgomery civil rights leaders picked Parks, a hard-working seamstress with an impeccable reputation, as the face of the case to challenge the Montgomery law.

Montgomery civil rights leaders called for a bus boycott. The question ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled Montgomery’s segregation law unconstitutional, and the 381-day bus boycott ended in December 1956.

Parks earned many awards and honors, including receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton in 1996.

Meanwhile, a man named Roy H. Summerford purchased the old 36-seat bus Montgomery city bus and parked it in a field where it ended up as a derelict hulk used to store lumber and tools. Summerford died in 1986, and his daughter inherited the bus.

The bus had a brief bit of fame in 1990 when it was one of three buses used in a movie called The Long Walk Home. The bus, already inoperable by this time, rolled through the scenes with the aid of a cable pulling it along.

Summerford heirs finally decided to sell the bus in 2000 by initially listing it for sale on eBay. The listing drew media attention, but a lack of documentation about the authenticity of the vehicle probably made some potential bidders hesitant to meet or beat the $100,000 minimum asking price.

Officials at the MastroNet auction house began researching the bus and its background, eventually authenticating it largely using a collection of press clippings from the mid-1950s assembled by a professional clipping service.

The bus went up for auction in 2001 and drew at least 45 bids, including from the city of Denver, the Smithsonian, and The Henry Ford. The Michigan museum won the bus with a bid of $427,919 and spent nearly $500,000 total to pick up the bus, the clipping collection, and a 1955 Montgomery bus driver uniform, coin changer, and punch.

The bus was in pretty rugged shape with a missing engine, missing seats, and broken windows. The vehicle was rusty and the original “fruit salad” paint scheme of white, yellow, and green faded beyond recognition.

The Henry Ford spent $300,000-plus to restore the bus, with help from the Federal government in the form of a $205,000 grant through the Save America’s Treasures program.

I remember viewing the bus shortly after The Henry Ford acquired it, when they briefly put it on display before beginning the long and expensive restoration. This National Bus Trader magazine article from 2002 has some great photos of that initial showing of the bus at The Henry Ford and a ceremony honoring Rosa Parks as she viewed the vehicle.

Rosa Parks died in 2005, and you can visit her burial place at Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Parks’ influence lives on and today, visitors can board the restored bus and sit in the place she refused to vacate back in 1955.

Check out my story about a unique Michael Jackson tribute near Rosa Parks’ burial place in Woodlawn Cemetery.

Readers interested in learning more about Rosa Parks might enjoy Rosa Parks: A Life by Douglas Brinkley or Rosa Parks: My Story by Rosa Parks and Jim Haskins.

Interested in learning more about the bus boycott or the early civil rights movement in general? You might enjoy Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson or Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch III.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Dearborn

President Garfield’s Lawnfield home drew the nation to Mentor, Ohio

Today President James A. Garfield’s Lawnfield home exudes an air of quiet elegance, but the home and its spacious grounds drew the nation’s attention to Mentor, Ohio, when Garfield literally conducted his campaign from his own Ohio front porch in 1880.

The hugely popular Civil War hero, educator, and legislator originally envisioned the home in Mentor as a place where he could farm, conduct agricultural experiments, and teach his children to farm. Life had other plans for Garfield, though, who emerged as a compromise candidate during a seemingly deadlocked Republican convention in 1880.

We enjoyed taking a docent-led tour of the home and grounds at Lawnfield. Our guide explained the history of the house, told us how Garfield ran his successful campaign for president from the house’s front porch and a small outbuilding behind the house, and told us about his widow Lucretia’s dedication to preserving her husband’s legacy through meticulous care of his papers and other artifacts.

Built in 1832 as a 1 ½ story house by James Dickey, the Garfields expanded the home after purchasing it in 1876. By 1880, the Garfields added 11 rooms to the 9-room home, making a much larger 2 ½-story home to more readily accommodate the couple and their five children.

Another notable improvement made by the Garfields was the addition of a large porch across the front of the house. A train stop at the rear of the Garfield property brought thousands of admirers directly to the presidential candidate. Visitors disembarked the train and walked down a short lane to see Garfield make campaign speeches from this porch- giving rise to the idea of a homey, “front porch campaign”.

