Each week, The Extraordinary Times catches up with leading folks in the local historical and cultural scene. This week it’s our pleasure to catch up with Jeff Suess. Jeff is the author of Lost Cincinnati (2015), Hidden History of Cincinnati (2016), Cincinnati Then and Now (2018), AAC 150: Art Academy of Cincinnati 1869-2019 (2018), and Cincinnati: An Illustrated Timeline (2020). His writing has also appeared in Edible Ohio Valley, the Marion Star, and Imagineers, Impresarios, Inventors: Cincinnati’s Arts and the Power of Her (2020). He is a reporter and librarian at the Cincinnati Enquirer where he keeps the archive and writes about local history. Jeff grew up in Modesto, California, and graduated from San Francisco State University. He lives in White Oak on Cincinnati’s West Side with his wife, Kristin, and their daughter, Dashiell. * How have you been keeping this year? I’ve been working from home most of the year. I broke my ankle in January, then was back to work for two weeks before the pandemic struck. Thankfully I can work from home for my job at the Cincinnati Enquirer, and my daughter has school online, so the whole family is together all day. That has been a bit of a challenge for work, but it has been a blessing to spend so much time together. I think this all makes us a stronger family. * Tell readers about your new book, Cincinnati: An Illustrated Timeline. The book showcases the key moments in the entire history of Cincinnati, from the indigenous mound builders to Fiona the hippo and everything in between. Sports, politics, iconic buildings, favorite foods, all the people and places and events that define Cincinnati. The real challenge was identifying which moments to include. Major historic events like the 1937 flood have to be in there, but for the last 50 years it is more difficult to figure out what will be important, what will have made an impact viewed 50 years from now. One of my goals is to be able to go back and forth through the timeline to see the connections over the years, how Procter & Gamble is rooted in Cincinnati’s history as a meat-packing center. How today’s racial relations are tied to unrest in the 1820s, 1840s, 1960s. The evolution of the city moving from the river to the basin, to the suburbs. As an illustrated timeline, the book includes more than 350 historic photos and images, many of them from the Cincinnati Enquirer archives. That was a challenge as well, to locate photos for every event and then to whittle down from the hundreds, thousands of photos to best portray the history. * Do you have a favorite image from the book, and why? I think my favorite is the photo of the old Mabley & Carew department store at Fifth and Vine Street, where you find Fountain Square today. It was taken not too long after 1906, because the Lyric Theatre is there. Someone had found the photo in a safe and donated it to the Enquirer archives at some point, and it is so beautifully crisp with so many tantalizing details to discover when you look at it. All the theaters and shops going up Vine Street, the early Fountain Square, the elegant Victorian architecture. Mabley & Carew has also become one of favorites in Cincinnati, how they elevated the entire Fountain Square area, with the store and the Carew Building across the street. It’s a photo of a Cincinnati I would love to visit. * As an adoptive Cincinnatian, what everyday things you appreciate that a Queen City native might take for granted?
As a transplant, I am still so fascinated by Cincinnati, and that curiosity leads me to things people overlook or have forgotten about. And I like to learn about those places and see what happened and why. Architectural gems like the Dixie Terminal building, the water towers at Eden Park, the Carnegie libraries, or Hughes High School come to mind. There is still a remarkable number of historic places that are still around if we are curious enough to look. * What does your job at the Enquirer generally entail? I have been working in the Enquirer library for more than 21 years. I keep the digital archives as well as the original photo archives, plus do research for myself and reporters. But I have taken on different roles, from writing about Cincinnati history, plus putting together galleries and videos, and posting content online. My role is always evolving. * Other than Cincinnati history, what do you enjoy reading in your free time? I like U.S. history in general. I recently finished Richard Snow’s Disney’s Land on the history of Disneyland. I am a fan of mysteries and science fiction, and this summer I started my daughter going through my entirely too large collection of Doctor Who books. I also love comics, and I am rereading Neil Gaiman’s Sandman with an online graphic novel group
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AuthorMatthew Smith, PhD (History). Public Programs at Miami University Regionals. Historian of Appalachia, the Ohio Valley, & the early American republic. Archives
February 2024
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