CSU App Offers Historical Context in Advance of 2016 RNC

As Cleveland prepares to host the Republican National Convention in July 2016, Cleveland State University experts and their Cleveland Historical app offer a rich resource for historical context regarding Cleveland’s noteworthy GOP ties.

Did you know…

• Cleveland hosted the Republican National Convention on two previous occasions, in 1924 and in 1936?
• the 1895 Republican National Meeting in Cleveland set the stage for GOP candidate William McKinley's election to the presidency?
• the bas-relief sculptures inside Cleveland's Garfield Memorial (where Republican President James Garfield is entombed) include depictions of the monument's architect and sculptor?

Cleveland Historical is a free app developed by CSU’s Center for Digital + Public Humanities. Among its more than 500 place-based, illustrated stories, the app features a dozen entries related to the history of the Republican Party and key political figures in Cleveland. For a sampling, check out CSU’s ENGAGED blog.

“Knowing that the 2016 RNC will be a historic moment when many out-of-town reporters and other visitors try to make sense of what the event means for the city, I challenged my public history students last fall to use the convention as a starting point for exploring people, places and events in Cleveland’s past,” said Cleveland Historical co-creator said Mark Souther, Ph.D., associate professor of history at CSU and an authority on Cleveland history.

“Republican history parallels or intersects the dozen stories they created, but the narratives strive for political neutrality,” Dr. Souther said. “The stories, like the hundreds of others on Cleveland Historical, reflect careful study but also the interpretive voices of our many student contributors.”