File - The Tystenac
Transcription
File - The Tystenac
Non-Profit Organization Permit 37 U. S. Postage PAI D Tiffin, Ohio Written and edited by and for the students of TIFFIN UNIVERSITY 155 MIAMI STREET TIFFIN, OHIO 44883 APRIL 18, 2016 Nearby building once the premier “palace of pleasure” by NICK BUCHANAN Editor Martha Nisonger didn’t fit the archetype of a woman by the standards of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She owned property. She was a successful businesswoman. She had a child out of wedlock. She smudged details of her own government documents. She regularly sat in the defendant’s seat in the Seneca County Common Pleas Court. She spent some time in jail. Oh, and she was the proprietress of the Hotel Berlin, Tiffin’s premier “palace of pleasure.” Better known as Mattie, Nisonger began her reign as the grand madam of town soon after her arrival in Tiffin in the late 1880s. A Seneca County historical publication titled Drinkers & Winkers states that she opened the Hotel Mansfield on Tilden Street, near Heidelberg University, in a former pottery workshop around 1888. The publication, compiled and written by Lisa Swickard and Tricia Valentine, cites police reports confirming the Hotel Mansfield as Nisonger’s first house of ill-fame. She transformed her home on the adjacent Railroad Street into a satellite brothel as well. The late Myron Barnes, who was connected to the Seneca County Historical Museum in the mid1970s, said in the Dec. 31, 1975 issue of the Seneca Sentinel that the Hotel Mansfield was “remembered by ancient people, as having green walls and green doors, and a red light above the door.” Those who Mattie Nisonger’s Hotel Berlin still stands empty at 36 Hudson St., less than half a mile from Tiffin University and a block away from the Viaduct Bar and Grill. photo by NICK BUCHANAN remembered it knew it as a “noisy place with a piano.” Barnes also wrote that Nisonger had a husband who was involved in the business and was killed in a knife fight at the Hotel Mansfield, although that claim is not supported by available documents. Drinkers & Winkers reports that a search for marriage records between Mattie and a John Nisonger returned no results and that no police reports exist on the supposed knife fight. A copy of her death certificate printed in Drinkers & Winkers lists her as a widow and a John Nisonger as both her husband and her father – awkward. The Hotel Berlin structure com- missioned by Nisonger was not recorded until 1896 on Sanborn Insurance maps, according to a manuscript written by Denise Legron that was found in the Seneca County Museum prostitution file. Upon its construction, she moved her business to the Hotel Berlin at 36 Hudson St., a prime location sitting along the railroad. A digital archive of the 1901 book Ohio Criminal Law and Practice: A Practical Treatise, with Directions and Forms by Jay Ford Laning reveals lenient punishments for people like Nisonger: “the keeper of such houses of ill-fame [or] prostitution … shall upon conviction thereof be fined not less than one [dollar] nor more than three hundred dollars or imprisoned in the workhouse or county jail not less than ninety days nor more than six months or both.” However, a law passed in 1894, dubbed the Winn Law, targeted brothels. It declares that a building could be deemed as house of illfame if it was “generally reputed in the neighborhood … to be a building or place where persons of opposite sex meet for the purpose of prostitution” and that “the sale, exchange or giving away of intoxicating liquors in brothels … is hereby prohibited,” as outlined in Laning’s book. continued on page 7 THE THROWBACK ISSUE While our 83-year history here at The Tystenac is a bit rocky, with some name changes and publication hiatuses blurring some details of our past, we know that the past helps shape our present and our future. In fact, when we rebranded the student press to The Tystenac once again last fall, we did so to embrace our past while writing our future as an online and print publication. Staff members at The Tystenac have been hard at work, writing historical feature articles over famous journalists and interesting local history as part of their history of American journalism course. This issue, designed to pay homage to the 1970s layout of our publication, is checkered with these features. Pay good attention to them; we promise they’re not as boring as a baseline history course, but they’re arguably more insightful than one. After all, you’ll learn about prostitutes, serial killers, and kidnapped babies, among many other things, from this paper. When did your high school history teacher ever tell you about all of this? WANT MORE CONTENT? VISIT TUTYSTENAC.COM THE TYSTENAC, APRIL 18, 2016, PAGE 2 Investigative journalist Nellie Bly’s legacy still relevant by NICK BUCHANAN Editor In the second season of FX’s American Horror Story, viewers are introduced to Lana Winters, a journalist on a mission to rise above the trivial matters she was normally assigned. She finds her way into Briarcliff Manor, a former tuberculosis ward and crematorium that has been turned into a Catholicism-associated insane asylum, to uncover inhumane practices and the legend of murderer Bloody Face. When the administrator realizes these plans, she holds Winters at the asylum as a patient under the false pretenses. Throughout the series, Winters realizes the wrongdoings of the institution, discovers the real Bloody Face through some unfortunate events, and escapes in order to break the news immediately. She films an exposé piece and publishes a popular memoir over her time at Briarcliff and with the infamous murderer. While the story has been inflated with murder, rape, and no-good nuns to make for good television, few people realize that the basis of Lana Winters’ character is not far from the real-life story of investigative journalist Nellie Bly. Born Elizabeth Cochran in 