A look into the past
02/24/2023
The class 鈥減ut their fingers on the bones of Lima鈥檚 historic African American neighborhood,鈥 according to Bush, who assigned houses near St. Paul AME Church.
History majors uncover segregation, 鈥榖lack excellence鈥 through neighborhood reconstruction project
For more than 25 years, students in Perry Bush鈥檚 Theory and Application class have transitioned from students of history to historians over the course of a semester.
Made up mostly of history majors, students are assigned six houses in a specific neighborhood in Lima, Ohio, to research starting with the early 1900s and continuing through the 1940s. Using data collected at the Allen County Museum, the Lima City Directory and online sources such as Ancestry.com, students reconstruct a neighborhood by finding out as much as they can about the people who lived there during four different points in time.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not just spitting out things we鈥檝e learned from the text of a book. We鈥檙e doing real history. It鈥檚 confusing, it鈥檚 hard and you can鈥檛 go to a book to find the answer,鈥 said Michael Stuff 鈥25, a history major from Galion, Ohio. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 been very interesting.鈥
Described as a working-class city by Bush, the typical demographics of the studied neighborhoods throughout the years have been quite similar. Many Lima residents in the early 1900s were the children and grandchildren of Irish or German immigrants who worked blue-collared jobs in factories or the railroad industry.
This year, however, the class 鈥減ut their fingers on the bones of Lima鈥檚 historic African American neighborhood,鈥 according to Bush, who assigned houses near St. Paul AME Church. Founded in the early 1900s, the church remains active on West Spring Street.
Very few black residents were documented through prior neighborhood reconstruction project. Past neighborhoods included the Old North End (Haller and McKibben Streets), South Lima (Kibby Corners and South Main) and the Garfield Neighborhood (North Jackson and Pine Streets). Previously, the largest number of black residents in studied neighborhoods was less than 15 percent. However, nearly 70 percent of the homes studied in the Far West End neighborhood this year were owned or occupied by black residents.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 find it shocking when we compared our data with each other and learned that our neighborhood was predominantly black,鈥 said Macey Thomas 鈥25, a history major from Bowling Green, Ohio. 鈥淏ut that changed when we compared our data to the data collected through the previous projects.鈥
Bush says the data points to the de facto segregation and Jim-Crow-era racism prevalent in Lima and most American cities in the early 20th century. While students found white residents from their neighborhoods who worked at places such as the Lima Locomotive Works, the black residents had very different jobs and often worked in domestic roles such as maid.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not putting on rose colored glasses or airbrushing out the warts of this history in this class,鈥 said Bush. 鈥淲e鈥檙e remembering the past as it was and there are lessons out there for us.鈥
It wasn鈥檛 until the late 1930s when John Galvin began recruiting African Americans from the south to work at the Ohio Steel Foundry that manufacturing jobs were opened to African Americans. Student data shows that the number of African American residents in their neighborhoods grew during this time as well. Today, black residents make up about 26 percent of Lima鈥檚 population.
Anton Miller 鈥24, a history major from Springfield, Ohio, was inspired by the people in the neighborhood including Robert Patterson who started out as a teamster (someone who drives horses) with a third-grade education. However, by the 1940s, Patterson had become a funeral director and one of the wealthiest people in the neighborhood.
鈥淐onsidering the systemic oppression, racism and marginalization that existed at the time,鈥 said Miller, 鈥淚 felt this neighborhood served as an example of black excellence in the early 20th century.鈥
At the end of the semester, each student submits a 10鈥12-page paper where they 鈥減roduce insights into the past that haven鈥檛 existed until now,鈥 explained Bush, who shares the data with the Allen County Museum.
鈥淲hat they found is significant,鈥 said Bush. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e real historians and they鈥檙e contributing to the larger body of scholarship.鈥