Queens of Queen City

01/24/2026

08/21/2025

A representative sample of the Stand-Up History crew dropped by Cincinnati Public Radio this afternoon for a chat with our friend Lucy May. You can listen in to our shenanigans here: https://www.wvxu.org/show/cincinnati-edition/2025-08-19/stand-up-history-greg-hand-molly-wellman-dean-regas

07/26/2025

Come and find out! I'll be talking about her all day Saturday and Sunday and will be featuring her on Sunday. I'll make it kid-friendly with fairy poems and little girls tea parties. But also relevant to adults, like cartoons often do. So did this author, who wrote "children's poems" with a second layer for adults- a far deeper message.

Who is this lady that was painted on the library ceiling at Mac-O-Chee Castle? Learn the answer TOMORROW from @ Professor Elizabeth Renker who is currently writing a biography about this lady and her husband, both of whom are Piatt family members and published poets.

This is only one of many activities at our Kaleidoscope of Experiences, which runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. To see a full schedule go to www.piattcastle.org/events or visit https://www.facebook.com/share/1BxkuHWMdc/.

*This FREE event is funded in part by the America 250-Ohio Commission with additional support from The Columbus Foundation, McCarthy & Cox Retirement & Estate Specialists, and Peoples Savings and Loan Co.

04/13/2025

Happy 180th birthday to the first public telescope in the U.S., the telescope our beloved Louisa Mitchel viewed Neptune, the first American to do so.

02/21/2025

Hattie Walker (right) was the first African American Librarian to work for the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. She was the first head Librarian at the Stowe Branch Library in the West End, located in the Harriet Beecher Stowe School for Colored Children, which opened in 1923 along with the school.

Mrs. Walker tailored the Library’s collection and services to the predominantly African American community it served. There were pictures of African American educators, sociologists, and scientists hung on the branch’s walls, including Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.

Mrs. Walker felt that African American students weren’t informed about the accomplishments of their race, so she curated works by African American authors and about African American history and culture for the branch. Every year, Mrs. Walker helped students further their studies when neighboring schools celebrated “Negro History Week.” Since many of the Stowe Branch’s adult customers migrated from poor areas in the south and weren’t able to attend school, Mrs. Walker also taught reading classes for adult customers.

After serving the Library for 27 years, Mrs. Walker retired in 1948. Upon her retirement, Carl Vitz, the Library’s director at the time, said that Mrs. Walker “made a real contribution to the work of the Library and I believe also to in*******al understanding.”

Mrs. Walker died in 1972 at the age of 94.

11/20/2024

Congratulations!