1864, Bly entered the field in Pittsburg in 1885 with only a high school education. Within two years after her career’s start, she was employed by the New York World, a once-failing publication that made a rebound after Joseph Pulitzer took its reins in 1883. The Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia states that under Pulitzer’s direction, the World boasted daily circulation counts of nearly 15 million by 1898 – a substantial growth from the 150,000 it sold every day in 1883. The World was the largest newspaper in New York City for a period of time in the late 1800s in part because of its sensationalized appeal to immigrants and the lower class; W. Joseph Campbell and George Everett, contributing authors to The Media in America, argue that it “became the trendsetter, the paper others imitated.” In fact, Campbell and Everett suggest that Pulitzer’s biggest competition, William Hearst and his New York Journal, mastered Putilzer’s sensationalized ways and used his own tactics against him. While the era of yellow journalism is often slammed with negative connotations due to its inflations and baroque paper designs in the name of higher circulation numbers, it laid the foundation for a popular style of reporting that we know today as investigative journalism. Bly inadvertently became a forerunner of the genre when she went undercover to gather material for a World-exclusive exposé – a type of story that, as stated in the Feb. 21, 1901 issue of trade journal The Newspapermaker, was regarded as a “stunt in the name of public service” in its peak popularity. For her first of many “stunts,” an editor assigned Bly to expose the wrongdoings and inhumane practices of Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum, located on what is now known as New York City’s Roosevelt Island, in 1887. She feigned insanity and was admitted to the institution, where she stayed for 10 days to investigate conditions. After discharge, she published a series of articles in the World, which were then bound into a book titled Ten Days in a Mad-House. A digital transcript of the book made available through the University of Pennsylvania details the living conditions in the asylum. The patients fought over dinner, composed of “dirty, black” bread, five rotten prunes, and tea that “tasted as if it had been made in copper.” Given in front of fellow patients before bedtime, baths were so cold that Bly said, “My teeth chattered and my limbs were goose-fleshed and blue with cold.” Women were then laid to bed wet and cold in sheer flannel tops. Nurses were mean-spirited and often taunted patients to the point of Nellie Bly became a pioneer in journalism during a time period in which less than 5 percent of workers in the field were female. photo by H.J. MYERS; public domain under the Library of Congress tears; on one occasion, they made one young woman cry for their own entertainment, but when she would not stop crying, “they began to scold and tell her to keep quiet. She grew more hysterical every moment until they pounced upon her and slapped her face and knocked her head in a lively fashion.” She still wasn’t silenced, so the nurses choked her and dragged her into a closet. continued on page 3 Famous pilot entangled in an infamous crime by ALESHA SMITH Staff writer Charles Lindbergh was once known for his famous nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic, but five years later he became known for the crime of the century when his 20-month-old son was kidnapped and murdered. Lindbergh was 25 years old when he made his famous flight across the Atlantic on May 20, 1927. He took off from Long Island New York and traveled 3,500 miles. He landed in Paris, France thirty-three and a half hours later. Lindbergh took on this adventure because he heard about the $25,000 prize that would be awarded to whomever could make the flight from New York to Paris. Throughout his adventures, he endured bad weather multiple times but successfully made it to Paris and won the Orteig Prize. He not only won the Orteig Prize of $25,000, but also was awarded the Legion of Honor by the president of France, and once he got back to America, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by President Coolidge. Once he ar- Charles Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris by himself in 1927. photo copyright JOHN NOBLE under the Library of Congress rived in New York, the late mayor Jimmy Walker awarded him New York’s Medal of Valor. In 1929, he received his final and highest medal, the Congressional Medal of Honor, from President Coolidge. Charles’ fame didn’t stop after he made it home; he was later sponsored by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund to do a three month tour through the United States in his plane, Spirit of St. Louis. According to the Spirit of St. Louis 2 Project, Lindbergh visit- ed 49 states and 92 cities, gave 147 speeches, and traveled 1,290 miles in parades. After his tour ended, he headed back to New York and soon met his future wife, Anne Morrow, daughter of Ambassador Dwight Morrow. Lindbergh married her on May 27, 1929. While they experienced many great fortunes, they would soon become known for their first misfortune after their first born son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped on March 1, 1932. What seemed like any ordinary evening in the Lindbergh household would soon turn into one of their worst nightmares. The Lindberghs had put their 20-month old son, Charles Jr. to bed and left him to the care of his nurse, Betty Gow. When Gow went to check on Charles Jr. at 10 p.m., she discovered that he was missing, so the Lindberghs notified the Hopewell police. According to the FBI, after the Hopewell police searched the premises, a ransom note was found demanding $50,000 on the nursery windowsill. After the discovery of the ransom note, the investigation of the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby was handed over to the New Jersey State Police. On March 6, 1932, a second ransom note was given to Lindbergh and it demanded an increased amount of $70,000. Lindbergh’s attorney, Colonel Henry Breckenridge, hired multiple private investigators to find the Lindberghs’ missing child. Two days later, Breckenridge received a third ransom note, which according to the FBI, stated that an intermediary would not be accepted and wanted a note in the newspaper. continued on page 5 THE TYSTENAC, APRIL 18, 2016, PAGE 3 The Rosa Parks of the Progressive Era by ALEXANDRIA COLEMAN Staff writer A well-known African-American woman activist, Ida B. Wells, was the Rosa Parks of the Progressive Era who rose to fame fighting Jim Crow laws. In 1884 Wells began her fight for racial and gender justice in Memphis when she was asked by the conductor of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company to give up her seat for a white man. Even though the 1875 Civil Rights Act banned discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or color in theaters, hotels, transports, and other accommodations, most Caucasians still wanted segregation. Wells wrote in her autobiography of her experience: “I refused, saying that the forward car [closest to the locomotive] was a smoker, and as I was in the ladies’ car, I proposed to stay…[The conductor] tried to drag me out of the seat, but the moment he caught hold of my arm I fastened my teeth in the back of his hand. I had braced my feet against the seat in front and was holding to the back, and as he had already been badly bitten he didn’t try it again by himself. He went forward and got the baggageman and another man to help him and of course they succeeded in dragging me out.” She was removed from the train and the other white passengers applauded. After returning back to Memphis, she hired an attorney to sue the railroad company. According to Lee D. Baker, “she won her case in local circuit courts, but the railroad company appealed to the Supreme Court of Tennessee, which reversed the lower court’s ruling.” Because of her lawsuit against the railroad, Wells began her career as a journalist. She was wanted by many African-American newspapers because she was a 25-year-old school teacher who stood up against white supremacy. She blossomed as a wonderful journalist and wrote for papers geared towards African-American and Christian audiences. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862 and died in 1931 at the age of sixty-nine in Chicago. She was enslaved prior to the Civil War, but her family still managed to be well off. Her mother was a famous cook, and her father was a skilled carpenter. Each of them provided very well for their seven children. When she was 14 Yellow Fever swept through Holly Springs and killed her parents and youngest siblings, making her the family provider. According to Baker, “[E]mblematic of righteousness, responsibility, and fortitude that characterized her life, she kept the family together by securing a teaching job.” She continued her education at Rust College. After she finished school, she moved to Memphis to live with her aunt. In 1892, three of Wells’ friends were lynched. Tom Moss, Calvin McDowell and Will Stewart were owners of People’s Grocery Company and had taken some customers from the neighboring white businesses. An angry white mob attacked the three men at their store during the night. While guarding it Moss and the others opened fire killing many people attacking their store. The three were arrested and taken to jail. They did not stand a chance as a lynch-mob broke into their jail cell. They dragged the three men out of town and brutally killed them. This enraged Wells, and she began writing more about the wrongful deaths of her friends and other African-Americans. She traveled to the South to gather more information about lynching incidents. During her travels a mob broke into her Memphis newspaper office and destroyed everything. According to Bio.com, “she was warned that she would be killed if she ever returned to Memphis.” Wells moved North to Chicago where she wrote a detailed report on lynching in America for an Af- Ida B. Wells fought the injustice of Jim Crow laws in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. photo copyright unknown, courtesy of the Library of Congress rican American newspaper, run by former slave T. Thomas Fortune. She started an anti-lynching campaign and brought it to the White House in 1898. She led the protest and called on President William McKinley to make changes. She also established several other civil rights organizations, among them the National Association of Colored continued on page 6 Muckraking pioneer inspires popular television show continued from page 2 The newspaper series and subsequent book launched a grand jury investigation into the treatment of patients in mental health facilities. The jury’s findings and decisions were reported under the headline “Nellie Bly Led the Way” in the Nov. 3, 1887 issue of the World. Deeming the conditions unacceptable, the jury proposed increased state funding for mental health facilities, additional superintendent physicians, and law reform regarding the care of the mentally ill. Following her first successful call for reform, she completed other investigations that “exposed both corruption and the injustice of poverty, revealing shady lobbyists, the ways in which women prisoners were treated by police, the inadequate medical care given to the poor, and much more,” according to a biography from the Public Broadcasting System. She also published a series of articles in the World, later compiled into a book titled Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, which challenged the 80-day timeframe used in Jules Verne’s 1873 novel. While this was undoubtedly a stunt to stir interest in the World, Campbell and Everett claim that it pushed her to international