Understanding the Collection
Cleveland Voices contains a wide range of interviews of varying provenance. Interviews are organized into dedicated collections. This guide provides an overview of the different types of collections.
Read the GuideResearch Guides
African American Experience
Cleveland Voices includes many interviews with African American men and women, who recount their experiences and accomplishments in the Cleveland area, illustrating themes of both struggle and success.
Read the GuideWomen's Experience
Women’s experiences in history too often remain untold. Cleveland Voices features interviews with many women, highlighting their varied experiences, from raising families to piloting airplanes, participating in politics, and much more.
Read the GuideFeatured Collections
Protest Voices
The Protest Voices series is a collection of oral history interviews with Catholic peace activists in Northeast Ohio. Interviews were conducted during the Protest Voices: Using Activist Oral Histories to Teach Historical Thinking Undergraduate Summer Research Award in 2016, focusing on Anti-Vietnam protests and Catholic activism surrounding US- involvement in El Salvador in the 1980s. Clips were then associated with Ohio Department of Education Social Studies Content Standards at…
LGBTQ+ Cleveland
This collection features oral history interviews with LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Same-Gender Loving) community members, leaders, and activists in the greater Cleveland area. Interviews explore the history of Cleveland’s LGBTQ+ communities, groups, organizations, places, and spaces both past and present. Interviews in this collection were conducted by Riley Habyl, a graduate student at Cleveland State University Department of History, beginning in the summer of 2023.…
Near West Side Community Activism
The interviews in this series were conducted by Bali White, a graduate student in the Cleveland State University Department of History. The collection reflects a collaboration with Michael Fiala and the Cleveland Catholic Worker. Along with a core focus on housing justice work on Cleveland’s Near West Side (including advocacy for affordable housing through the Near West Housing Corporation, Ohio City Near West Development Corporation, and Cuyahoga Community Land Trust, and hospitality and…
Featured Interviews
Sister Martha Owen interview, 8 July 2016
Sister Martha Owen is an Ursuline Sister. She served as mission partner to Sr. Dorothy Kazel in El Salvador from 1976 to 1979. In this interview, Sr. Martha discusses her childhood and her decision to enter the convent as well as her mission work in El Salvador. She worked in several villages including La Union, Zaragoza, and La Libertad. She goes into detail regarding the living conditions of the people of El Salvador as well as the conditions she, and the rest of the mission team had to adapt…
John Nosek and Leon Stevens Interview, 15 August 2023
John Nosek (b. 1949) and Leon Stevens (b. 1948) are native Clevelanders who grew up on the east side. They discuss the Cleveland gay community in the 1970s and '80s, including managing the Gay Educational and Awareness Resource (GEAR) Foundation's High Gear newspaper in its early years and their gay activism in the mid- to late 1970s. Nosek and Stevens detail the early history of GEAR, its Gay Hotline, and its long struggle to establish what eventually became the LGBT Community Center of Greater…
Ronnie and Willis Meyer Interview, 2011
Willis Meyers' family has farmed in the Cuyahoga Valley since the middle to late nineteenth century. Willis grew up in Northampton, and has many memories of family, farm, and community life, businesses, technology, and transportation from the Great Depression era forward. Ronnie, Willis' son, currently owns the farm on Steels Corners Road, where he has had a successful horse farming business. Willis, 95 years old, has many memories of the history of the valley, and shared detailed stories about…