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Free Ohio Biographies and Memoirs PDF

Famous Ohioans in history books and articles. Free biographies Ohio people. Autobiographies and memoirs. Modern books and articles and vintage.

Collected Books about Ohio Historical Figures

Ohio Historical Figures – Collection

Free online books at the Internet Archive, resulting from a search for books on “Ohio Biography”. Some titles are: Portraits of power : Ohio and national politics, 1964-2004, Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio : the Washington years, The prize winner of Defiance, Ohio, Ulysses S. Grant, John Glenn : around the world in 90 minutes, Rutherford B. Hayes, Annie Oakley, Wilbur and Orville : a biography of the Wright brothers, Warren G. Harding, Women builders, James Garfield, LeBron James, Charles Demuth, Introducing Halle Berry : a biography, Johnny Appleseed, William Tecumseh Sherman, Miriam Schapiro : shaping the fragments of art and life, the incredible true story of America’s first female serial killer to die in the chair, Maya Lin, Jesse Owens : trailblazing sprinter, E.H. Harriman, master railroader, the story of Coretta Scott King, the remarkable journey of Alan Page, Mildred Taylor, Flora Stone Mather, the story of Frederick A. Hauck, The life of Samuel Morris, Major McKinley : William McKinley and the Civil War, a political biography of Michael V. DiSalle, Gladys Aylward : missionary to China. Be patient as the page loads.

Suggested Biographies and Memoirs about Ohioans

Roger Ailes Off Camera: An Inside Look at the Founder and Head of Fox News

Chafets, Zev
Sentinel 2013

Roger Ailes is the quintessential man behind the curtain. He more or less invented modern politi­cal consulting and helped Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush win their races for the White House. Then he reinvented himself as a master of cable television, first as the head of CNBC and, since 1996, as the creator and leader of Fox News, the most influential news network in the country.
To liberals, Ailes is an evil genius who helped polarize the country by breaking the mainstream media’s long monopoly on what constitutes news. To conservatives, he’s a champion of free speech and fair reporting whose values and view of Amer­ica reflect their own. But no one doubts that Ailes has transformed journalism. Barack Obama once called him “the most powerful man in America”— and given that Fox News has changed the way millions understand the world, it may be true.

Ailes, Roger Eugene (1940-2017)

Blue Jacket: Warrior of the Shawnees

Sugden, John
2001

Blue Jacket (ca. 1743-ca. 1808), or Waweyapiersenwaw, was the galvanizing force behind an intertribal confederacy of unparalleled scope that fought a long and bloody war against white encroachments into the Shawnees’ homeland in the Ohio River Valley. Blue Jacket was an astute strategist and diplomat who, though courted by American and British leaders, remained a staunch defender of the Shawnees’ independence and territory. In this arresting and controversial account, John Sugden depicts the most influential Native American leader of his time..

Contents: Blue Jacket’s People — Beginnings — Defending the Dark and Bloody Ground — The Second War for Kentucky — Trouble Is Coming upon Us Fast — The War for Ohio — Tomahawks and Tobacco — We Are Determined to Meet the Enemy — General Blue Jacket and Arthur St. Clair — All the Nations Are Now of One Mind — Just Rights and an Uncertain War — The Expedition to Fort Recovery — The Final Battle — We Must Think of War No More — Living with Peace — Uneasy Retirement — Voices from the West.

Bluejacket (ca. 1743-ca. 1808)

Erma Bombeck: A Life in Humor

Edwards, Susan
Avon 1997

A housewife turned beloved, nationally known humorist, Erma Bombeck first began focusing a wry critical eye on the American family back when June Cleaver, not Roseanne, was the accepted model for middle-class motherhood. For more than three decades, she charmed a nation with her sassy irreverence for long-held traditions, tempered by a delightful good humor…and, always deep, abiding love. Erma Bombeck: A Life in Humor is Erma remembered as she would have wanted to be remembered. It is a celebration of an all-too-brief but ultimately triumphant life – and an extraordinary, indomitable woman whom we loved dearly for making us laugh at ourselves – generously sprinkled with the warm, wise and potent wit that is uniquely, hilariously, eternally…Erma Bombeck.

