Now located on the mezzanine level of historic Union Terminal’s Museum Center, the Cincinnati History Library and Archives has been collecting and preserving materials since 1831. One of the most significant regional history collections in the United States, the CHLA’s resources focus on the Greater Cincinnati area, the state of Ohio and the Old Northwest Territory.
The CHLA collections include:
- Printed works (books, newspapers, pamphlets, maps and broadsides),
- Manuscripts (thousands of letters, diaries, scrapbooks, speeches, records of local organizations),
- Photographs (more than 800,000 photos from daguerreotypes as early as the 1840s, including the unique collection of portraits from renowned African American photographer J.P. Ball, and thousands of photographs documenting the demolition of housing in the once vibrant Kenyon-Barr neighborhood in Cincinnati’s West End), and
- Film (approximately 6 million feet of film – news broadcasts, documentaries, educational programming, even locally made commercials and a few home movies).
The Cincinnati History Library & Archives can be an especially helpful resource for genealogists. Whether you are looking for a historical atlas showing where an ancestor lived in the 19th century, the diary of a Civil War soldier, or catalogs published by the tannery where your great grandfather worked, the library is an important stop on your research journey.
Students, authors, historians and genealogists visit the library most often, but the general public is encouraged to take advantage of the collections as well. The library is free and open to the public by appointment only on Thursday and Friday from noon – 4:00 p.m.