recognition. In 1895, at the age of 31, she retired from reporting and married Robert Seaman, a 73-year-old industrialist who headed the Iron Clad Manufacturing Company. Nine years later, he died and left her the company, which she eventually ran into bankruptcy. Although she returned to journalism with the New York Journal in 1920, Bly died at the age of 58 in 1922. While her time in journalism was short-lived, Nellie Bly forever Some more unsettling inspiration Nellie Bly isn’t the only real-life parallel for American Horror Story: Asylum. The show’s Bloody Face character borrows from the story of Edward Gein, an American murderer and necrophiliac who also inspired Norman Bates of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Gein began to snatch dead bodies and murder women after his mother’s death in 1945, according to Harold Schechter, author of Deviant: The Shocking True Story of the Original ‘Psycho.’ After he was named a person of interest in the disappearance of a female hardware store owner in Ed Gein, infamous murderer, plead- 1957, police officers raided his home, ed not guilty by the reason of insan- where they found a chair upholity to first-degree murder charges stered with human skin, boxes filled but was found guilty. Photograph with human body parts, clothing and masks made from skinned women, copyright unknown. and mounted human heads. changed the field. Under Pulitzer, she helped popularize muckraking and paved the way for future writers who used their positions for landmark change, such as Samuel Hopkins Adams, who wrote on deceit in the pharmaceutical industry; Upton Sinclair, who uncovered both shoddy journalistic standards and the vile conditions of the meatpacking industry; and Ida Tarbell, who exposed the Standard Oil Company’s monopoly. Today, promoting change and exposing corruption through journalism is a common practice, held to the upmost standards; some reporters dedicate months, if not years, to one piece, crossing every ‘t’ and dotting every ‘i’ to deliver an accurate representation of the situation at hand. While the negative connotations of media sensationalism and inflation still linger over a century removed from the days of the yellow press, it’s doubtful that we would see investigative journalism in a remotely credible light today without pioneers like Bly – nor would we have gotten the storyline for the best season of American Horror Story. THE TYSTENAC, APRIL 18, 2016, PAGE 4 Back issues of The Tystenac reveal interesting TU history by COLLEEN VALLO Adviser The more things don’t change…abortion…marijuana…the presidential election…race relations…euthanasia. Open any newspaper or turn on any news show and the above topics are ones being discussed. And they are the same topics that TU students were discussing in The Tystenac more than 45 years ago. Here are some excerpts from those issues: “Don’t Just Vote … Vote Informed Never before in the history of this nation have we the people been beset with such a staggering variety of difficult problems. Never before have we so needed leaders of wisdom, courage, integrity, and understanding. What do you really know about Hubert H. Humphrey, Richard M. Nixon, and George C. Wallace? This could well be the most important presidential election in the history of the United States. What are the issues and [where] do the candidates stand?” The article on the election of 1968 detailed the candidates’ positions on Vietnam, the draft and riots. This was a tumultuous time period of mass unrest and protest that was expressed on college campuses throughout the country. The same issue ran an editorial by black activist and writer Dick Gregory (who also spoke on campus during this time period) who stated: “I spend more than 90 percent of my time on college campuses because I have always believed [that] the moral revolution which is sweeping our country today is not a matter of black against white. It is simply right against wrong. The peace movement has brought this truth out into the open, especially on the college campuses, and has greatly benefited the civil rights movement by expanding moral outrage and protest activity to cover all wrong.” In the fall of 1968 enrollment was “up, up and away” with 504 students enrolled when the term began Sept. 4. Also in 1968 the university had a dean of men and a dean of students. In 1971 consumer advocate Ralph Nader was a guest speaker on campus. In 1972 Richard M. Nixon received 73 percent of the vote in a mock election on campus; George McGovern received 21 percent and independent candidate John C. Schmitz won 6 percent. The university’s drama club presented The Monkey’s Paw for its fall play. A poignant editorial in a 1970 issue of The Tystenac described the senseless death of a young local woman from a self-induced abortion with a coat hanger. The editorial writer advocated legalizing abortion. This was three years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion. A February 1972 story in the student newspaper discussed the changes to the student dress code that was approved by the faculty. Students asked for permission to wear jeans, “neat and clean” for both men and women, and to permit men to wear their hair according to whatever fashion is in style, “neat and clean.” Faculty approved amending the dress code to allow all students to wear jeans without patches or frays but kept men’s haircuts to “business like.” In the Nov. 6, 1973 issue of The Tystenac, students debated having coed dorms on campus and outlined the changes to rules in the women’s houses that relaxed restrictions on men’s visiting hours. While women were forbidden to enter men’s housing on campus, men were permitted to go into the living rooms of women’s housing — no bedrooms — every night, until “bed check.” TU’s science departments have been expanding significantly in the past few years, but a look into the archives of The Tystenac reveals that the university had a science department in the early ‘70s which was news to current faculty and administrators. Print editor Nick Buchanan Print issue staff writers Macerio Clark, Jessica Hollan, Andre Drew, Alexandria Coleman and Alesha Smith S T A F F Adviser Dr. Colleen Vallo Professor Russell Zimmerman, former TU president Dr. Richard Pfeiffer, and science instructor Don Counselman examine new science equipment. photo taken from a back issue of The Tystenac Students were required to wear business attire to classes until 1972, when jeans without holes, frays, or patches were added to acceptable clothing options. photo taken from Onward the Dawn Aspiring equestrians wanted Looking to get away from the stress of classes and homework for the day? Tired of knowing how to operate only a car as your mode of transportation? Have a strong passion for horses? Greenfield Stables, located at 1500 East County Road 50 in Tiffin, is the place for you. Plugged as “a great place to relax, clear your head, and enjoy the simplicities of life,” the facility provides the opportunity to get up-close and personal with horses. Equestrians of all skill levels are welcome. Amenities include indoor and outdoor riding arenas, three pastures, and an outdoor track. Boarding options are available, should you have your own horse. Lessons for the public are $40, and Tiffin University students, staff, faculty, and their families are eligible for a 10 percent discount. For more information, visit Greenfield Stables’ Facebook page or contact Gail Kingseed at 419-618-7614. THE TYSTENAC, APRIL 18, 2016, PAGE 5 Kobe Bryant: A legend that will never be forgotten by MACERIO CLARK Staff writer The Los Angeles Lakers star shooting guard, Kobe Bryant, has earned the most votes for the National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Star Game and will start in his eighteenth and last season in the All-Star Game. This is Bryant’s eighteenth NBA All-Star appearance, and he has won four NBA All-Star Game Most Valuable Player (MVP) Awards, most recently at the 2011 game that took place in Los Angeles. With his December announcement that this season will be his last, he has been praised by the NBA and its fans on his farewell tour, which takes place every road game. Over the course of Bryant’s 20year NBA career, he has been compared to some of the greatest NBA players of all time, including the six-time NBA Champion Michael Jordan, who is considered the greatest player of all time. John Sutherlin of Tiffin University men’s basketball team said he grew up being inspired by Bryant. “Kobe was my Michael Jordan. He was the Jordan of our generation, and he influenced me and my brothers to play basketball,” he said. Bryant is seen as one of the history makers in the game and will go down as one of the greatest players to touch a basketball. Bryant is known as a legend because of the success that he has had on the court. He has won five NBA championships, three coming with Shaquille O’Neal during the years of 2000-2002. His last two rings were won in 2009 and 2010. He has won four All-Star Game MVPs, five NBA Titles, two NBA Finals MVP Awards, 18 NBA All-Star, 11 NBA First team awards, nine NBA defensive team awards and is a twotime scoring champion as well as a dunk contest champion. Outside of the NBA, he has won the 2007 World Championship gold medal and two Olympic gold medals. While Bryant has not won every game on his own, he has legendary games and numbers that no one can compare to, such as his 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks while the Mavericks only had 65 points entering the fourth quarter. In January 2006, he managed to score 81 points, 55 of them coming in the second half as the Lakers beat the Toronto Raptors 122-104. In the 2008-2009 season, he set the Madison Square Garden record by scoring 61 points in an eight-point victory over the New York Knicks. He also has the most 50-point games in NBA history. continued on page 6 Bryant’s accomplishments include being a five-time NBA champion, two-time NBA Finals MVP, 2008 NBA MVP, four-time All Star Game MVP, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and 1997 slam-dunk champion. photo courtesy of BITLANDERS.COM Infant son of award-winning pilot kidnapped and murdered continued from page 2 Dr. John F. Condon made an offer in the Bronx Home News to act as the go-between for the Lindberghs and also offered to pay an additional $1,000 ransom. The following day, Condon received the fourth ransom note which stated that Condon was acceptable as the go-between and Lindbergh agreed to the arrangement. According to the FBI, March 10, 1932 marked the day that Condon received the $70,000 cash ransom and immediately started the negotiations for the return of the Lindberghs’ baby. On March 12, Condon received an anonymous phone call and a fifth ransom note, which was delivered by a taxicab driver named Joseph Perrone, who stated he received it from an unidentified stranger. The fifth ransom note stated that another note could be found beneath a stone at a vacant stand that was 100 feet from a nearby subway station. Condon found the sixth note, which told him to meet a man named “John” at the Woodlawn Cemetery. At this meeting, Dr. Condon and “John” discussed the payment of the ransom money and he agreed to give Dr. Condon a token of the child’s identity. Two weeks had gone by and the Lindbergh’s still had not found their child. On March 16, Condon received the seventh ransom note and infant-sized pajamas, which Lindbergh positively identified as his missing child’s. The eighth ransom note was received by Cordon on March 21 and stated that the kidnapping had been planned for a year. Eight days later, Gow found the baby’s thumb guard, which he was wearing at the time of the kidnapping, near the front entrance of the house. The following day, Condon received yet another ransom that threatened to increase the ransom demands to $100,000. On the one month anniversary of the child’s initial disappearance, Condon received a tenth ransom note which instructed him to have the money ready the following night. In a response to the ransom note, Condon published an ad in the Press, and on April 2 Condon received an eleventh ransom note that was delivered by yet another taxicab driver who claimed to have received it from an unknown man. The eleventh ransom note told Condon where to find the twelfth ransom, which was under a stone in front of a greenhouse on East Trem- ont Avenue in the Bronx. Condon followed what the note said and met “John” again to reduce the ransom amount to $50,000. “John” agreed and Condon handed the ransom amount over in exchange for the thirteenth ransom note. According to the FBI, it stated that the Lindbergh baby could be found on a boat named Nellie near Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. The following day, a search was made near Martha’s Vineyard but Charles Jr. was not found. On May 12, 1932 a man named William Allen accidentally discovered the missing Lindbergh baby four and half miles southeast of the Lindbergh home near Mount Rose, New Jersey. He was partially buried and badly decomposed. His skull was crushed and he had missing body parts. According to the FBI, the coroner’s examinations showed that the child had been dead for about two months and that the cause of his death was a blow to his head. The Lindberghs cremated Charles Jr. on May 13 in Trenton, N. J. After much investigation into the Lindbergh case, it finally paid off in September 1934 when the man who was suspected of kidnapping baby Lindbergh was brought into custody. Bruno Richard Hauptmann was positively identified as the one who kidnapped baby Lindbergh after his handwriting was analyzed and matched to the ransom notes that were received during the case. According to the FBI, Hauptmann was indicted in the Supreme Court in Bronx County, N. Y. on charges of extortion and murder. On Oct. 19, 1934 Hauptmann was transferred to the Hunterdon County Jail in Flemington, N. J. to await trial. Hauptmann’s trial began on Jan. 3, 1935 and lasted five weeks. According to FBI files, Hauptmann’s indictment was based solely on circumstantial evidence, such as the ladder used to get up to the second floor nursery, Condon’s address and telephone number found scrawled on a door frame inside a closet in his house, and his handwriting matching the handwriting on the ransom notes. On Feb. 13, 1935, the jury found Hauptmann guilty of first degree murder and was sentenced to death. On April 3, 1936, Hauptmann was electrocuted and the Lindberghs finally had justice and peace for the loss of their little boy. THE TYSTENAC, APRIL 18, 2016, PAGE 6 Though a step in the right direction, marriage equality isn’t enough by NICK BUCHANAN Editor “I would have held your hand back there, but I didn’t think they would have liked that,” I said to my boyfriend, grabbing his hand as I looked behind us. It was our third date. We had just passed a group of inebriated bar-crawlers – loud and rowdy ones, at that – on a dim street in Sandusky’s marina district As a pair of average young men, we thought we could avoid conflict by swiftly separating our hands, even though this wasn’t the first time we had found ourselves in an uncomfortable public situation and we knew solutions weren’t always that simple. Despite showing no signs of being a prospective couple, we were already the targets of stern glances and strange eyebrows scrunches during our first date at a bowling alley. I would argue that our fellow bowlers were marveling at our horrendous performances in the sport – my average score is 82 on a good day – but we were subjects of great interest before we could finish tying the laces of our fashion-forward sneakers. Mind you, we gays can’t even be in a commercial for chicken noodle soup without outrage, let alone go on a date in the presence of the blessed children of America, so I’m not surprised. I’m not used to the stares and faces, though; after all, I am in a pretty comfortable position of privilege. I’m young, I’m white, I’m able-bodied, and as long as nobody opens my phone’s music app, where a whole repertoire of gay deities resides, I’m straight-passing. These dates were some of my first times being thrown into the position of a minority publicly, and as demeaning as they were, they were eye-opening experiences. In the wake of marriage equality, some people – even some within the LGBT+ community – think this is where we can drop the ball; that this is as good as it can, and should, get for us, when that simply isn’t true. A certain viewpoint has become more prevalent recently to give the guise that homosexuality is much more accepted lifestyle than it actually is: “I have nothing against gay people; I just don’t want to see it.” I just don’t want to see it, as if it’s some sort of ASPCA commercial or Will Ferrell movie that can be turned on and off. This sort of conditional acceptance (“I support them, but…”) is just a delicate way of saying something along the lines of, “You can be gay; just don’t be flamboyant around me so I don’t have to admit that I’m uncomfortable. This way, I can continue to hold onto the illusion of being an understanding person in a perfectly heterosexual world.” These same people often offer the rebuttal that “not everybody is out to get us” to us gay couples (and most other minorities, for that matter) when we share our thoughts and experiences. At first thought, I agree Bryant: Retired but never forgotten continued from page 5 There are only a few players in the NBA who have ever lead their team to five or more NBA Finals appearances. Bryant has led the Los Angeles Lakers to seven appearances. While going to the Finals seven times, he has managed to win five championships and two Finals MVP Awards. His second loss in the NBA Finals came to the hands of the Boston Celtics in 2008, where