Websites: 

Boorom, L. (2009). INCLINES OF CINCINNATI. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~ohhamilt/picsinclines.html 

This article includes brief descriptions of all five inclines. The section focusing on the Mt. Adams incline has details on its final years in use and the date of its closure. The overview and introduction to the inclines is taken from a history of Cincinnati published in 1904. I have been able to find this source and more information about the inclines and it will be listed later in this bibliography. 

This source has valuable information about the final years of the Mt. Adams incline. There are photos and postcards included as well, and a few are unique and not found in other sources. There is some information about the Mt. Adams incline during the 1930s that has not been noted in other sources so far.  

Cincinnati Funiculars « The Gondola Project. (2009, December 7). https://www.gondolaproject.com/2009/12/07/cincinnati-funiculars/ 

This article explains the difference between the Cincinnati inclines and traditional funiculars, another term for inclined railways. Ther website is put together by a team focused on city planning and mass transit. The Gondola Project specifically focuses on cable propelled transit. 

The information here is useful in understanding inclines, funiculars, as a whole. It confirms information about the Cincinnati inclines that has been mentioned in other sources as well. 

Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library Genealogy & Local History Department Welch, Kevin (Digital Services) Williams, Sara (Reference Librarian). (2023). Cincinnati’s Inclined Plane Railroads. Cincinnati Public Library. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/223dd8e4ebcf40a899449a0b46905553 

This source is quite fantastic. Not only does it provide a brief overview of the incline era in Cincinnati, but it also goes into depth about each of the five inclines, providing pictures and historical information on each of them. They even include a modern street map detailing the location and path of each of the inclines.  

The source was put together by the Cincinnati Public Library’s Genealogy and Local History Department through an interesting tool called ArcGIS StoryMaps. I really like this tool and the way it is interactive in some ways. If it were not an almost $800 yearly subscription, I would consider using it for my final project.  

I plan to use the map either overlayed on a satellite image or on its own to represent the locations of the five inclines. The information about the Mt. Adams incline will be useful as will the general overview of the time period. 

Collins, C. (2011, June 3). Council Member wants to look into modern inclines for Cincinnati. https://www.fox19.com. https://www.fox19.com/story/14829973/council-member-wants-to-look-into-modern-inclines-for-cincinnati/ 

This is a really short article with a few images of the inclines. It mentions that a city council member wanted to look at building a new incline to connect the quickly growing Over the Rhine neighborhood to the Mt. Adams neighborhood. The motion will be addressed to the budget and finance committee later in the week. 

Since this article is so extremely short, there is not a ton of useful information here. I would like to look into what happened with this budget proposal and see what the outcome was. It is relevant to the focus of this project as the proposal is to put an incline in place going up to Mt. Adams once again. 

Enquirer, J. S. (2017, March 3). Inclines helped the city spread out. Cincinnati. https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2017/03/03/inclines-helped-city-spread-out/98577752/ 

This article focuses on the early history of the inclines. The article includes quotes from contemporary newspapers detailing the way the inclines made the hilltops inaccessible to non-wealthy folk. A tragic incident involving the Mt. Auburn incline and the death of six passengers is briefly mentioned, and it might be something to look into, though in other sources I have seen that there was only one deadly accident involving the inclines over the time they were in operation.  

Mostly this article focused on the Mt. Auburn incline as it was the first to be put in use. The Mt. Adams incline and the other three are briefly mentioned, though this article will mostly be useful in providing more of the information to help contextualize the early history of the inclines.  

Dodd, M. (2020, January 31). Mt. Adams Incline | Entertrainment junction. Entertrainment Junction. https://entertrainmentjunction.com/mt-adams-incline/ 

Entertrainment Junction is the world's largest model train layout built and operated by a local train enthusiast. This page on their website includes information about the scale model of the Mt. Adams Incline that they have on display in their West Chester location just outside of Cincinnati. The page also includes some footage of the Mt. Adams incline in operation along with a photo of the incline itself and a photo of the scale model.  

Hand, G. (2020, September 15). 16 Curious Facts About Cincinnati’s Lost Incline. Cincinnati Magazine. https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/16-curious-facts-about-cincinnatis-lost-inclines/ 

This article has a collection of facts about Cincinnati’s inclines. They contain, as the title suggests, lesser-known facts about the inclines.  

This source provides a jumping off point for some of the smaller details of the timeline. There is specific information about the Mt. Adams incline, which is the central focus of this project, but the inclusion of information about the other inclines helps to paint a more vivid and lively picture of the incline era in the city.

The history behind the Mt. Adams Steps Pathway Historical Marker. (2023, February 4). https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=187231 

This is a digitation of a historical information plaque that can be found in the neighborhood of Mt. Adams. The plaque provides insight into the Mt. Adams neighborhood from its creation in the 1830s to the boom in the 1870s that came with the building of the incline. There are some images on the plaque that are related to the incline and the associated Highland House resort, but most have to do with the steps leading to the Church of the Immaculate Conception. 

incline. (n.d.). Incline. https://notetaker.typepad.com/incline/ 

This website is older and is run by the prior owner of the Mt. Adams Incline Model before it was acquired by Entertrainment Junction. There are detailed photos of the model that one can match up with photos of the Mt. Adams incline because of the immense detail that was put into the surrounding buildings. The links all appear to be broken at this point.  

