The Rise and Fall of America's Fastest-Growing City: Akron, Ohio

A documentary about the rise and quiet unraveling of one of America's great industrial cities. The story begins in 1825 with eighty acres of surveyed land at the summit of the Ohio and Erie Canal and follows Akron through its years as an oatmeal capital, its transformation into the Rubber Capital of the World, and the extraordinary building boom of the late 1920s that gave the city its grand department stores, its atmospheric theater, and the largest clear-span structure on Earth. Along the way: the business decisions that built fortunes, the neighborhoods the rubber barons constructed for their workers, the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in a gatehouse on Portage Path, and the slow departure of an industry that once produced eighty percent of America's tires. The film traces what happens to a city's architecture, economy, and identity when the thing that made it great moves on — and what remains when the factory doors close but the buildings refuse to fall down.

Sources

Steve Love and David Giffels, Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron (University of Akron Press, 1999)
Ohio & Erie Canalway National Heritage Area — Historical Timeline (ohioanderiecanalway.com)
Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens — Estate History and Manor House archives (stanhywet.org)
Akron Civic Theatre — History and National Register documentation (akroncivic.com)
Daniel Nelson, "The Rubber Workers' Strikes of 1936," Ohio History Journal, Vol. 92 (Ohio History Connection)
Mark Schweitzer, "Little Big Town: How Akron's Unique History Has Impacted Its Architecture" (2018)

Видео The Rise and Fall of America's Fastest-Growing City: Akron, Ohio канала Paul McAllister