Bombeck, Erma Louise (1927-1996)

Early Years on the Western Reserve: With Extracts from Letters of Ephraim Brown and Family, 1805-1845

Wing, George C.
Cleveland: Clark 1916

Ephraim Brown was apparently a wealthy and well-educated man who bought a large plot of land in Trumbull County in the Western Reserve in 1814; moving his family there in the following year from New Hampshire. This book is a biography making use of extended quotes from Brown’s correspondence. That correspondence doesn’t contain many details or description of Dayton, or even of the material aspects of the Browns’ lives. The correspondence instead contains commentary on the political issues of the day, advice from father to children on career, education and other subjects, and in general provides a window into the mental perspectives and preoccupations of people of that class and era.

Also see histories of Cleveland and the Western Reserve in: History of Ohio Cities, Counties & Regions

Brown, Ephraim (1775-1845)

A Righteous Cause: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

Cherney, Robert W.
University of Oklahoma 1994

Three times the Democratic Party’s nominee for president (1896, 1900, and 1908) and secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan voiced the concerns of many Americans left out of the post–Civil War economic growth.
In A Righteous Cause: The Life of Williams Jennings Bryan, Robert W. Cherny presents Bryan’s key role in the Democratic Party’s transformation from the conservatism of Grover Cleveland to the progressivism of Woodrow Wilson. Cherny draws on Bryan’s writings and correspondence to trace his major political crusades for a new currency policy, prohibition, and women’s suffrage, and against colonialism, monopolies, America’s entry into World War I, and the teaching of evolution in the public schools.

Bryan, William Jennings (1860-1925)

Johnny Appleseed, a Voice in the Wilderness: The Story of the Pioneer John Chapman. Centennial Tribute

Hatcher, Harlan, and Marshall, Leslie
Paterson, N.J: Swedenborg Press. 1945

John Chapman (1774-1845), often called Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for The New Church (Swedenborgian) and the inspiration for many museums and historical sites such as the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio and the Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center in between Lucas, Ohio and Mifflin, Ohio. -Wikipedia entry “Johnny Appleseed”.

Chapman, John (1774-1845)

The Life of Philander Chase: First Bishop of Ohio and Illinois, Founder of Kenyon and Jubilee Colleges

Smith, Laura C.
NY: Dutton. 1903

Philander Chase (1775-1852) grew up in New Hampshire and graduated from Dartmouth. He worked as a missionary in western New York, had a church post in New Orleans, and then was rector of Christ’s Church in Hartford, Conn. He went to Ohio in 1817 to build up the Episcopal church, becoming Bishop of the church there in 1819. In 1824 he founded and became the president of Kenyon College and Bexley Hall seminary in Gambier, OH. In his last years he founded Jubilee College in Peoria, IL.

Chase, Philander (1775-1852)

Salmon Portland Chase

Hart, Albert H.
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin. 1889

Salmon Portland Chase (1808-1873) was an American politician and jurist who served as U.S. Senator from Ohio and the 23rd Governor of Ohio; as U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Abraham Lincoln; and as the sixth Chief Justice of the United States. Ohio historical figures, Ohio biographies.

“It is not the purpose of this volume to give a detailed account of Mr. Chase’s private life, nor even to describe fully his long, eventful, and varied public career, but rather to present him as the central figure in three episodes which are of great historic importance, – the Western political anti-slavery movement, the financial measures of the Civil War, and the process of judicial reconstruction.”
-author’s Preface

Chase, Salmon Portland (1808-1873)

“The Original Diary of Mrs. Laura (Downs) Clark, of Wakeman, Ohio; from June 21 to October 26, 1818”

The Firelands Pioneer XXI 1920 2308-2326

Clark, Laura (Downs)
Norwalk, OH: Firelands Historical Society

Mrs. Clark and her husband Dr. Hermon Clark were the second or third family to settle in Wakeman, arriving June 19, 1818, where they lived in a log cabin. In this diary she recorded her daily activities as well as her unhappiness with the isolation of the frontier.

