The Buckeye State’s many ponds and vernal pools are populated by a dizzying variety of wildlife. Animals of Ohio’s Ponds and Vernal Pools takes a close-up look at unique wetlands—from fascinating fish and amphibians to intriguing insects and birds—besides examining pond and vernal pool ecology, Ohio’s geologic history influencing wetland formation, and hydrology and energy cycles.

Between 1955 and 1960, popular Cleveland deejay Tommy Edwards photographed the parade of performers who passed through the WERE-AM radio studio for on-air interviews, shooting more than 1,700 Ektachrome slides. Following his death in 1981, most of the collection vanished and was presumed lost. The few images that remained were often reprinted and rarely credited to Edwards, labeled “photographer unknown.” Until now.

Since the early nineteenth century, Cleveland and the surrounding region have benefited from the emigration of European Jewry. A unique anthology of essays, short stories, and poems, A Cleveland Jewish Reader gathers for the first time rare and previously inaccessible writings about the Jewish experience in Northeast Ohio. Dating from the late 1800s to the 1980s, this collection is organized along five major themes—arts and culture, civic life, work and business, continuity, and philanthropy and service. The editors present a variety of voices that discuss the Jewish cultural gardens, Yiddish theater, socialism in the working class and women’s role in the Garment Strike, the cigar industry and Jewish farming, the Alsbacher Document, philanthropic efforts by the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland, and many other topics.

Beginning with a detailed description of the May 4 shootings and the events that preceded them, Kent State and May 4th is a revised, updated, and expanded volume of essays that seeks to answer frequently raised questions while correcting historical inaccuracies. The third edition includes a new essay that analyzes a group of television documentaries about May 4 and an overview of the legal aftermath of the shootings, including governmental investigations to determine responsibility and how students were affected by these events. The book also explores the gymnasium annex controversy of 1977, in which Kent State University proposed the building of a new recreational facility on portions of land where students and Guardsmen confronted each other. Finally, the editors examine how the university and community have memorialized May 4 over the past forty years.

Ohio Outback is a unique compilation of writings by Claude Clayton Smith about his experiences of living in Ohio for the past twenty-two years. Smith offers a vibrant, humorous portrait of life that focuses on individuals and events in out-of-the-way places throughout northwest Ohio. The pieces in this book reflect a growing curiosity and fondness for Ohio, with topics ranging from the manufacturing process of NFL footballs and the anatomy of ditches to an Ohio section of a ten-thousandmile drive by interstate highway across the forty-eight states and Smith’s reflections as a licensed professional boxing judge. Ohio Outback also contains “Yard Wars of the Ohio Outback,” a lighthearted piece that forms the book’s narrative core with tales of bird, pool, and driveway battles.

The social and political aspects of Cleveland’s public transportation history are the subject of this companion volume to Horse Trails to Regional Rails. The focus here is on the technological aspects of the system. From the start of street railway operations in 1859 until the end of the surface electric era in 1963, the city was crisscrossed with hundreds of miles of track and overhead wire, and with thousands of poles to keep the overhead wire in place. Thousands of streetcars, and then thousands of buses, carried millions of passengers. The old Cleveland Transit System alone carried over 493 million passengers in 1946, and that total does not reflect the ridership of various suburban carriers.

Ohio’s Grand Canal concisely details the entire history of the canal system. Author Terry K. Woods chronicles the events leading up to construction, as well as public opinion of the canal system, the modifications made to traditional boat designs, the leasing of the waterways to private companies, and the canals’ legal abandonment in 1929. He also includes a personal look at the 1913 flood through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old boatman who experienced it firsthand. Well written and thoroughly researched, this single-volume history of the Ohio & Erie Canal will be important to educators and to a general audience interested in Ohio history and canals.

The people who lived and worked on and alongside the Ohio & Erie Canal had a vocabulary all their own. Now listed for the first time in one source are the terms they used to describe the boats, crews, and canals. Newspaper and magazine articles about the construction and operation of Ohio’s canal system reveal a terminology filled with conflicting definitions. Engineers, crew members, and citizens each had their own jargons. To clear up the confusion, Terry K. Woods provides a dictionary of primary terms selected from those most frequently used in the official reports of the Ohio Canal Commissioners and the Board of Public Works. He also includes secondary terms taken from his interviews with ex-boatmen in the late 1960s and early 1970s and from his more than 25 years of research on the canals.

This history of Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation paints a gritty portrait of the successes and failures of the American steel industry. The 131-year life of this “American Business” is presented from its origins as one of the many struggling iron makers in the mid-19th century through its leadership in technological innovation and progressive worker/management relations in the early 20th century to its demise in 1984. J & L Steel, however, was more than just the management styles of the Jones & Laughlin families. From the beginning, its workers were intensely loyal and creative, and Portraits in Steel portrays the sometimes stormy relationship between iron and steel workers and management.

Vourlojianis examines the history of the Grays from its founding in 1837, through military service in three wars, to its modern incarnation as a social and philanthropic group. While the nature of the organization has changed, the Grays still maintain a proud tradition of service to their city. Primarily a social group with strong philanthropic and educational interests, the expanded membership of the modern Grays continues to add to and participate in the rich, colorful history of Cleveland.