Finding aid for the Maurice Klain Research Papers : Cleveland Area Leadership Studies, Series I

History of the Maurice Klain Cleveland Area Leadership Studies

The Maurice Klain Research Papers: Cleveland Area Leadership Studies were produced by Dr. Klain, a political scientist at Western Reserve University (Case Western Reserve University since 1967), as a scholarly project designed to identify, describe and analyze leadership, decision-making, influence and power in Greater Cleveland, Ohio, during the 1950s and 1960s.

Klain was born in 1920 in Omaha, Nebraska, and graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha in 1940. He received his masters from Oberlin College in 1941 and took his Ph. D. at Yale University in 1949. He taught at Yale, Connecticut College, Douglas College for Women at Rutgers University and Amherst before coming to Western Reserve University in 1949. He became an associate professor in 1956 and was chairman of the political science department from 1972 to 1974. In 1983, he was given emeritus status.

The heart of his study is embodied in over 700 transcripts of interviews conducted by Klain and his graduate students from 1957 to 1965. The people interviewed were eminent figures in the business and professional life of Cleveland, notables in government, law and politics, as well as prominent figures in education, journalism, religion, philanthropy and nongovernmental civic institutions, leaders of ethnic communities, and activists in other demographic categories.

The research was supported by grants principally from the Stern Family Fund, the Social Science Research Council and, locally, the Cleveland Foundation. Additional funding was provided locally by the Fox Foundation, the Lubrizol Foundation, and Mr. Samuel H. Miller of Forest City Enterprises.

Scope and Content

The Maurice Klain Research Papers: Cleveland Area Leadership Studies, Series I, 1957-1965, are comprised of the second drafts of the interview transcripts.

The Klain Research Papers constitute an extensive and massive body of information about the Cleveland, Ohio, metropolitan region, its leaders and its multifarious groups and interests. The scope and importance of the material was given early national recognition. Appraising the materials collected up to 1964, Dr. William H. Form, author of several community studies and professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Michigan State University, declared that "nowhere have I seen such carefully gathered information over such a wide range of community issues and projects in a large metropolitan area." According to Dr. Scott Greer, director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies at Northwestern University, the Cleveland study "has the richest and most valuable data ever collected on the public affairs and political life of a great city." Dr. Nelson W. Polsby, a political scientist at Berkeley and author of numerous political works, was similarly impressed. The collection is therefore critical to the study of Cleveland in the 1960s as it reflects the interviewer's interest in examining and explaining the power structure of Cleveland in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The interviews were conducted with not only political and business figures, but with leaders from the city's religious, racial, and ethnic communities as well as with prominent suburbanites, members of the legal community, leaders of philanthropic organizations, the media, and the local education system. Klain tried to discover who was "calling the shots" in Cleveland and examined such issues as the power of local media, political pressures on the courts' elected judges, and lawyers' involvement in business and real estate. He also talked with many members of the reclusive "Fifty Club," an exclusive, rarely publicized elite formation of businessmen and professionals, and with the founders of University Circle, Incorporated. Many individuals Klain interviewed later rose to even greater prominence within the city or state and these interviews provide an early insight into their careers. Many interviews also consider the issues of discrimination and problems in the African American community. Because the collection was produced on the eve of the racial conflicts which shook the United States in the 1960s and which erupted in Cleveland's Hough neighborhood during 1966, Klain has characterized such interviews as "conversations on a powder keg."

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Use

Use of this collection is restricted. Consult WRHS Curator of Manuscripts for details.

Restrictions on Access

Access to this collection is restricted. Consult WRHS Curator of Manuscripts for details.

The researcher should also consult MS 4305 Maurice Klain Research Papers: Cleveland Area Leadership Studies, Series II.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 4219 Maurice Klain Research Papers: Cleveland Area Leadership Studies, Series I, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

Maurice Klain, 1983.

Processing Information

Processed by Daniel J. Linke and Thomas F. Pappas in 1988.