Clark, Laura Downs (1798-1863)

Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the Reputed President of the Underground Railroad …

being a brief history of the labors of a lifetime in behalf of the slave, with the stories of numerous fugitives, who gained their freedom through his instrumentality, and many other incidents

Coffin, Levi
Cincinnati: Western Tract Society. 1876

Levi Coffin (1798-1877) was a Quaker who, with his wife Catharine, sheltered over a hundred escaping slaves per year while living in Fountain City (then Newport) in Wayne County, IN from 1826 to 1847. Their home was known as ‘Grand Central Station’ on the Underground Railroad because of the scale of their work. He then moved to Cincinnati, OH where he continued to be very active in the Underground Railroad. One of the slaves they helped was immortalized as Eliza, the heroine of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
– From Indiana Historical Society.

Also see: Anti-Slavery before the Civil War

For biographies of people in the American abolition movement, see:
– Swift, Lindsay, William Lloyd Garrison in Century Past Biographies: G & H
;
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe on this webpage;
Washington, Booker Taliaferro, Frederick Douglass in Century Past Biographies: D, E & F;
Haviland, Laura S. , A Woman’s Life-Work in Biographies & Memoirs in Michigan History

Coffin, Levi (1798-1877)

The Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Manasseh Cutler, LL.D.

Cutler, William Parker, and Cutler, Julia Perkins, eds.
Cincinnati: Clarke 1888

Manasseh Cutler (1742-1823) was a Massachusetts clergyman when he became a founding member of the Ohio Company of Associates and played a role in the adoption of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. He negotiated with Congress for the Ohio company to purchase 1.5 million acres of land in Ohio for 8 cents per acre, then led the first group of settlers to Ohio. In 1888 the group established Marietta. In the following year Cutler returned to Massachusetts, where he was involved in state government for the next two decades.

Cutler, Manasseh (1742-1823)

“Visions of America, 1787–1788: The Ohio of Reverend Manasseh Cutler”

Ohio History Vol. 111 (Summer-Autumn 2002) pp 101-120

Potts, Louis W.
Columbus: Ohio Historical Society

Manasseh Cutler was a Congregational Minister who in 1786 joined with other veterans of the Revolutionary War to form the Ohio Company of Associates. The Ohio Company’s purpose was to buy a large tract of land in the Ohio country, which had recently been acquired by the U.S. government from Great Britain. Cutler was one of the five directors of the Ohio Company and one of the two most active and conspicuous leaders. The other was General Rufus Putnam. This academic article by a history professor reviews Cutler’s role in steering the project to fruition, and explores the part that Cutler’s religious and personal beliefs played in the design of the Ohio settlement at Marietta.

Cutler, Manasseh (1742-1823)

Call Me Mike: A Political Biography of Michael V. DiSalle

Zimmerman, Richard G.
Kent State University 2003

Michael V. DiSalle was elected to his first and only term as governor in one of Ohio’s most contentious elections, which featured a ferocious battle over the so-called “Right-to-Work” issue, a union-busting constitutional amendment placed on the ballot over the objections of Republican party professionals by fanatic conservative business interests. As a result, Democrats won most statewide offices and briefly gained control of the Ohio General Assembly. Biography & Autobiography / Political, Mayors — Biography — Toledo — Ohio, Ohio — Politics and government — 1951-.

DiSalle, Michael Vincent (1908-1981)

See our Biographical Encyclopedias Free

“Dr. Daniel Drake’s Memoir of the Miami Country, 1779-1794”

Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, Quarterly Publications XVIII (April-Sep 1923) 45-94

Drake, Daniel. edited by B. W. Bond
City, Publisher

This link takes you to a list of journals, not directly to the article. Click on “Quarterly Publication of the HPSO 1906-1923” and go to volume 18, no.2-3.

This is an historical account of the early history of Cincinnati and its region.