Garfield campaign office

Other buildings on the property include a small building behind the house that served as headquarters and telegraph office for the campaign, a carriage house (that now serves as a visitor center), an impressive 75-foot-tall windmill/pumphouse, and other barns and outbuildings.

The press corps of the day encamped on the lawn of the home through that 1880 campaign, dubbing the place Lawnfield.

Garfield went on to win the presidency and left for Washington, never returning to his beloved Lawnfield before his assassination.

After Garfield’s death, Lucretia Garfield stayed on at Lawnfield. She added a memorial library wing and vault to the house, carefully preserving her husband’s papers, artifacts, and historical legacy. Seeing Mrs. Garfield’s meticulous record-keeping and preservation was one of the more fascinating parts of our tour of Lawnfield, and it was interesting to learn that her efforts resulted in establishing one of the first real presidential libraries.

Garfield heirs sold Lawnfield to the Western Reserve Historical Society in 1936. The Society restored the home and opened it to the public.

Lawnfield earned designation as a National Historic site in 1980, and a multi-million-dollar restoration in the late 1990s recreated the home much as it was in the late 1800s. About 80 percent of the period furnishings in the home today originally belonged to the Garfield family.

Visitors cannot take photos inside of the home, but you can get a peek at Lawnfield’s interior at the Western Reserve Historical Society site.

Check out Cleveland monument is lasting tribute to President James A. Garfield for more about this president’s life, and his final resting place.

Readers interested in learning more may enjoy reading the Garfield biography, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield.

I also recently discovered the availability of an intriguing looking reprint of an original book written by Horatio Alger in 1881 called From Canal Boy to President: Or the Boyhood and Manhood of James A Garfield.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Mentor

Photo Friday: More photos from the Garfield Memorial

We spent quite a while in the Garfield Memorial when we visited the monument in Cleveland’s Lake View Cemetery. It’s especially interesting to consider that President James A. Garfield, the last president born in a log cabin and the product of a difficult and impoverished childhood, has such an architecturally elaborate memorial building.

Check out my story, Cleveland monument is lasting tribute to President James A. Garfield, for more about this president, his life, and the drive to honor his accomplishments with a proper monument after his untimely assassination in 1881.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Cleveland monument is lasting tribute to President James A. Garfield

The Garfield Memorial, perched on a high on a hill overlooking Cleveland, Ohio, easily commands attention at the city’s massive Lake View Cemetery.

I remember my own childhood fascination with Garfield, the last president born in a log cabin, who served as president for less than a year before an assassin cut him down at point-blank range in a busy Washington D.C. train station.

In spite of Garfield’s short tenure as the nation’s president, he has one of the most elaborate and impressive tributes I’ve seen for any other commander-in-chief. The tower and turreted roof remind me of a castle.

James A. Garfield was born in 1831 and lost his father, Abram, when he was just two years old. The elder Garfield died of over exertion fighting a fire that threatened the family’s home.

The Garfield family was very poor, but young James managed to make enough money along the way and study at schools that included Geauga Seminary and the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute in Hiram, Ohio. The later school later became Hiram College, and Garfield returned there to become the youngest president of the college at the age of 27.

Garfield was also a gifted orator and was the only president ordained as a minister.

His difficult early life soon became a real political asset, with Garfield becoming a Republican State Senator in 1859 while still president at Hiram College. The devout Garfield ran as a Republican because of his strong anti-slavery stance.

Garfield served the Union with distinction during the Civil War. He earned credit for major Union victories like the Battle of Chickamuaga, eventually becoming a general.

President Abraham Lincoln convinced to run for office, and the popular military hero became a nominee for the United States Senate in 1880.

The Republican National Convention of 1880 threatened to continue endlessly in a deadlock after 34 ballots. Support for Garfield as a compromise candidate gathered steam as enthusiastic delegates voted for him.

Voters made Garfield president in March of 1881. Garfield died in September of the same year, after the July shooting.

Lake View Cemetery placed the body in a temporary tomb while the Garfield National Memorial Association formed to raise money for a proper monument to the slain president. Their efforts drew $135,000, allowing the association to begin construction and complete the memorial by 1890.

Architect George W. Keller designed the Romanesque revival-style building, which earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

The basement crypt houses coffins containing the remains of Garfield and his wife Lucretia, along with urns containing the ashes of the couple’s daughter Molly Garfield Stanley-Brown  and her husband Joseph Stanley-Brown. The arrangement is a little bit unusual because the caskets are in the open, suggesting a perpetual visitation or laying in state.

I particularly enjoyed checking out the architectural details in the building’s main-floor Memorial Hall.

A larger-than-life marble statue of Garfield dominates the hall. The dim interior lighting makes taking photos of the architectural details like stained glass windows, gold-and-stone mosaic tile frescoes, and marble columns a little difficult to photograph, but make sure you go inside to check them out and stop by the small gift store to pick up the pamphlet cemetery’s pamphlet, “The James A. Garfield Monument at Lake View Cemetery”, to learn more about the building.

The building, made of native Ohio sandstone, is 180 feet tall and sits at the cemetery’s highest point. A second-story observation deck opens to a panoramic view of the east side of downtown Cleveland and Lake Erie.

Five bas-relief panels high on the building’s exterior walls depict scenes from Garfield’s life as a teacher, soldier, legislator, president, and martyred president.

For visitors spending at least a few hours at Lake View Cemetery taking photos, finding graves of the famous, and checking out some of the other architectural gems, the Garfield Memorial makes a good stop late in the trip if the building is open because there are picnic tables on the building grounds and restrooms in the basement.

The Garfield Memorial opens daily 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. from April 1 through November 19.

Readers interested in learning more may enjoy reading the Garfield biography, Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Cleveland

Photo Friday: Cleveland sites honor President Garfield

Ohio was home to eight United States Presidents, making it a great place for history and political buffs to visit.

Presidents' Day is Monday February 15, so it seemed like a good time to check out James A. Garfield, our twentieth president. Garfield served as president for only six months in 1881 before his assassination.

In spite of his short tenure as president, the Cleveland area is proud of its presidential son. Come back later this month and celebrate the occasion here with more stories about President Garfield and sites honoring him in Cleveland.

Meanwhile, here is a quick peek of the Garfield Memorial in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Prominent African Americans in Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery

Old cemeteries can be most fascinating for the window they provide into the live and times of long-gone residents, and Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, offers an especially interesting look at the city's history and culture with its wealth of well-known and distinguished residents.

Since February is Black History Month, it seemed like a good time to share a few stories of interesting African Americans I found during our most recent visit to Lake View Cemetery.

I vaguely remember hearing about Carl B. Stokes when he became Cleveland's mayor in 1967. Stokes defeated Seth Chase Taft, grandson of former President William Howard Taft, to become the first African American mayor of a major American city (although Robert C. Henry became the first African American mayor of an Ohio city with his election as mayor of Springfield in 1966). Stokes followed up a long political career in Ohio by serving as a U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Seychelles, and he was the first African American to anchor broadcast television news.

Garrett A. Morgan was an especially inventive guy, patenting the first traffic signal in the United States in 1923 after witnessing a crash between a car and a buggy. Morgan demonstrated the usefulness of another one of his inventions, the gas mask, in 1916 to help save lives and recover bodies among a group of miners trapped in a shaft below Lake Erie.

William Otis Walker is another prominent African American memorialized at Lake View Cemetery. The journalist, publisher, and political leader was the publisher and editor of the Cleveland Call and Post, which became one of the most influential African-American newspapers in the country after Walker started publishing it in 1932. Walker used the weekly newspaper as a platform to expose racial inequities and to support the Republican Party.

You'll find a number of African Americans buried in Section 50 of the Lake View Cemetery, reserved according to the book "Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery", for African American burials, although you'll also find African Americans buried throughout the cemetery.

