If you travel to the fifth floor of the Carlson Library at the University of Toledo, you may find it very quiet. However, if you investigate further, there is one aspect of the floor that is particularly loud and noticeable: its connection to local history.
The fifth floor of the Carlson Library is home to the Carl Joseph Memorial Library Collection and Reading Commons. Created in 2013, it features three study alcoves with local history displays and over 2,300 books. The collection highlights subjects such as American history, political theory, war and peace, social justice and the labor movement, all which were important topics to Joseph.
“[Carl Joseph’s] family approached the university with a foundation…they set up an endowment in his name, and they requested that we purchase books related to history and social justice,” David Remaklus, director of operations at the Carlson Library, said. “So that’s how this collection started.”
So, who exactly was Carl Joseph? To find out, just pick up a book from the collection; each book includes a small autobiography on Joseph. A permanent exhibit of his life featuring primary documents connected to his time at the University of Toledo is present on the fifth floor as well.
“Carl Joseph was a student here…he was actually enrolled in UT a couple of times, not long after he got out of high school and then back later, about 1941,” Remaklus said. “He was definitely always involved in social justice issues. He got involved at a very early time in his life with the labor movement.”
Sara Mouch, an archivist at the Carlson Library, provides additional background. “In his very short life, [Joseph] was very much involved in politics and labor. He was a labor leader and participated in the Auto-Lite strike, which is where he got arrested.”
The Auto-Lite strike was one of the most significant labor strikes in United States history. Occuring in Toledo, Ohio in 1934 during the middle of the Great Depression, unionized workers dissatisfied with unfair treatment demanded higher wages and better working conditions which led to a five-day long, violent battle between strikers and the Ohio National Guard. On a local level, the strike’s success led to increased wages for workers and widespread unionization across the city. On a national level, the strike led to further organizing of workers in other industries and inspired labor reform across the country.
Joseph’s arrest at the Auto-Lite strike did little to slow down his activism. Having grown up in a diverse neighborhood in North Toledo, he was committed to the idea of equality for all races and peoples and was very outspoken about his beliefs. While Joseph would be considered progressive today, his beliefs and activism garnered a negative reputation at the time.
“People were accusing him of being a communist…he always was very interested in equality and making sure workers were treated fairly,” Remaklus said. “It was at a time in history when people were being accused of being communists just based on their ideology.”
Joseph’s actions and progressive viewpoints made it difficult to be readmitted to the university when he applied in 1941. Raymond L. Carter, the dean of students at the time, opposed his readmittance in a letter to university president Philip C. Nash.
“This is how [Carter] describes [Joseph],” Mouch says. “He is an avowed communist and troublemaker at Waite High School…transferred to Woodward High School, where he was suspended for his radical activities…arrested and jailed in the Auto-Lite strike…not being permitted to represent the university on the debate team because he refused to take directions…left the university, but returned after several years and used his class discussion to air his radical viewpoints.”
Despite the letter, Joseph was readmitted to the University of Toledo. While there, he developed a friendship with President Nash. Like Joseph, Nash was also committed to fighting inequality — he founded the Toledo Organization for Peace and worked for the League of Nations Organization. When Joseph left the University of Toledo for military deployment in 1943, he and Nash began exchanging letters. These letters have become a collection at the Carlson Library called the Philip Nash Papers, donated to the University by the Nash family.
“It mostly has to do with Philip Nash’s career and family…this was originally donated in ‘87, and there was an addition donated in ‘98,” Mouch said. “The letters, as you can see, they’re on V-Mail…I see about three or four letters in here. So these letters were strictly during his deployment.”
While deployed, Joseph would unfortunately pass away on the eve of D-Day after parachuting behind enemy lines; he was only 27. However, his legacy at the University of Toledo began even before the library collection in his honor was created. Joseph was an avid reader and consumer of knowledge, so while deployed, he sent books he bought in Europe back to the University of Toledo as donations. These books are separate from the Carl Joseph Memorial Library collection and are housed on the fifth floor of the Carlson Library in Ward M. Canaday Center’s rare books room.
Years later, the Carl Joseph Memorial Library Collection and Reading Commons began to take shape after receiving an endowment from the Joseph family. While new books were continually being bought and added to the collection, study alcoves with local history features were also being planned and developed. The study alcoves also focused on topics connected to Joseph’s life.
“I have read through the letters, and when I built those spaces like the Auto-Lite room or the World War II space, I would refer back to those letters and try to learn what I could to help build those areas,” Remaklus said. “So [the Auto-Lite strike] area was built because he was arrested in that strike, and that was an important part of his life. The World War II one was for obvious reasons, but we focused in that space on women in the workforce, so you’ll see a lot of Rosie the Riveter in there. And then that World War II Jeep that I have mounted on the wall back there, I looked up what Carl Joseph’s unit number was, and that’s what’s painted on the bumper of that Jeep.”
Though the endowment given to the Carlson Library is no longer able to fund it, the Carl Joseph Memorial Library Collection and Reading Commons continue to expand. New books continue to be added, and a fourth study alcove has been planned. A major reason why the Carlson Library has continued to invest in it is to spread local history, believing that having spaces showcasing local history allows students to understand how people and events have shaped the identity of various places and to gain a greater attachment to those places. The Carl Joseph Memorial Library Collection and Reading Commons and the exhibit on Carl Joseph’s life are just a few examples of local history present at the University of Toledo.
“The Canaday Center is home to university archives, but it’s also home to our manuscript collections, and our manuscript collections are essentially local history,” Mouch said. “It is because of archives repositories like us that you find these sorts of little gems because you have to create a home for things that have permanent value…once you know that these exist and how to search them, there’s a whole lot to discover. It’s important to our identity as residents of the area.”
“People outside this area come to this university to see what the history of the city is or was…when you come into the library, you want it to really be something special,” Remaklus said. “We want to engage our students, we want to educate our students…we try to do that throughout the whole building. There’s so much more we want to do in the library to showcase other aspects of Toledo’s history. I think we do a good job of it in the library to showcase that, and I hope we continue to do that.”