Drake, Daniel (1785-1852)

Daniel Drake and his Followers: Historical and Biographical Sketches, 1785-1909

Juettner, Otto
Cincinnati: Harvey. 1909

Daniel Drake (1785-1852) was a physician and writer who established a medical practice in Cincinnati in 1807. He helped organize the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati in 1819, and in 1827 founded the Western Journal of the Medical and Physical Sciences, which he edited until 1848. Physicians — Biography — United States.

This volume is a history of the medical profession and medical colleges in Cincinnati and Ohio that also contains numerous brief biographical sketches.

Drake, Daniel (1785-1852)

The Ohio Hunter; or, A Brief Sketch of the Frontier life of Samuel E. Edwards, the Great Bear and Deer Hunter of the State of Ohio

Edwards, Samuel E.
Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald 1893

The book, says Graff, “is endlessly fascinating, for while some of the episodes are close to fancy, most of them are probably based on fact, if not wholly accurate. Many of Edwards’ adventures occurred in Michigan.” “The narrative is quite interesting, verging in numerous instances into romance, but it nevertheless has every appearance of being true to fact. Hunting — Ohio, Frontier and pioneer life — Ohio.

Edwards, Samuel E. (1810- ?)

Mike Fink; A Legend of the Ohio

Bennett, Emerson
Cincinnati: James 1853

Fink (1770/1780 – c. 1823) “called “king of the keelboaters”, was a semi-legendary brawler and river boatman who exemplified the tough and hard-drinking men who ran keelboats up and down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.”
– Wikipedia entry. Frontier and pioneer life — Fiction — Middle West, Ohio River — Fiction, American fiction — 19th century.

“Emerson Bennett was an American author primarily known for his lively romantic adventure tales depicting American frontier life. He was the author of over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories. At one time, Bennett was one of the most popular authors in America.” Wikipedia.

Fink, Mike (1770/1780 – c. 1823)

Timothy Flint, Pioneer, Missionary, Author, Editor, 178O-1840: …

the story of his life among the pioneers and frontiersmen in the Ohio and Mississippi Valley and in New England and the South

Kirkpatrick, John Ervin
Cleveland: Clark 1911

Timothy Flint (1780-1840) was one of the most significant literary figures in the early history of the Old Northwest. He was a minister and graduate of Harvard who went west in 1815 to carry out missionary work. For the next ten years he traveled in the Mississippi Valley, publishing in 1826 a memoir called Recollections of the Last Ten Years. In 1833 he published Biographical Memoir of Daniel Boone, which did much to develop the Boone legend. He also founded and edited the Western Monthly, a literary magazine in Cincinnati from 1827-1830.

“Timothy Flint was a conspicuous man at the end of the eighteenth and in the early decades of the nineteenth centuries. He was preacher, pioneer, editor, and novelist, and contributed to the London ‘Athenaeum’ the first sketch of American literary history. What drew the attention of the religious world of the day to this versatile genius was the fact that his chemical studies led his parishioners to think that he was counterfeit, just as Pope Sylvester II, for somewhat similar reason, was accused of being in league with the devil.
… It throws considerable light on the history of our country, its literature, and its press in the period between 1780 and 1840, particularly as regards the pioneer and frontiersmen in the Ohio and Mississippi valley, in New England and Virginia.”
– The Book Review Digest

You can find books that Flint authored on this website, on these pages: Ohio Novels and Historical Fiction, Great Lakes Novels and Historical Fiction, Native Americans in the History of the Great Lakes, and Great Lakes General History

Flint, Timothy (1780-1840)

Garfield: A Biography

Peskin, Allan
Kent State University 1978

The definitive biography of America’s 20th president, James A. Garfield. Exhaustively researched and skillfully written. Winner of the Ohio Academy of History Award, the Ohioana Book Award in History, and a Choice Outstanding Academic Book of the Year. “Garfield’s military career, the congressional years, the Presidency, receive thorough attention and evaluation, and one of the delights of this massive biography is that Peskin writes so well … This is a brilliant and skillful portrait of a man of many parts, of the political and social landscape of his time.”–Publishers Weekly. Biography & Autobiography / Presidents & Heads of State, US Presidents from Ohio.

Garfield, James A., U.S. President (1831-1881)

James A. Garfield: His Life and Times. A Pictorial History

McElroy, Richard L.
Daring 1986

A pictorial biography of the orator, congressman, teacher, and Civil War general who became the twentieth President of the United States. US presidents from Ohio, Celebrities in Ohio.

Garfield, James A., U.S. President (1831-1881)

Reminiscences of James A. Garfield

with notes preliminary and collateral

Fuller, Corydon E.
Cincinnati: Standard 1887

Garfield, James A., U.S. President (1831-1881).

Farm Wife: A Self-Portrait, 1886-1896

Gebby, Margaret Dow
Iowa State University 1990

Editor Virginia McCormick used entries from this Margaret Dow’s diaries, along with her own helpful commentary, to reveal the daily life of an extended farm family in the Bellefontaine region of western Ohio. McCormick organized the book into the themes of farm operations, home, leisure and culture, and community life.

Gebby, Margaret Dow (1835-1920)

Ulysses S. Grant

Bunting, Josiah III
Times 2004

The underappreciated presidency of the military man who won the Civil War and then had to win the peace as well.
As a general, Ulysses S. Grant is routinely described in glowing terms-the man who turned the tide of the Civil War, who accepted Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, and who had the stomach to see the war through to final victory. But his presidency is another matter-the most common word used to characterize it is “scandal.” Grant is routinely portrayed as a man out of his depth, whose trusting nature and hands-off management style opened the federal coffers to unprecedented plunder. But that caricature does not do justice to the realities of Grant’s term in office, as Josiah Bunting III shows in this provocative assessment of our eighteenth president.
Grant made it his priority to forge the states into a single nation, and Bunting shows that despite the troubles that characterized Grant’s terms in office, he was able to accomplish this most important task-very often through the skillful use of his own popularity with the American people. Grant was indeed a military man of the highest order, and he was a better president than he is often given credit for.

Grant, Ulysses S. (1822-1885)

Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Vol 1

Volume 2

Grant, F. D., ed.
Century 1909

DDC: Biography

“Grant’s simple record of his own life is a true classic. Covers his life to the close of the Civil War.”
— A.L.A. Catalog 1926
When one considers that the writer was a man of action, altogether without experience in literary work, one is surprised at the remarkable skill with which the narrative is written. The sentences often have the same pithy directness and brevity that marked his despatches from the field of battle. As a general he mastered details but was not overwhelmed by them: so here, he sees the whole field and leads the reader easily along from one principal event to another. The native simplicity and lack of affectation so characteristic of the author are noticeable features of the work.”
– Standard Catalog for Public Libraries : Biography Section (1927)

Grant, Ulysses Simpson, U. S. President (1822-1885)

Zane Grey: Romancing the West

May, Stephen J.
Ohio University 1997

One of the century’s most enduring American writers, Zane Grey left a legacy to our national consciousness that far outstrips the literary contribution of his often predictable plots and recurring themes. How did Grey capture the attention of millions of readers and promote the Western fantasy that continues to occupy many of the world’s leisure hours? This study assesses the Zane Grey phenomenon by examining Grey’s romantic novels in the context of his life and era.
In Zane Grey: Romancing the West, author Stephen J. May traces the career of Grey by analyzing the development of his novels and popularity and the degree to which that shaped his world.
The book also investigates Grey’s personal life–from his fling with Hollywood to his passion for deep-sea fishing–illuminating the literature that shaped America’s vision of itself through one of its most enduring and cherished myths.

Grey, Pearl Zane (1872-1939)

“The Life of Charles Hammond. The First Great Journalist of the Old Northwest.”

Ohio History XLIII (1934) 337- 427.

Weisenburger, F. P.
Columbus: Ohio Historical Society

Charles Hammond (1779-1840) was a politician, attorney and journalist. Raised and educated in Virginia, he moved to Ohio in 1803 and began practicing law. He served in the state legislature from 1813 to 1822, and from 1823 to 1838 served as the reporter of the Ohio Supreme Court. He practiced law throughout this time. He also edited the Ohio Federalist from 1812 to 1818, and the Cincinnati Gazette from 1826 to 1840.

