“In 1938 more than a hundred Cincinnati concerns and individuals were engaged in the repair and maintenance of home and automobile radio receiving sets. That year combined employment in both the manufacturing and repairing phases of the radio industry amounted to about 1,500. The annual payroll was estimated at more than two million dollars.”
--“They Built a City: 150 Years of Industrial Cincinnati”, Compiled and Written by the Cincinnati Federal Writers’ Project of the WPA in Ohio, 1938

Photos: Cincinnati Post

Silver Boy, Christmas, Sunday, December 25, 1955

Image: Private collection

(L-R, standing: Roger Wheeler, Jim Strickler, Debra Zimmer, Tom Slaughter, Lou Mastropolo;
L-R, kneeling: Gary Gordon, Harold Crist, Deb Pepper, Sean Malloy)

WLWT night crew, Bootleg Holiday Spot, Friday, December 24, 1976.

Screen capture: Private collection

Mabley & Carew Christmas windows, 5th & Vine Street, Cincinnati, 1895

Image: Cincinnati Public Library

"The Cincinnati Electric Club presented this decorated Christmas tree to the city. It stands on Fountain Square."
--Cincinnati Post, December 25, 1924

Image: Cincinnati Public Library Newspaper Archive

“The United States Patent Office issued this week 655 patents…Several were issued to Cincinnatians…Arthur P. Conant, Fort Thomas, Ky., assigned to a Chicago firm design patent 106015 covering a novel compact or similar article. His patent was taken out for a seven-year term.”
--Cincinnati Enquirer, September 18, 1937

Image: US Patent Office

Action News set, WLWT, Studio B Crosley Square, mid 70s.

Image: Private collection

“Santa Claus is busy decorating Fountain Square for the Christmas holidays, and this is how the “Cathedral in Green” there looks at the present time. Workmen have started to decorate the trees with Christmas baubles, lights and tinsel and many powerful electric lights have been installed to flood the trees with light at night in Cincinnati’s Community Christmas celebration.”
Cincinnati Times-Star, December 16, 1926

NOTE-Damaged original enhanced, cutline reconstructed.

Image: Cincinnati Public Library Newspaper Archive

Experimental Video Killed the Pottery Star
Cincinnati Times-Star, November 25, 1947

“To celebrate Rookwood’s anniversary in 1947…Sperti, Inc., arranged for a telecast to originate at the Mt. Adams building. The program called for Kataro Shirayamadani to demonstrate the sculpturing of a bas-relief vase before the television camera. As he was climbing the stairway to the second floor for his appearance, the old man lost his balance and fell down fifteen steps, cutting his head so badly that he required hospital care.”
--The Book of Rookwood Pottery, Herbert Peck, 1968

“There were fewer than 100 television receivers in Cincinnati when, in July 1947, W8XCT signed on with a regular program schedule of one hour each week. When 1947 ended, W8XCT was averaging 20 hours [of programming] a week. Early the following year, W8XCT was gone forever [in Feb. 1948 it became WLW-T]”
--Cincinnati Television, Jim Friedman, Arcadia Publishing, 2007


The remote bus used by W8XCT parked at the WLWT transmitter at 2222 Chickasaw Street.

"There was a tense moment last night at the television show at Rookwood Pottery when 93-year-old Ketaro Shirayamadani…fell 15 steps between the first and second floors a few minutes before his scheduled appearance on the show….Witnesses said he was ascending to the second floor when he apparently lost his balance.” 

--Cincinnati Enquirer, November 27, 1947

 
Frail 'Sherry' is described as being 83 in this photo in Herbert Peck's 1968 book.

“Death has brought to a close the noted artistic career of Ketaro Shirayamadani…who was thought to be between 87 and 90 years, died in St. Mary’s Hospital Monday night…John A. Binford, manager of Rookwood…recalled Tuesday that Shirayamadani sustained a scalp wound and bruises in a fall while preparing to take part in a television show at Rookwood last December [sic]…His health began to fail about six months ago. He grew weaker and was taken to St Mary’s Hospital about two weeks ago.”
--Cincinnati Times-Star, Obituary, July 20, 1948

“’He liked to cheat on his age’…Binford recalled that when the wiry Japanese was taken to Christ Hospital for treatment of a scalp cut he suffered last November….[He] hedged on his age, ‘admitting’ he was only 75…’Sherry’ as he was called…worked through July 2, when members of Rookwood’s production line went on vacation for two weeks. He became ill and was taken to the hospital two weeks ago.”
--Cincinnati Enquirer, Obituary, July 21, 1948

NOTE—Hard-working Sherry’s first name is variously spelled in various sources and will likely remain as mysterious as his actual age and the reasons for his self-exile.

Images: Cincinnati Public Library Newspaper Archive, Clyde Haehnle, The Book of Rookwood Pottery

Jim Scott on air, WNBC, 30 Rock, February, 1973

Photo: S. Malloy

“This picture of Cincinnati’s first Christmas tree, in its night attire of colored electric lights, was taken by the Times-Star photographer a few seconds after the tree has sprung into effulgence Christmas eve in response to the pressure upon an electric button. Ten thousand people gathered on Government square to participate in the impressive ceremonies.”
--Cincinnati Times-Star, December 25, 1913

Image: Cincinnati Public Library Newspaper Archive

“Inside WLW’s Arlington Street studios…a recently hired announcer named Norman Corwin was surprised to discover the following memo on his desk…’No reference is to be made of strikes [by employees of any company] on any news bulletin broadcast over our stations’…Norman Corwin received a response to his memo. He had been hoping, in his words, for something of a ‘merit badge’. Instead he was told his position on staff was redundant. Exit Norman Corwin stage left…[By the early 40s] Lewis Crosley started keeping an eye on the more vocal union members. He also combed through the trash after union meetings on company premises.”
--Crosley, by Rusty McClure with Davis Stern and Michael A. Banks, Clerisy Press, 2006

Image: crosleyautoclub.com

Station ID and local promotion slide, WLWT, 1976

Image; Private collection

Times-Star headline and Fox and Crow post card

“A squad of deputy sheriffs raided the exclusive Fox and Crow night club and restaurant, Montgomery Road, Montgomery, Friday midnight and broke down the door to a gambling room…Carl Meyer, chief investigator…said it was accomplished despite a ‘tipoff’ by the doorman and belligerency on the part of some of the 20 well-dressed persons found in the gaming room…as the officers entered, several persons spoke harshly to them.
One well-dressed woman was quoted as saying, ‘Why don’t you get decent jobs?’
Another was reported as commenting: ‘You would do better out looking for sex perverts than bothering us’…As the officers were leaving the club, Kitty Kallen, club vocalist, announced that she was dedicating her next number to ‘Carl Meyer and party.’ He didn’t stay for the song.”
--Cincinnati Times-Star, December 3, 1949

Image: Cincinnati Public Library Newspaper Archive; cincinnativiews.com

Did Charles Stewart Todd Kill?

Dr. Edwin Wiggers, 69 years old, retired physician, died of suffocation yesterday when fire attributed to a careless smoker caused $1,500 damage to his home at 2513 Park Avenue…Wiggers was taken to the [General] hospital…Marshall William Flamm…reported that the fire started in the studio of Stewart Todd [sic], an artist who shared the house with Dr. Wiggers…Todd told him that he was in the studio an hour before the fire started, and that he was smoking at the time…Todd escorted Wiggers to the front lawn when the fire was detected…Wiggers evidently returned to the house. He collapsed on the porch…Flames were confined to the studio in the rear of the house, causing but slight damage to antiques with which the house was furnished…At first it was believed that Dr. Wiggers might have been the victim of a heart attack,,,The victim had suffered a heart attack recently…The morgue, however, reported that Dr. Wiggers’s [sic] hair, eyebrows, and moustache were singed.--Cincinnati Enquirer, January 12, 1942


Death notice, Cincinnati Times-Star, January 12, 1942


Hand-drawn and colored greeting cards by Charles S. Todd

The will of Dr. Edwin S. Wiggers was filed with Judge Frank S. Bonham in probate Court yesterday. The testator gave his real estate at 2513 Park Avenue to Charles Stewart Todd, artist, and devised to him the income from the remainder of his estate for life…It was surmised that he [Wiggers] had returned to the house to save some of the antiques which he had collected from all over the world…The will, executed by Dr. Wiggers August 15, 1939, named the Central Trust Company and Todd executors. A codicil added Auguest 6, 1941, gives Todd the right to receive $5,000 cash from the residue…The trust company…estimated the estate at $35,000* in personal property and $5,000 in real estate.
--Cincinnati Enquirer, January 21, 1942

Jurors returned a verdict for the defense yesterday in an action by the Central Trust Company against the Employers’ Liability Assurance Corporation. The trust company…seeking $10,000 as double indemnity on a $5,000 accident policy which Wiggers carried…Wiggers was assisting in removing valuables when he collapsed and died…The assurance company insisted Dr. Wiggers suffered from heart trouble and that his death was due to this. The jury agreed.
--Cincinnati Enquirer, October 30, 1943

*$35,000.00 in 1942 has the same buying power as $468,218.40 in 2010.

Images: Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Public Library Newspaper Archive

WCET, File 48, Interview with Howard Hawks by Sean Malloy, October, 1977

Photo: Private collection

"Not Too Naked..."


Portrait of Frank Duveneck, acid etched engraving by E.T. Hurley, 1916

“So at the old Art Academy I met only the janitor, old faithful Mike Lally, and also my teacher, Mr. Frank Duveneck…he suggested I go along with him down town…So under very good sponsorship I was admitted to the [Foucar’s] bar...Luncheon table---with chef white cap in attendance—huge platters, perhaps 20 different cheeses, relishes, salads, eggs, sliced poultry, hot ham and roast beef, sliced as desired; white bread, Schwarzbrod, pumpernickel; also on appropriate days fish, sea food. This magnificent smorgasbord always for free…Now above the fine wainscote an array of paintings—Cincinnatians, as I recall—a Twachtman and Robert Blum, Farny, Sharp, Meekin and others."

--Cincinnati Times-Star, Groverman Blake, March 26, 1957

“Over-the-Rhine saloon owners and operators outfitted many of their establishments in a way that made customers feel at home…Local artists received significant exposure at Foucar's: paintings by Duveneck, Sharp, and Farny, among others, adorned the walls of the saloon and stimulated conversation. Art was also a feature of another area drinkery, The Stag, where some twenty-five paintings were put up. The highlight of the Stag collection was The Sirens, an image of three maidens by the sea which was purchased in Paris for $5,000, but the painting emerged worse for wear when on one occasion an evening ruckus endowed it with a bullet hole.”

--Over the Barrel: The Brewing History and Beer Culture of Cincinnati, Volume Two, sudhauspress.com


'Siesta' (L) hanging in Foucar's and (R) The Stag Cafe & Hotel

“Possibly due to the emphasis on art generated by the Art Academy and the Art Club, it became possible to obtain nude models, and Duveneck painted a great many…One of his best known…he called ‘Siesta’…Theodore Foucar…hung it over the bar in his popular saloon in downtown Cincinnati…respectable ladies of the city…demanded its removal. Foucar cleverly donated the painting to the Art Museum saying, “That girl was too naked for my saloon, but she was not too naked for high society.”

--Northern Kentucky Heritage, Karl Lietzenmayer and Lisa Gillham, Vol. X, No. 1


Duveneck and CAA class sketch a live subject around 1900

"H.H. Wessel, 2152 Alpine Place, noted Cincinnati painter and former curator at the Cincinnati Art Museum, recently disclosed some of the history of Frank Duveneck’s famous picture ‘Siesta’…[Wessel] was a pupil of Duveneck and later a close friend…”The only model was a girl named Margie. I saw Duveneck painting the picture of her and I was present when she finished posing and he paid her off”…”The painting is not an ordinary barroom nude,“ he commented. “There were many such in those days which were not art”…another famous café painting…of Pauline Bonaparte which hung in the bar of the old St. Nicholas Hotel at Fourth and Race…is known as “The Pauline Of The Panties” in the art world because in it she is shown wearing that article of clothing.”

--Cincinnati Enquirer, David S. Austin, June 24, 1956


Duveneck's 'Siesta' and a wicked detail of The Pauline of the Panties

"In the St. Nicholas Hotel at Cincinnati a portrait by Devouge [Louis Benjamin Marie, 1770-1842] of Pauline Bonaparte occupies the place of honor...notices of this picture are freely distributed to the guests; one of them gives me this precious piece of information: 'It appears from this portrait that Pauline Bonaparte weighed 150 pounds, or a little more.' How obvious the ranchman’s experienced eye is here! This criticism by scale and yard measure—a grocer’s criticism."

--American Life, Paul de Rousiers, translated by A.J.Herbertson, 1892, Firmin-Didot & Co.

"Out of work and despondent, Cuba Moorette, 24 years old, artists’ model, is said to have swallowed poison tablets when in her room at 718 West Seventh street last night. Dr. Fred DeCourcey ordered her removal to the General Hospital. Physicians find her condition to be serious."

--Cincinnati Enquirer, December 7, 1916

Images: Arcadia Publishing; Cincinnati Art Museum; cincinnativiews.com; S. Malloy; Ringling Museum, Sarasota

Talk To The Hand

“Somebody said no to $10,000. On principle.
That’s puppeteer Larry Smith…Seems a producer from shock jock Howard Stern’s show offered $10,000 and all expenses to come to New York [with the puppets]…'I said no'…'It didn’t feel right,' Smith said. 'Not after all these years playing to children.'"
--Cincinnati Enquirer, Jim Knippenberg, March 26, 2001


'Uncle' Al Lewis

“Smith can barely remember a day when he wasn’t a puppeteer…As a freshman in high school he was earning the princely sum of $3 a show, appearing on WHIO’s Tic Toc Toy Shop. By the time he graduated and came to Cincinnati [1957] to work for 'Uncle' Al Lewis at WCPO, he had as much on-air experience as some adult performers.”
--Cincinnati Magazine, Linda Vaccariello, April, 1999

Images: larrysmithpuppets.com; WCPO

“This print of ‘The Nativity’ by Martin Schongauer, German artist of the 15th century, is included among the collection of famous prints…in the exhibition, ‘The Nativity in Prints,’ which is on display at the [Cincinnati Art] Museum throughout the Christmas season.”
--Cincinnati Enquirer, December 20, 1947

NOTE—another impression of this engraving sells today, December 7, 2010, at Christie’s on King Street in London.

