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
Rob Pryor interview, 22 August 2018
Rob Pryor, co-owner of Record Revolution, provides a history of the legendary Coventry store and describes Coventry's youth culture in the 1980s and 1990s.
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…
David Goldberg interview, 29 June 2016
This is a follow-up interview to Dr. Goldberg’s initial interview. He discusses in detail his experience in prison as a result of refusing his draft induction physical. He relates the prison conditions, various jobs, and means of keeping busy. While at Danbury prison he helped organize a black history course and a series of guest speakers from local universities, including Columbia. He spent time in three different federal prisons over the course of his 19 month prison sentence. Dr. Goldberg…