Map and Spreadsheet

At the beginning of the semester, each student in the ‘Round Howard Street [Un]Class at the University of Akron was to select a year between 1930-1961 and find the people and businesses that were active on Howard Street during these select years. To do this, we went into the city directories for our select year and uploaded our findings into a spreadsheet. With our findings plugged into the spreadsheet we are able to recognize various patterns that show up with businesses and the people who lived on Howard Street. These patterns can show how long a business lasted or even if a business changed locations. This will be valuable to use as studies on Howard Street continue throughout the community.

In Spring 2025, Madelynne Smith expanded the spreadsheet to 1969, to show what changes the arrival of Innerbelt contruction brought to the neighborhood. Her essay, "Howard Street in Print: Stories Told Through Historical City Directories Analysis," highlights the insights that the spreadsheets makes possible, and her process essay explains her expansion of the spreadsheet.

The Innerbelt project, like many urban renewal projects happening in the United States at the time, intended to revitalize city neighborhoods and ease traffic conjestion, but also led to the dissolution of Black neighborhoods and business districts, as in the case of Howard Street. For more on urban renewal in the area, check out the UA UnClass's Disconnected Communities Storymaps, at https://storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/7a4903e213c5489999c473cad48f3aba. 

Looking at the spreadsheet, the top row across is the years in order. Then the left-hand column down is the street numbers down Howard Street. The spreadsheet is also divided up into three categories of Howard Street: N Howard East Side, N Howard West Side, and S Howard. With each of these sections of Howard Street, we have separate spreadsheet pages. There are separate tabs at the bottom of the page where users are able to toggle between the three different pages of the spreadsheet. Enjoy exploring over three decades worth of Howard Street history!