he won the NBA MVP Award. He would get his revenge in his seventh and final appearance in the NBA Finals, when the Lakers defeated the Celtics in a seven-game series 4-3. According to the basketball reference of stats, during the 20 years that Bryant has been in the league, he has managed to average 25.1 points per game, 4.7 assist and 5.3 rebounds per game, and 45 percent shooting from the field. In the post season Bryant averages 25.7 points per game while having 4.7 assist and 5.1 rebounds per game. When I was 14 years old, I attended the Lakers vs. Sonics game in January 2008, and I saw how determined he was to win, with the Lakers center Andrew Bynum missing the game due to a knee injury. The Lakers were able to force overtime and Bryant hit the game-winner with two seconds left on Sonics forward Kevin Durant, and that’s what made me fall in love with Kobe Bryant. His perseverance, determination, and will to win is what gave me hope to always keep pushing no matter what obstacles I face. He has always succeeded at the highest level no matter what he was up against, and that is the heart of a champion, someone that never gives up. HELP WANTED FOR FALL 2016 SEMESTER The Tystenac needs news and feature writers, sports reporters, videographers, photographers, and more for the fall 2016 semester. For more information, contact Nick Buchanan, editor, at [email protected] or Dr. Colleen Vallo, adviser, at [email protected]. with that, because it’s true: there are some good people out there. I must go deeper into the analysis of the argument, though. Do people realize that the statement accepts that there are people who are “out to get us” and implies that we should be content with that? It’s a statement that tries to both acknowledge and refute the existence of inequality – often provided by individuals who wear veils of being allies to the community. As minorities, our sexual orientation and gender identity do not define us. That does not mean, however, that we can ignore that those things are the integral parts of our identities or be content with the fact that “not everybody is out to get us.” We cannot try to go unnoticed, camouflaged into the rest of society; gays and lesbians tried that before, and how did it work for us? Not well. Closeted men of the early to mid-twentieth century retreated to public bathrooms and parks for intimacy, giving birth to now-outdated stereotypes that are still used against us. Openly gay men, meanwhile, had to plan their entire lives around being gay because there were so few of them who were willing to make such a declaration. Coming out meant becoming an outcast; openly gay men couldn’t get any jobs worth bragging about, were murdered without murmur from the press, and weren’t considered members of society. Without much thought to how privileged we are compared to just 30 years ago, many LGBT+ individuals are ready to move on in the wake of marriage equality, arguing that they don’t want their lives to revolve around their sexuality and that they want to seamlessly blend into society. But how can we when our fight isn’t over? The Supreme Court’s decision on June 26, 2015 did no more than legally validate our partnerships in these United States – it didn’t guarantee us absolute equality or representation. Gay and lesbian partnerships were deemed equal to heterosexual ones, but my boyfriend and I can’t go to the bowling alley without a reaction. If we can’t show signs of even being interested in someone of the same sex despite the legal validity of our partnerships, then how are gay and lesbian couples equal to their heterosexual counterparts? Our history is wiped from curriculum and textbooks, and basic sexual education courses don’t acknowledge us; moreover, laws prohibit the inclusion of LGBT+ topics in public education curriculum in eight states. Here in Ohio, my American history books ignored noteworthy events like Stonewall and the outbreak of AIDS, and my health classes assumed that all sexual intercourse was penile-vaginal. Most of my expertise on gay history came from documentaries uploaded to YouTube, and most of my sexual education from online resources. If we’re overlooked in the classroom, how are gay students equal? continued on page 7 Ida B. Wells left her mark continued from page 3 Women in 1896 and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She then cut ties with the NAACP because she felt it had lacked action-based initiatives, according to Bio.com. She settled in Chicago, IL and married attorney and newspaper editor Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1895. She continued to fight for justice, including working for the National Equal Rights League. Wells called on “President Woodrow Wilson to put an end to discriminatory hiring practices for government jobs” according to Bio.com. Wells fought the fight for women and African American equality until her death from kidney disease on March 25, 1931. The legacy Wells created for herself will always be remembered by the speeches and her writings. She stood up for what she believed in and always helped those around her. Wells once said, “I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap.” From The Tystenac archives The Tystenac student newspaper in 1973 was awarded a superior rating in appearance and photography in a national competition sponsored by the Associated Press at the University of Minnesota’s School of Journalism. More than 3,200 college publications, including newspapers, yearbooks and magazines were evaluated with the purpose of encouraging the improvement of student publications through constructive criticism. According to the April 5, 1973 issue of The Tystenac, the newspaper received a total of 2,890 points out of a possible 3,200 points, which resulted in being awarded a special “mark of distinction.” THE TYSTENAC, APRIL 18, 2016, PAGE 7 Remembering the Hotel Berlin Gay revolution far from over continued