Finding aid for the Carabelli Company Records and Photographs

History of The Carabelli Company

Biography of Joseph Carabelli courtesy of the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

Joseph Carabelli (9 April 1850-19 April 1911), a skilled stonemason and influential businessman, son of Carolina (Sartori) and Carlo Carabelli, was one of the first lay leaders in the Little Italy neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. A native of Porto Ceresio, Como Province, Italy, he immigrated to America in 1870 at the age of 20, following an apprenticeship as a stonecutter. He spent ten years in New York City as a sculptor, where he carved the statues for the city's Federal Building. Carabelli came to Cleveland in 1880 and established the Lake View Granite & Monumental Works, near Lake View Cemetery, which soon attracted a large group of stonecutters from the province of Campobasso, who settled along Mayfield Road near the cemetery.

Carabelli was responsible for the creation of a nursery and kindergarten in 1895 for the children of working mothers in this neighborhood. With his financial assistance, and that of John D. Rockefeller, the nursery grew into Alta House. Carabelli also played a major part in the creation of the first Cleveland Italian mutual benefit society, the Italian Fraternal Society, in 1888. This society served as the model for many other Italian benevolent groups, and by the mid-1890s it functioned as the arbiter. Carabelli was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1908 on a Republican ticket. He capped his career by pushing a bill through the legislature proclaiming Columbus Day an official holiday in 1910.

Married in Torino, Italy, in 1875, Carabelli and his wife Annetta had three children who survived to adulthood, Joseph, Charles A., and Lillian (Bailey); two children, Charles M. and Irene, died as infants. Carabelli died in Cleveland and was buried in Lake View Cemetery.

click here to view the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for Joseph Carabelli

Giuseppe (Joseph) Carabelli (1850-1911) founded The Carabelli Company in the late 1880s under the name Lake View Granite & Monumental Works. It was located at 12317 Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, directly across from The Lake View Cemetery. Carabelli initially partnered with James Broggini, another Italian stone carver who had established a monument business on Woodland Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. A disagreement dissolved the partnership in 1888 and Carabelli became the sole proprietor.

The Carabelli Company was highly sought after for many projects involving stone cutting or carving for both private and public memorials, monuments, and statuary. The Lake View Cemetery contains a large number of monuments created by The Carabelli Company. Among its most recognized works at Lake View are the Wade Memorial Chapel and the Brush, John Hay, Rockefeller, and Steinbrenner monuments. The company also contributed to the creation of the Cuyahoga County Soldiers' & Sailors' Monument, and similar monuments in Elyria and Willougbhy, Ohio, and Muskegon, Michigan.

Carabelli employed many Italian immigrants in his company, oftentimes recruiting experienced stone cutters and carvers directly from Italy. Many of these immigrants began settling in the neighborhood near the shop called the East End. Because of the influx of Italians there, the neighborhood eventually became known as Little Italy.

Graziano Farinacci was an Italian stone carver who worked for Carabelli during the period of 1901-1934. In 1931, when the company was having difficulty designing a mausoleum to a family's specifications, Farinacci suggested that his son-in-law, John I. Johns (Giovanni Iacobucci), who had a degree in architecture from Western Reserve University, assist with the mausoleum project. Johns soon became the chief designer for Carabelli. In 1937, Johns and two other Carabelli employees created a new company called Mayfair Memorials in South Euclid, Ohio.

The Carabelli Company, founded as Lake View Granite & Monumental Works, operated under successive generations of the Carabelli family until the early 1970s. Upon Giuseppe Carabelli's death in 1911, Carabelli's sons Joseph C. Carabelli, Jr. (1885-1963) became the company's president and Charles A. Carabelli (1888-1958) became vice president. It was during their tenure that the company became known as The Joseph Carabelli Co. then eventually The Carabelli Co. Joseph C. Carabelli III (1915-1971) assumed leadership of the company in 1963 until his death when his sister Eleanor Carabelli Williams (1919- ) took over and eventually sold the business to the Johns (Iacobucci) family of Mayfair Memorials. The Johns family merged the businesses under the name The Johns-Carabelli Co.

Scope and Content

The Carabelli Company Records and Photographs, 1850-1999 and undated, consist of agreements, birth records, blueprints, brochures, catalogs, certificates, a constitution, contracts, correspondence, court documents, deeds, directories, estimates, financial records, forms, indices, inventories, leases, legislation, lists, memoranda, newsletters, newspaper clippings, notebooks, obituaries, order books, patterns, programs, published books and guides, real estate documents, reports, sketches, tax records, templates, time books, tracings, and wills. The records also contain 685 black and white photographs, 24 color photographs, 70 negatives, 131 slides, and six audio tapes, and 13 cassette tapes.

This collection will be useful to researchers studying stone cutting and carving and the monuments-making business in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as Italian American involvement in these endeavors. The Carabelli Co. was located in close proximity to and worked closely with The Lake View Cemetery. A significant number of the monuments and headstones placed in the cemetery were designed and installed by Carabelli. Researchers interested in the monuments and headstones at The Lake View Cemetery should consult the business records, especially the client files, and the photographs.

Giuseppe (Joseph) Carabelli started the company and successive generations of his family carried it on, so those interested in business and entrepreneurship, particularly a family business established by an Italian immigrant, will find this collection useful. Client files may be of value to genealogy researchers as would employee records. Those studying the employment of ethnic groups in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the settlement of Little Italy, Cleveland, Ohio, also may find the employee records of value.

Design records within the collection include sketches, blueprints, tracings, font templates, and a number of published works on marble and monument design examples. These records will be useful to researchers studying the process of monument-making,stone used in architecture, and the development of fonts.

The family papers series will be useful to researchers studying Carabelli genealogy and the family's involvement in both local and national social and civic organizations. Real estate transaction and lease information document the family's involvement in land ownership in Little Italy, Cleveland, Ohio. This series also documents Giuseppe (Joseph) Carabelli's service on the Ohio House of Representatives as the first Italian American elected to that body.

Photographs illustrate many subjects, including finished monuments and headstones, the process of carving and installing monuments, stone carvers, the Carabelli building on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, the Carabelli home in Little Italy, Cleveland, Ohio, and the Carabelli family. Some client files contain a photograph of their monument or headstone. Those studying the monuments art and the genealogy of the Carabelli family may be interested in these photographs.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

The researcher should also consult Pam. Z1970 Mayfield-Murray Hill District Council: 25 Years of Service, 1963-1988; PG 234 Wade Memorial Chapel Photographs; MS 3469 Theodore E. Burton Papers; and MS 5181 Early Settlers of the Western Reserve Records, 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.

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Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 5315 Carabelli Company Records and Photographs, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

Gift of Don Williams and Eleanor Carabelli Williams in 2011.

Processing Information

Processed by Lindsey Fischer, Tessa Lawson, Jessica Marra, Christine Borne, Hannah Kemp-Severence, and Pamela Dorazio Dean in 2014-2015.

Detailed Description of The Collection