Image: backtoclassics.com

'Bob Braun Show', WLWT Studio A during the holidays as indicated by the Christmas Fund logo, 1976

Image: Private collection

Giant Lights To Flash On Mt. Adams Pottery
"Rookwood Pottery will be illuminated by 14 giant searchlights tonight through January 9, John A. Binford, Managing Director, announced. The precedent of illuminating the famed ceramic institution during the holiday season was established last year.
A wide selection of new table lamps will head a list of items added to the Rookwood line. New colors include nubian black, velvet gray, sistine blue, corinthian pink, cornelian [sic] red and ming yellow.
The Rookwood showrooms are open from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday."
--Cincinnati Enquirer, December 5, 1947

Image: "Rookwood Pottery Potpourri", Virginia R. Cummings, Cincinnati Art Galleries, 1991

Hentschel’s 2nd poster for the Cincinnati Art Museum and his ‘Batik’ banner on velvet, c. 1922, 75” X 80”

“Another of the Museum’s Special Exhibitions…for which Hentschel also designed the announcement poster…'The Work of Leon Bakst', presented in April, 1914, overwhelmed Billy with the artist’s dazzling designs.”

William Hentschel, 26, demonstrating the use of a tjanting in Pieter Mijer’s “Batik’s, and How to Make Them”.

“As Hentschel completed his course of study in painting [at the Cincinnati Art Academy], it was Bakst’s palette of textiles…which fostered a vibrant new vision in Billy…Batik—a staple of Bakst’s costume design—was gaining popularity…largely due to the efforts of Pieter Mijer, another of Billy’s teacher’s in New York. In 1919, Mijer published Batiks and How to Make Them, and, among its illustrations were two photographs of his young student assistant, Billy Hentschel, demonstrating the process.”
--‘Parade of Discovery’, by Don Wellman for the Duke Gallery, Birmingham, Michigan, 1987

Images: Cincinnati Art Museum; Janine Menlove, Duke Gallery; G.W. Harting for Dodd, Mead & Co., 1919

WLWT IBEW Engineers find an interesting remote van parked in SE Ohio some time in August, 1977.
(L-R) Rich Reinhardt, Jim Strickler, Dan Dorsey and Gary Gordon

Photo: S. Malloy

Guillotined By An Elevator Platform


“A horrible accident occurred at Hayden’s bakery, corner of Pearl and Pike Streets, Tuesday afternoon…Joseph Horn, one of the bakers, was on the second floor. For some reason he walked over to the elevator shaft and, carelessly leaning on the safety bar, looked down the well, his head projecting over. While he was in this position the elevator, which had been started by the man above, came noiselessly down. Horn’s head was caught between the platform and the safety bar…The man’s head would have been pulled from the trunk had not the heavy oaken bar broken…When first caught the man’s shrieks of agony were frightful…He was picked up when the bar broke and Dr. Theodore Sittel, whose office is near by, on Pearl Street, was summoned…Besides a deep gash on the side of Horn’s head, a long cut almost circled his neck…But for the prompt appearance of the doctor he would have bled to death from the jagged wound…He is about 30 years of age, and a man of family. Yesterday his condition was still serious.”
--Cincinnati Enquirer, January 21, 1892

Image: Cincinnati Enquirer illustration, Cincinnati Public Library, Newspaper archive

Front page, Cincinnati Post, April 25, 1931

“It was with tears in his eyes that John Owens, 86, Negro, for 46 years the personal messenger and valet of August Herrmann, called at the Herrmann residence Sunday.
Owens will be at the house again Monday night. He will be present also at the funeral services in the Elks’ Temple. Tuesday. He will be among those in the cortege.
In the beginning of Herrmann’s political career he named Owens his messenger--and Owens continued in his service through all the years of Herrmann’s political, fraternal and baseball activity…So highly did Herrmann regard Owens that he took him along an all his important trips…When Herrmann left the office of the Cincinnati Ball Club the task of taking from the wall some of Herrmann’s personal pictures was assigned to Owens and he shed tears as he performed the duty.”
--Cincinnati Times-Star, April 27, 1931

Image: Cincinnati Public Library, Newspaper archive