Inclines & Cable Cars. (2023). Cincinnati Views. https://www.cincinnativiews.net/cablecarsinclines.html 

This website is a collection of images related to the Cincinnati inclines. There is a brief introduction to the inclines, then the page is divided into sections focused on each of the inclines. The Mt. Adams incline section includes maps of the route, postcards, photographs, mechanical drawings, and tickets. Not all the images have labeling or captions due to some being labeled in large groups, such as post cards. This article contains some details on the operation and mechanics of the incline. It also includes images and information about the Highland House, a resort at the top of the incline intended to attract tourism.  

There is so much useful information here. The information about the operation of the incline along with the diagrams and photographs are helpful in articulating this aspect of the project. This website has another page devoted to the history of Mt. Adams which will come in handy creating a more detailed timeline of the Mt. Adams incline. 

Klinedinst, T. (2021, September 9). Going up? Cincinnati’s inclines and topography. Cincinnati’s Geology. https://cincigeology.wordpress.com/2021/09/09/going-up-cincinnatis-inclines-and-topography/ 

This website is devoted to examining the various ways the geography and topography of the Cincinnati region shaped the development of the city and surrounding areas. The article Going up? Cincinnati’s inclines and topography talks about the need for expansion that drove the development of the five inclines and how the inclines are a driving factor for the development of the suburbs. The article also discusses the way the inclines and the spreading out of the city exasperated wealth inequality in the city due to the fares being expensive and the pricy resorts on the hilltops preventing some people from moving up and out of the densely populated basis the city resides in. 

Though this article does not focus on Mt. Adams in any specific way, information about the social implications of the inclines is unique to this source. There is also another map indicating the locations and paths of the inclines. 

Mapping Cincinnati’s Five Historic, Long-Gone Inclines. (2019, January 1). Cincinnati Refined. https://cincinnatirefined.com/travel/cincinnati-inclines-mt-auburn-mt-adams-price-hill-fairview-bellevue-streetcar-history?photo=1 

This is a gallery of images, historic and modern, put together by a local news website. Each image includes a caption with details about the specific image along with a more general history of each of the five inclines. All the images are credited to the creator or source organization. The only criticism I have of this website is that it is difficult to read the entire captions on a computer as it is formatted for cell phones.  

The gallery contains eleven images (images 10-21) specifically of the Mt. Adams incline and related attractions. This includes information on the resort located at the top of the incline and images that have not shown up in other sources at this time. 

Matthew Skiba. (2022, December 3). The Abandoned Cincinnati Inclines (Cincinnati, Ohio) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IExbyjPcz6I 

This video provides much of the same information as other sources, detailing the dates of operation for each of the inclines and some of the noteworthy facts about each. Some detail is given to describing the deadly accident involving the Mt. Auburn incline. The whole video has great drone footage of the locations of the five inclines, and in many you can still see some of the support structures. This channel showcases abandoned and forgotten structures of Cincinnati, with the creator doing historical research into the buildings and structures being shown.  

Mount Adams - history - cincy.com. (2013). http://cincy.com/home/neighborhoods/parms/1/hood/mount-adams/page/history.html 

This article contains similar information to what was provided in the eighth source on this list; however, this article goes into more detail about the events and individuals involved about Mt. Adams. The article covers the neighborhood from the 1800s t0 the 1970s and provides some links for further reading.  

Mt. Adams Historical Marker. (2023, February 4). https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=113324 

This is a digitation of a historical marker found in the neightborhood of Mt. Adams. It notes some of the most famous structures and buildings in the area, and it talks about the origianl owner of the land that would become Mt. Adams. 

Books:

Kramer, M. (2006). The Inclines of Cincinnati [Paper]. Arcadia Publishing. 

Suess, J. (2015). Lost Cincinnati [Paper]. The History Press.

Primary Documents:

Briol, P. (1937). Incline in Mt. Adams [Photograph]. Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America. Collection Number: SC#21. Image ID: SC#21-4173. 

This image shows one of the cars moving along the incline. It appears to be during the winter months. Briol signed and titled the photograph on the image, and there is a watermark for the Cincinnati Museum Center in the bottom left corner.  

Limke, A. (2019). This Rare Footage in the 1930s Shows Cincinnati Like You’ve Never Seen Before. OnlyInYourState®. https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/ohio/cincinnati/historic-footage-mt-adams-incline-cincinnati/ 

This short one-and-a-half-minute clip shows footage of the Mt. Adams incline in action from the 1930s. The short voice over explains in quite simple terms how the inclines worked. 

Ohio Federal Writers’ Project. (1937). They Built a City: 150 Years of Industrial Cincinnati [Digital]. Cincinnati Post. https://digital.cincinnatilibrary.org/digital/collection/p16998coll15/id/465543/rec/2 

From pages 42-45, this section of the book details the transition from horse cars to stream powered inclines and street cars to electric street cars. The section also talks about cable cars, similar to inclines but different in that they do not have a counterbalance car. 

Rombach & Groene. (1900). Main Street Incline, Mt. Auburn [Photograph]. Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States of America. Collection Number: SC#296. Image ID: SC#296-822. 

This image shows the Mt. Auburn incline ascending Main Street from the foot of the inline. Two men can be seen standing on the platform near the car. The logo for the Cincinnati Museum Center can be seen in the bottom left corner. 

White, J. H., Jr. (1956). Mount Adams & Eden Park Inclined Railway: “The Kerper Road.” In Cincinnati Museum Center Public Archive (V. 17, No. 4, Pg 242-276). Bulletin of Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio. 

White, J. H., Jr. (1969). The Cincinnati Inclined Plane Railway Company: The Mount Auburn Incline and the Lookout House. In Cincinnati Museum Center Public Archive (V. 1, No. 1, Pg 6-23). Bulletin of Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio.