An Era of Change – Wooster Digital History Project

There is no simple way to describe Wooster in the 1960s and ‘70s. Wooster, like the rest of America in this period, would radiate with an ever-growing post-war economy and a vibrant city scene. Amid this prosperity, Wooster prepared to renovate its downtown area, hoping to attract new visitors. Not everyone was satisfied with the prosperity; those yearning for change made their voices heard. The ensuing debates were fierce in the community, but when the dust had settled, Wooster had been changed forever.

A Booming Economy

Freedlander’s storefront, which was built in 1966-1967. Courtesy of Wooster Special Collections, CCI Publishing Company, 2007.

The 1950s in America were characterized by the post-war economic boom and a shift towards suburbanization. After the war, young soldiers returning home from the war looked to settle down and buy homes, further supporting the economy. Wooster would have been one such location due to its distance from cities. The Wooster population jumped up by 3,000 from 1940 to 1950 and would continue to increase by another 5,000 by 1980.¹At this time, the four most important businesses in Wooster were Freedlander’s Department Store, The William Annat Corporation, Brenner Brothers, and Retzler’s True Value Hardware.²These businesses made up much of the thriving economy, but they would be outshined by a corporation that would soon achieve national recognition.

This corporation, located in Wooster in the post-war era, was the Wooster Rubber Company. In 1957, the company adopted its better-known name: Rubbermaid. By 1960, Rubbermaid employed over 1,000 workers and was in the process of constructing a new headquarters. When CEO Donald E. Noble retired in 1980, the company passed into Stanley C. Gault’s hands where the company would continue to prosper. Rubbermaid was crucial for the economic development of Wooster as both an employer and an investor in the city itself. Rubbermaid funded the construction of the Wayne Center for the Arts in 1983 along with the abandoned industrial property next-door, which was turned into a public park.³

The Flood of 1969

The 1969 Flood was the greatest natural disaster to face Wayne County and had long-lasting environmental and economic impacts.

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The Development of Downtown

A man taking care of a potted plant downtown, as a part of ongoing beautification efforts. Courtesy of Main Street Wooster.

Despite a generally booming economy, the sixties and seventies for Wooster’s downtown was a complicated period: a time of both revitalization and decline. The sixties saw the razing of several historical buildings, including the old city hall building, demolished in 1963, and the library’s Carnegie Building on the corner of Market and Larwill Street in 1965. In place of these demolished buildings, new enterprises sprung up in line with revitalization efforts at the time. The old town hall became a parking lot for businesses and a new library was constructed where the old one had stood.⁴Some felt that the demolition projects of the sixties “obscured or even destroyed pieces of the past in downtown Wooster.”⁵

For a time, it seemed that these older Wooster businesses would be threatened by the arrival of mall chains and other outside businesses. Seeking to change this, some in Wooster hoped to create a revitalization plan for the city. However, the revitalization efforts of the sixties quickly turned into a stalemate in the seventies as businesses, fearful of detrimental traffic patterns and abandoning Wooster’s charm, blocked the city’s plan for urban renewal.⁶Most notably, a 1975 plan to revitalize Wooster in the image of Holland, Michigan failed because of the protests of local business owners. ⁷ Plans for urban renewal projects would be frustrated until the mid to late eighties, moving towards larger efforts in the nineties, when the dreams of revitalization would finally come true.

Student Protest and the Vietnam War

Police officers confronting one of the four students who protested at the draft board in 1967. Courtesy of *The Wooster Voice*, 1967.

In the mid-twentieth century, the Cold War loomed large over Wooster. While the United States intensified its intervention in Vietnam throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, the war quickly became an issue of contention in the local community, as in the rest of America.⁸ For some, it was a matter of morality. Norman Morrison, a graduate of the College of Wooster, self-immolated in front of the Pentagon in 1965, protesting American involvement in Vietnam. The reactions to his death in Wooster, however, were mixed. Many questioned whether Morrison’s act of violence was really in line with his Quaker beliefs, but others wholeheartedly supported his actions.⁹

A courtroom sketch from the Draft Board Incident trial, courtesy of the *Wooster Voice*, 1967.

For others, they simply did what they saw as their patriotic duty in accepting the draft. When four College of Wooster students protested at the local draft board in 1967, tensions exploded. As the four students were arrested and jailed, townspeople from all sides of the debate made their voices heard in local newspapers. One man wrote to The Daily Record to express his belief that the sentences for the protestors were too tough. Another wrote that the court should not ‘spare the rod’ for the protestors. A third point of view questioned all sides of the debate, stating their fatigue for the whole thing.¹⁰

By 1970, agitation over Vietnam continued in Wooster, and seven students peacefully engaged with draftees in the Wooster American Red Cross building in May of that year. When the students were not punished, the local American Legion sent a letter the College asking for disciplinary measures¹¹. The College later issued a statement which included asking the students to apologize for their actions. While students at the College protested, young Woosterites often served bravely in Vietnam, demonstrating the complexity with which Wooster engaged in the Vietnam War.

Wooster Reacts to the Kent State Tragedy

The Kent State tragedy took place so close to the area that it sparked fear and outrage in students and community members alike.

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Civil Rights in Wooster

Pictured is Mark Denbeaux (top right), the founder of the College of Wooster chapter of the NAACP, at the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965. Although these mass movements were far away, many Wooster students and citizens participated. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

When President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, it was clear the efforts of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. had borne fruit, but the fight was not yet over. Progress would slow after 1964, but the struggle for civil rights continued in the country. Regional progress could be seen during the 1965 mayoral election when Clevelanders voted Carl Stokes into office, making him the first Black mayor of a major United States city. As the Civil Rights Movement progressed through the sixties and seventies on a national scale, Wooster also achieved its own successes.

In 1963, Virginia Blackwell, a Wooster native born in 1922, began working as a special education teacher in the Wooster City School District. She was the first Black teacher in the school’s history.¹² Equally as important, the Second Baptist Church, Wooster’s first historically Black church, was making strides towards civil rights action. Reverend Leroy Adams worked towards social justice as the church’s community worked against housing discrimination in Wooster.¹³One of the most damaging issues for the community was redlining; lenders would draw red lines around largely minority neighborhoods on maps and refuse to lend money to borrowers in these areas. ¹⁴ As residents of Wooster worked towards equality in their communities, those fighting for civil rights turned their attention to the struggles in the south, largely in connection with the local NAACP.

The Wooster/Orville NAACP would be established in the mid-sixties, and they would continue their work in addition to other projects. To some, Wooster may seem like an isolated community, but Wooster was actually connected to larger movements in America. Notably, Wooster residents took part in the Freedom Summer during 1964, when a mix of both College of Wooster students and Wooster residents headed to Mississippi to aid voter registration efforts.¹⁵The efforts of earlier Wooster residents to strive towards civil rights paved the way for the activism existing in the community today. As recently as 2020, a local chapter of the NAACP as well as a College NAACP existed and were active in Wooster.

The Formation of the Wooster NAACP

Learn about how the national NAACP, which was instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement, impacted the local community.

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There were two chapters of the NAACP established in Wooster. In 1963, Mark Denbeaux established a campus chapter at the College of Wooster, with the Wooster/Orville chapter following in 1965.¹⁶ Both iterations focused on education in the community, and the two also participated in several Civil Rights Era struggles, both in the South and in Wooster. While the College NAACP has disbanded and reformed several times over its existence, the local NAACP has stood strong for over fifty years. Both organizations would have a focus on education, and Denbeaux called for tutoring as the campus NAACP’s first priority.¹⁷The finest moment for either chapter came when Rosa Parks visited Wooster in 1989 with the help of the local NAACP and the event chairperson, Lydia Thompson.

Conclusion

There are few times in Wooster’s history when its complexity shined more than in this period. Though Wooster is sometimes portrayed as a small, isolated community, the national struggles of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War profoundly touched this region, as did the postwar economic boom. As in many other towns and cities, intense debates over the very future of American life took place in Wooster, as townspeople struggled to keep up with a rapidly changing world. No matter where one stood on the pressing issues of the day, it was clear that those living through the 60’s and 70’s would be immortalized in the minds of all who came after as the generation who changed Wooster forever.

Next: Wooster Today

For further reading:

1) Wayne County (OH) Wiki. “County Statistics.” Accessed June 3, 2021. https://wiki.wcpl.info/w/County_statistics.

2) Wooster Renewed: A Thirty Year Journey of Rediscovery. Wooster, OH: Main Street Wooster Incorporated, 2018.

3) “Rubbermaid Built from Dustpan to $32 Million Annual Business,” The Daily Record, April 28, 1964. See also: “Rubbermaid,” Wayne County Businesses L-R, Binder, WCPL Genealogy and Local History Department.

4) “Rubbermaid Breaks Ground for Plans, Voices Faith in Wooster.” Daily Record. Nov. 11, 1960. 12.

5) Donald E. Noble, Like Only Yesterday: The Memoirs of Donald E. Noble, (Wooster: The Wooster Book Company, 1996), 81. See also: “TE Rice Heads Concern Which Will Make Toy Balloons Here,” the Daily Record, Mar. 12, 1977.

6) The Daily Record. “FLOOD OF 1969.” Accessed June 3, 2021. https://www.the-daily-record.com/news/20190702/flood-of-1969.

7) Taylor, Elinor. “21 Area Lives Lost; Property Damage Runs Into Millions.” The Daily Record. July 22, 1969, Special Tabloid Edition.

8) USDA Soil Conservation Service, “Killbuck Creek Flood Hazard Study, Wayne County, OH,” USDA Soil Conservation Service: Columbus, Ohio, August 1982

9) Wayne County Public Library, Building on Tradition: Photographs of Downtown Wooster’s Past and Present.

10) Cayton, Andrew R. L. “The Good Life.” In OHIO: THE HISTORY OF A PEOPLE, 335-63. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002. Accessed July 19, 2021. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1ffpc68.15.

11) “Morrison’s Pacifist Beliefs Blamed“. The Wooster Daily Record, Nov. 4^th, 1965

12) “Letters to the Editor”. The Daily Record, Dec. 14^th, 1967

13) Griffith, Arthur. Letter to Garbor Drushal . “Letter Regarding the Wooster Red Cross Incident.” Wooster, Ohio: American Legion Post 68, May 29, 1970.

14) Morgan, Emily. “Model of Determination-Remembering Virginia.” The Daily Record. March 13, 2021.

13) Alma Kaufmann, “Wooster Negro Buys a Home – Ten Year Story Has a Happy Ending,” The Daily Record, July 13, 1964, “Dick Morrison Dies; An Era Ends,” The Daily Record, Oct. 11, 1977.

14) Alma Kaufmann, “Housing is Rated Number One Problem of Wooster’s Negroes,” The Daily Record, July 11, 1964.

15) Lawrence Walker, Recollections of Wooster-Orrville NAACP History.

16) The Wooster Daily Record, Feb. 5^th, 1969.