Historical Memory and the Silence of Women

What are we forgetting?

Cleveland, today, is awash in historical memory. In this we are rich. The past looms above us as we walk on E 55th Street, as we drive past the hulking Richman Brothers factory, as we take the bus down Kinsman. It can sometimes be as dizzying and electrifying as Rome, the layers on top of each other: there, Trajan’s column to Bernini church to Italian Republic wedding cake to Mussolini edifice to Zara store. Here, the decades are far fewer but the remains, because still in decline, more poignant: the robber baron mansion, the fading signs of industry on brick buildings with no windows, the single family houses long boarded up, the over-priced new townhouses whose landlords are now against more development.

But what I worry about is the historical memory of Cleveland in the future. It seems impossible, doesn’t it, that we would lose the traces of today? But think about it: remember that journal you started when you got that new computer, and then when you replaced that computer years later, you saved it, just in case? And you saved it on a floppy drive? Where is that floppy drive now? Where is a computer where you could insert that drive, and it would open, and retrieve those lovesick entries from the last twentieth century? Efforts at digital preservation are becoming increasingly important.

The web is no surer bet, though even I maintain the illusion that I will be able to find articles I published a scant ten years ago someday, even though the links have rot. And god forbid the scenario that would have seemed paranoid just a few years ago keeps being played out: owners of websites who decide to scrub them.

So we have twin dangers: not enough people recording us, and the ones who are are doing so on unstable writing surfaces.

Two weeks after I started this chronicle, I have seen no more discussion of individual artist funding by CAC, I still don’t know who is funding or overseeing the Unify Project, there is still only a fraction of the coverage of city shenanigans than there should be, and, since I last wrote, there seems to be some mishegas with the County law director. Recently on twitter, I read a long thread about who may or may not be running or re-running for city council in 2021. I asked folks where they heard this information. “Word of mouth.” Oh, for a politically-obsessed Cleveland blogger who would let the rest of us know these murmurings, possibilities, potentialities! And for a more robust system in place to preserve that blog for researchers to come!

Say it is 2029, and you are looking to find out what happened in Cleveland in January 2019. Where are you going to go? What are you going to find?

It seems impossible. The insistent chorus of TMI, surfeit, bombarded, constant, incessant news, news, news, the chronic compulsion towards social media, the narcissism of selfies and instant documentation. It couldn’t actually be that ephemeral, could it? It couldn’t actually be lost, could it? (Who even knows the fate of substack, which is enabling you to read these words?)

And now, back to the local media. Michael Baron posts a note from Roldo:

I have been reading some interesting and important articles about lead poisoning and county prisons and the dire impact they have on many individuals, mostly minorities, and on the community in general.

It has made the Plain Dealer worth reading of late.

However, I have a complaint. You knew I was going to get there.

I look at the editorial pages and I find some serious gaps.

All the stories I praise above are by women. They work hard.

The editorial page columnists, except for the boss Ms. Sullivan, are men.

What's bothersome is that the columnists I read seem to be writing from their beds. Certainly not from the street as the lead and prison issues come. I'd say the only exception appears to be Mark Naymik and his work I'd classify more reportorial thsn commentary.

Guys like Philip Morris generally, I'm convinced, aren't around the newsroom much. He's a vulture editorialist, picking off others. And Ted Diadiun is a real off-the-top of his lopsided head writer. And generally screwy. Even Brent Larkin and Tom Suddes depend upon their past mostly to talk about now.

Not to belabor this - You need some fresh blood on those editorial pages and you need some on-the-street women who apparently feel it necessary to actually do some original work. (Hey, even the voters have noticed the difference.)

Thanks for listening, I hope.

Roldo

And on the same day, I read an article about the podcasters in Cleveland and play count the women. It is abysmal, the ratio. I look at the masthead of Cleveland Scene, god love ‘em, as I do periodically, and it’s the same sad story it always is (I think both Colangelo and Howey are now gone, so there are two women writers listed there but I think if it were updated it would be zero; could be wrong, will update if so ). Cleveland Magazine is never inspiring, gender-ratio-wise. The business paper, Crains, is actually the star in the class, particularly when it comes to management. And don’t get me started on city council (3 of 17 if you don’t want to click).

That corruption will flourish in the lack of robust local media is obvious, and it is pressing, imperative, and a main motivator of Cleveland Chronicles. But we also need to leave more traces of ourselves for the future. We need more voices to record us, and we need more of those voices to be women.

Cleveland Chronicles is a record of life in Cleveland throughout 2019 as filtered through the lens of the chronicler. The archives are available to those who sign up to receive posts via email; I take posts down from the web after a few days. The frequency is unpredictable; sorry if it seems spammy.