Be sure to check out my previous posts about Lake View Cemetery:

Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, recalls grand European memorial gardens

Wade Chapel houses Tiffany treasure at Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery

More Tiffany treasures inside Wade Chapel at Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery

Cleveland home to Father Christmas Tree

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, recalls grand European memorial gardens

I didn't quite expect to spend most of a full day exploring a cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, but that city's grand old Lake View Cemetery has enough to keep those interested in history, architecture, and photography busy for at least one full day--if not the better part of a week.

The 285-acre cemetery, established in 1869, started as a vision by planners to create a memorial garden to rival the grand Victorian cemeteries in England and France. Huge gravestones, obelisks, ornate memorial buildings like the massive structure commemorating the life of U.S. President James A. Garfield that serves as his final resting place, and the beautiful Wade Chapel with its Tiffany-designed interior and stained glass window, serve as testament to the vision of the cemetery's founders and offer a fascinating trip through Cleveland's rich history and cultural life throughout the years.

Lake View's location six miles from the city's courthouse, and two miles outside Cleveland's city limits in the late 1860s, gave it a real feeling of being out in the country. Lake View quickly became a popular destination for Sunday outings. Today, Lake View is a serene oasis well within greater Cleveland's present-day sprawl, and it is still a great destination for those who want to learn more about the city and some of its more famous residents.

You can find a few biographies of Lake View's most famous residents at the cemetery site, or stop by the cemetery office to pick up a brochure with a map to many of the more interesting gravesites and larger structures.

We found it best to do a little advance planning to decide what sites were must-sees before we even got to the city and found books like Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery (Images of America) and Cemeteries of Northeast Ohio especially helpful. Reading the first book in advance of our visit to the cemetery gave us a nice overview of the history of the place and its place in Cleveland culture, while the latter book included information about Lake View and a surprising number of other memorial gardens in that section of Ohio that look intriguing.

I've included a few shots of Lake View's impressive statuary with today's post, and I'll be back later this month with the story of our visit to the cemetery's Garfield Memorial.

Be sure to check out my previous posts about Lake View Cemetery:

Wade Chapel houses Tiffany treasure at Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery

More Tiffany treasures inside Wade Chapel at Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery

Cleveland home to Father Christmas Tree

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Cleveland

Midwest Guest is Site of the Day at Travelblogsites.com

I opened my email earlier this morning to find a pleasant surprise-a message from TravelPod.com community manager Louise Brown telling me that Midwest Guest earned their "site of the day" spot for today!

Travelblogsites.com is a directory of independent travel blogs affiliated with TravelPod.com, which became the first site to offer travel blog hosting on the Web in 1997.

You can check out a nice review of Midwest Guest here (thanks, Louise!).

Be sure to check out the list of other featured travel bloggers while you're at the site, too!

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Photowalk at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan

I had such a great time at my first Photowalk last fall, so I eagerly signed up to go on another Photowalk at The Henry Ford Museum.

Again, the mission of the day was to meet up with the group for an afternoon of informal shooting around the museum. It was also a bit of a chance to be a tourist in our own hometown.

Some of our photographers were trying out their new DSLR cameras for the first time, others packed pocket-sized point-and-shoot cameras, and some came loaded with high-end DSLR cameras and equipment like tripods and multiple lenses. None of that mattered, because we all encouraged and helped each other, and the pool of photos posted from that day show that some of our group have amazing eyes and talent!

The act of walking around a location and leisurely shooting whatever strikes your fancy encourages you to take your time and see things in different ways, and from different angles. I've shot photos at The Henry Ford many times in the past, but there is always something new to see and shoot.

Thanks go to The Henry Ford, which is extremely open to hosting photo groups. Museum staffers hastened to make our group feel welcome shortly after finding our initial Twitter conversations discussing a proposed photowalk at the museum.

Thanks again to Dave Peckens and Becks Davis for organizing another successful and fun event.

Check out my post about our Photowalk in Royal Oak, Michigan, last fall, or check out a recap of that event Becks posted at Detroit Moxie. I also have a few more photos posted to Flickr from that day.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved