Historic Photos of Toledo

Photographic images possess the power the tell a complex story quite efficiently. Most of us have an image we associate with particlular events or locations. One such image is the famous National Geographic cover of "The Afghan Girl." Such a beautiful girl, but her eyes reveal an emptiness, a deadness. It becomes a metaphor for Afghanistan itself.

Historical photos, perhaps because they are frequently straight- forward and contain the detail of daily life, have the power to help us sense what it may have been like to be there at that time. Such is the case with many of the photographs in Historic Photos of Toledo (text and captions by Gregory M. Miller, Turner Publishing Company, 2007). In a large coffee-table format on quality paper, the black-and-white photos provide a "street-level" view of Toledo, Ohio, from the 1880's to the 1980's. One of the earliest photos is of the Milburn Wagon Works which in the 1880's was the largest producer of wagons in the world. It concludes in the 1970's and 1980's with the construction of the Fiberglass Tower, the destruction of the Town Hall Burlesque House, and a majestic photo of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

For the Toledo natives, there are nostalgic photos of Tiedtke Brothers Department Store, a 1926 football game at Scott High School, soldiers returning from World War I, the Depression, tree houses at Camp Miakonda, jeeps of all sorts, and the Auto-Lite Strike of 1934. On the other hand, Toledo natives might be aware of significant absences: The University of Toledo, Rosary Cathedral, the village of Ottawa Hills, and the Toledo Museum of Art (only one unremarkable photo of an art class). While there are photos representing the glass industry, based on this book, the reader might never appreciate the importance of glass in the city.

Whatever the gaps, readers who appreciate historic photographs will enjoy Historic Photos of Toledo. It is available at most local book sellers.