22 May 2007

Daniel Ransohoff

 

At UC, in the mid 1980's, I took a class called Uban Lobbying. It was taught by a man with real passion about Cincinnati: Daniel Ransohoff. His class consisted of him talking about the strengths of the city, about how geographically it was a peneplain, and how we all needed to get out there and meet people and make things happen. Each class, he would bring in a speaker to talk about the history of their company in Cincinnati. Unfortunately, at that time, I wasn't thinking of staying in Cincinnati, and I did not care much about the speakers.

However, Danny was a great personality, with his scarf and hoarse speaking voice, and of course, his passion. I remember towards the end of the quarter, I discovered a bunch of his photos that he had taken in Over-the-Rhine and other inner city neighborhoods in the 40's and 50's. After class, I walked up to him and asked him if he ever took photos of kids in the city neighborhoods anymore and he said something to the effect that food stamps had emphasized starchy foods and made the kids less photogenic.

I beleive his photos are in storage at the Cincinnati Historical Society, in the Museum Center. I wish they were either published, or scanned for ease of browsing. The photo above is a scan of a print I own. I recognize one or two of the buildings. Look close, if you know OTR, you might see where it was taken.

1 comment:

OTR said...

I contacted the Museum Center. Hopefully, they'll share his work.