Inventory of the Inventory of the C. Nelson Sparks Papers, 1899-1949

Biography of Biography or History

Charles Nelson Sparks was born on July 21, 1882 in Columbus, Ohio to Edward Sparks and Bell S. Akin. When the Spanish-American War began, he enlisted with the Ohio volunteers and served in Cuba. Sparks later enlisted in the regular army and served in the 43rd Infantry during the resulting Philippine Insurrection, also known as the Philippine-American War. Sparks saw action in Tacloban, Leyte, and other areas of the Philippine Islands. After the war he served for several years in Mexico. His postwar activities included working with a mining company in West Virginia and a logging company and plantation in Mexico before returning to Ohio to run a stock farm in the southern part of the state. Sparks first came to Akron in 1914 as secretary of the Ohio Home Rule Association, an organization of brewers who were opposed to the growing calls for prohibition. In 1920, Sparks began his public service career when he became Safety Director of Akron. The following year Sparks was appointed Postmaster of Akron and served in this position until 1926 when he resigned to go into the insurance and bonding business. During the 1931 election, Akron war veterans, which formed the “fighting arm” of his campaign, won Sparks the nomination, and ultimately, the mayor’s office. Sparks’ two years as mayor were characterized by spending cuts, fighting local corruption, gas price inflation, and attacks against organized labor. Sparks’ late decision to run for re-election in 1933, after the primaries, was blocked by the Ohio Supreme Court, and therefore, he returned to his insurance business after his term expired. Sparks did not stay out of politics for long, however, and ran for governor of Ohio in the 1934 election. His gubernatorial run for the Republican primary was marked by debates and quarrels with the Ohio Republican party establishment. Sparks distinguished himself from the other candidates as a politician who was not susceptible to corruption. This was not enough to sway the voters, however, and Sparks failed to receive the nomination. Nevertheless, Sparks remained active in politics through the years, giving speeches to various political organizations. During Akron’s first major rubber strike, at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in the winter of 1936, Sparks led the back-to-work movement to break the lockout and organized a vigilante organization called the Law and Order League, which was denounced by Akron’s newspapers. Sparks claimed that the strike was instigated by Communists and condemned public officials for not driving the so-called “radicals” out of town. The movement failed, however, and Sparks found his political and public career at an end. Two years later he wrote an article titled “Why Akron is a Ghost City: How Strikes Brought Ruin,” which was published in the September 1938 issue of Liberty Magazine. In the article, Sparks predicted that Akron would be ruined by labor unions. In 1940 Sparks served as campaign manager for Republican presidential candidate Frank Gannett, a publisher from Rochester, New York and founder of the media corporation Gannett Company. However, Gannett failed to receive the nomination, losing to Akron attorney, activist, and former Democrat Wendell Willkie. In 1943, Sparks wrote the book One Man, Wendell Willkie. In the book Sparks attacked the international philosophy advocated by Willkie in his book One World. Sparks retired from public life in 1948 and died November 22, 1950 at the age of 69. He was buried in Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio. He was survived by his wife, Grace Pugh, whom he married on June 18, 1921, and son, Andrew. Upon his passing, Akron Beacon Journal editor Ray C. Sutliff called Sparks, “One of the shrewdest, most forceful and most colorful men to flit across the political scene in this part of the country.”

Scope and Content

The C. Nelson Sparks Papers cover the years 1899 to 1949. The papers contain transcripts of speeches, photographs, correspondence, and scrapbooks relating to Sparks’ military service, term as mayor of Akron, gubernatorial campaign, and later political activities in the late 1930s. A small portion of the collection details Sparks’ business ventures over the years, and there is some material on his early political career, as Safety Director of Akron from 1920-1921 and Postmaster from 1921-1927. However, most of the collection consists of scrapbooks, which are organized in chronological order, including one containing newspaper clippings and documents related to Sparks’ time as mayor, providing a thorough account of his policies and agenda. Another scrapbook documents Sparks’ attempt to gain the Republican nomination in the Ohio gubernatorial race of 1934. An additional scrapbook contains materials on Sparks’ military service including letters, telegrams, manifests, newspaper clippings, notes, reports, and orders of the 43rd Infantry dating from 1899-1901. The papers would be of value for the study of United States military activity in the Philippines, Sparks’ service as mayor, and the political climate of Akron during the 1930s and ‘40s

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Use

Copyright restrictions may apply. Permission to reproduce or publish materials in this collection must be secured in writing from Archives & Special Collections, University Libraries, The University of Akron.

Restrictions on Access

No restrictions on access; except not available through interlibrary loan

City of Akron, Office of the Mayor, John S. Ballard Records, 1954-1979 City of Akron, Office of the Mayor, Roy L. Ray Records, 1979-1984 City of Akron, Office of the Mayor, Thomas C. Sawyer Records, 1983-1986 Roy L. Ray Papers, 1978-1995 William T. Sawyer Family Papers, 1832-1981

Indexing Terms

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

Persons:

Preferred Citation

[Identification of Item], C. Nelson Sparks Papers, Archives & Special Collections, University Libraries, The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio.

Acquisition Information

The collection was donated to The University of Akron by Hilary Sparks-Roberts, 2020

Processing Information

Processed by Matthew Fisk, Library Specialist, February 2023. Encoded by Jennifer Davis, Library Specialist, April 2023.

Detailed Description of The Collection