Though Murder Has No Tongue tells the story of Frank Dolezal, the only man actually arrested and charged with the infamous “Torso Murders” in Cleveland, Ohio, during the late 1930s. Dolezal, a fifty-two-year-old Slav immigrant, came to the attention of sheriff ’s investigators because of his reputation as a strange man who possessed a stockpile of butcher knives. According to rumors, he threatened imagined transgressors and had a penchant for frequenting bars in the seedy neighborhood where the dismembered bodies of victims had been discovered. Dolezal was arrested in July 1939 and never saw freedom again.

In this study of Akron’s Cascade Locks, canal historian Jack Gieck examines the story of this remarkable lock system, including a look at early-nineteenth-century entrepreneurs who exploited the precipitous terrain to found one of the first industrial centers in the American Midwest.

A busy and densely packed valley in its heyday, this area once housed an iron foundry, a furniture factory, a distillery, several grist mills, and two rubber plants—all within a half-mile stretch of the canal. Still remaining are several watered locks and wasteway structures, evidence of the Cascade Race and tunnel two canal-era buildings; Ace Rubber/Garro Tread (one of Akron’s few remaining rubber plants); and two historic railroads. The entire Cascade Locks Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the Department of the Interior in 1992.

A 30-minute history of the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in Akron, Ohio, in 1935. AA had its beginnings as the outcome of a meeting between Bill W., a New York stockbroker, and Dr. Bob S., an Akron surgeon. Prior to their meeting, Bill had gotten sober and had maintained his recovery by working with other alcoholics. Meanwhile, Dr. Bob had yet to achieve sobriety. Responding to Bill’s convincing ideas, he soon got sober, never to drink again. The founding spark of AA had been struck.

Premiering at the Civic Theater in 1976, this 39-minute film was made for Akron’s Sesquicentennial celebration. City at the Summit is a history of Akron from the time of its founding by Simon Perkins in 1825, through its becoming a major canal town, surviving the Great Depression, and becoming the “rubber capital of the world,” ending with parades and celebrations associated with the Sesquicentennial.

A 37-minute DVD that tells the story of a young Col. George Perkins returning home to Akron after the Civil War. Using vintage photographs and images of re-enactors, it portrays the effect of the war on Perkins and the social and political changes that occurred nationally and on the homefront.

This three-part series won awards from the International Film & TV Festival of New York, the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums, and the American Association of Historical Societies and Museums. A 16-page Teacher/Discussion Guide is included. This series, produced in cooperation with the Canal Society of America, brings to life an almost forgotten period in Ohio’s early history, visiting restored sections of the vital nineteenth-century inland transportation system. Kent State University Press’s award-winning book A Photo Album of Ohio’s Canal Era, 1825–1913, by Jack Gieck, can be purchased along with this DVD.