Hammond, Charles (1779-1840)

Warren G. Harding – The Man

Chapple, Joe Mitchell
Boston: Chapple 1920

Harding, Warren G., U.S. President (1865-1923)

First Lady: The Life of Lucy Webb Hayes

Geer, Emily Apt
Kent State University 1984

Presidents’ spouses–United States–Biography.

Hayes, Lucy Webb (1831-1889)

Rutherford B. Hayes and his America

Barnard, Harry
New York: Russell & Russell 1967

Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, U.S. President (1822-1893)

The Life of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Vol 1

Volume 2

Nineteenth President of the United States

Williams, Charles Richard
Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1914

Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, U.S. President (1822-1893)

Recollections of Life in Ohio, from 1813-1840

Howells, William Cooper
Cincinnati. 1895

This is a narrative of William Cooper Howell’s life to age 37 and a portrait of life in early eastern Ohio, written at the end of his life and completed by his son, the literary figure William Dean Howells. William C. Howells immigrated to the U.S. with his parents from Wales as a boy, and the family eventually made its way to a farm in Ohio. Much of this book is about life as a farmer, but also includes the author’s various attempts at making a living as a teacher, printer, and editor. An unusually literate and reflective memoir of rural life.

Howells, William Cooper (1807-1894)

My Year in a Log Cabin

Howells, William Dean
NY: 1893

William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist author and literary critic. Nicknamed “The Dean of American Letters”, he was particularly known for his tenure as editor of the Atlantic Monthly as well as his own prolific writings, including the Christmas story “Christmas Every Day” and the novel The Rise of Silas Lapham.
Wikipedia entry for “William Dean Howells”

This short book is a recollection of when, in 1850, his father moved the family to a new town where they lived in an old log cabin. It is filled with anecdotes about small-town and rural life in Ohio. Also of interest is the autobiography of Howells’ father, William Cooper Howells, found on this web page.

Howells, William Dean (1837-1920)

Years of my Youth

Howells, William Dean
NY: Harper and Brothers 1916

William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was possibly Ohio’s greatest literary figure. His father migrated to Ohio by flatboat and keelboat, and moved about within Ohio often as he followed his trade of printer and editor. William Dean was born at Martin’s Ferry on the Ohio River, and lived at Hamilton, Dayton, Columbus and Jefferson. He published over 100 books in his lifetime and served as editor of Atlantic and Harpers; probably the most significant literary magazines in the U.S. at the time. See the books by William Dean Howells and his father, William Cooper Howells, on this page.

See also: Howells, William Dean, Stories of Ohio in Ohio Novels and Historical Fiction

“This volume of reminiscences has Ohio for its scene. It begins with his childhood, but the incidents that made up “A boy’s town” are passed over lightly. Youth with Its ambitions and dreams are dealt with more fully and we see the author setting type, writing sketches for the Ohio Farmer and poems for the Atlantic Monthly, rejoicing equally over an acceptance by either. During the critical years preceding the civil war he was serving on the staff of the Ohio State Journal and taking a part in vital events. The autobiography is carried only to the time when Mr. Howells went abroad as consul at Venice, this step marking his departure from his native state.”
– The Book Review Digest

Howells, William Dean (1837-1920)

“Samuel Huntington: A Connecticut Aristocrat on the Ohio Frontier”

Ohio History 89 (Autumn 1980): 419—38.

Brown, Jeffrey Paul
Columbus: Ohio Historical Society

This article traces Huntington’s career, and provides information about early Ohio state politics, during the period 1800-1812. “Born to one of Connecticut’s most prominent families, [Huntington] moved to frontier Ohio, became one of the leading figures in Great Lakes politics, and headed the coalition of conservative Republicans and Federalists that broke the liberal Republican hold in the state. An aristocratic leader in a democratic society, Huntington’s career illustrates the ease with which a prominent easterner could win high office in the sparsely settled West.” p. 419. Ohio historical figures, Ohio biographies.

Huntington, Samuel (1731-1796)

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