Baldwin Museum and Library photograph

Dated December 1, 1937, this photograph shows the Baldwin Museum and Library in Akron, Ohio. The Baldwin Museum and Library is located at 208 Lincoln Way East (now routes 172 and 241), at the corner of 2nd Street Northeast. The brick, 'L'-shaped building was designed by local architects Albrecht & Wilhelm, incorporating the original Baldwin home. The Greek Revival style entrance, with its four Corinthian columns, is topped with a copper rotunda and was funded, in part, by a Works Progress Administration (WPA) grant. Construction began in 1936 and the Baldwin opened in 1937, while still partly unfinished, and opened officially on April 3, 1938. The Baldwin home, once the home of the city's founder James Duncan, had been left to the Massillon Library Board in 1931 for use as a library and museum, following the death of Mrs. Annie Steese Baldwin, wife of prominent local attorney Frank Baldwin. It opened as the Baldwin Museum in 1933, and having fulfilled the terms of Mrs. Baldwin's will, immediately began plans for expansion. Now called the Massillon Museum, it now occupies a new building at 121 Lincoln Way East, on the corner of City Hall Street SE (southeast). The old building is now the Massillon Public Library. This photograph is one of the many visual materials collected for use in the Ohio Guide. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration by executive order to create jobs for the large numbers of unemployed laborers, as well as artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The Federal Arts Program, a sector of the Works Progress Administration, included the Federal Writers’ Project, one of the primary goals of which was to complete the America Guide series, a series of guidebooks for each state which included state history, art, architecture, music, literature, and points of interest to the major cities and tours throughout the state. Work on the Ohio Guide began in 1935 with the publication of several pamphlets and brochures. The Reorganization Act of 1939 consolidated the Works Progress Administration and other agencies into the Federal Works Administration, and the Federal Writers’ Project became the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio. The final product was published in 1940 and went through several editions. The Ohio Guide Collection consists of 4,769 photographs collected for use in Ohio Guide and other publications of the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio from 1935-1939