from page 1 This law made it easier to detect brothels – police could make a raid on this basis of general consensus that the building was disreputable – and rack up even more fines against their owners. The Hotel Berlin, of course, fell victim to the Winn Law; as reported in Drinkers & Winkers, it racked up $5,950 worth of fines from 12 separate violations of the law – the equivalent to over $142,000 today – when detective John Norris and informant Irving Searles crusaded through town to report violations. All charges were dropped after it was discovered that Norris and Searles had done their sweep of the town’s brothels in the hope of benefiting financially because informants received one-third of the fine amount. While Drinkers & Winkers claims that Nisonger’s 30 years in Tiffin were checkered with arrests for re-opening the Hotel Berlin time and time again, Tiffin judges were lenient with her. An untitled, undated newspaper clipping in the Seneca County Historical Museum’s prostitution file lists a $20 fine to Mattie Ross (an assumed professional name, given her career) – a small slap on the wrist after pleading guilty to operating a house of ill-fame. Four girls and four guests were also found in the house and charged $10 each. Another newspaper clipping from the museum file, also untitled but dated July 30, 1904, states that upon a police search of the hotel, “Martha J. Nighsonger [sic], better known as Ross, was arrested and fined $10 and costs for keeping the house. Women giving the names Pearl Downing, Orpha Smith and Hazel Wayne were found here. They were each fined $5 and costs. All were released upon giving security.” While some hid under the guise of the namesake “hotel,” brothels were not above the patronage of locals, as police raids attest: two men found at the Hotel Berlin during the search claimed to have been from out of town and told to stay at the hotel, but “further examination … revealed the fact that the two worked in this city at the glass house formerly and had lived here about eight years.” The article chronicles the searches of multiple houses and the judges’ orders for the operators of each brothel to close down and leave town to avoid further fines and jail time at the Toledo workhouse – that is, with the strange exception of three: Cora O’Dowd, Nelle Williams, and the unstoppable Mattie Nisonger. Why? No one is quite sure. Drinkers & Winkers ponders whether it was because the three women operated “higher-class and respectable houses” or because “local officers were on more friendly terms with her.” Despite all the legal trouble it caused her, Nisonger stayed with her place of business until the very end: the headline of the April 10, 1922 issue of the Tiffin Daily Tribune read that she was “claimed by death” at her beloved Hotel Berlin the day before. She was 76. Her daughter, Martha Dora, who had married and moved to Mansfield, Ohio by this time, claimed possession of the property after her death. A handwritten recollect of the property’s chain of title in the Seneca County Historical Museum’s prostitution file states that she sold it in April 1926. Though no photographs of Nisonger herself exist, the Hotel Berlin still stands less than half a mile from Tiffin University’s campus as her ringing testament to the city. An uneducated eye would mistake it as another nondescript brick building on the corner of two unkempt streets near Fort Ball Pizza Palace and Viaduct Bar and Grill. The Seneca County Auditor’s Office lists Larry Breidenbach as the current private owner of the building, who announced plans to remodel it into usable business space in an Advertiser-Tribune article published on Dec. 5, 2011. A peek through the windows reveals a worn interior filled with furniture; stuffed animals greet passersby from the windowsills – leaving few clear signs of what once was. The structure is a still a window into history, though; the Hotel Berlin was the most infamous of the 20-plus houses of ill-repute in Tiffin that operated at the turn of the twentieth century, and Mattie, the most notorious of the madams, according to Drinkers & Winkers. I bet the students attending TU in those days didn’t complain about having nothing to do in town. FOR MORE CONTENT, INCLUDING NEWS, FEATURES, CREATIVE WRITING, REVIEWS, AND VIDEOS, CONNECT WITH US VISIT WWW.TUTYSTENAC.COM FACEBOOK.COM/TUTYSTENAC TWITTER.COM/TUTYSTENAC Marriage equality isn’t complete equality continued from page 6 Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act debacle of 2015 and a similar law that was signed recently in Mississippi have opened the door for legalized discrimination, allowing refusal to serve LGBT+ customers on the basis of religious beliefs. If we can be considered nuisances to business owners’ beliefs, how are gay consumers equal? The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) lists 19 states that still allow denial or termination of employment based on sexual orientation; three more, including Ohio, ban such discrimination only in public positions. While most large corporations enforce private policies against LGBT+ discrimination, the avenue is still there and has been taken before; let’s remind ourselves of Cracker Barrel’s former policy that ended the employment of anybody who didn’t display “normal heterosexual values” or the Salvation Army’s uncovered internal policy that dictates that officers of the organization may not officiate or attend a same-sex wedding in uniform without facing termination. If we can be fired based on our sexuality, how are gay employees equal? The HRC also recognizes 20 states that exclude sexual orientation from their definitions of hate crimes, although almost one-fifth the single-bias hate crimes reported in the United States in 2014 were based on sexual orientation, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,. If we’re still a sizeable, and apparently ignored, category in a chart of hate crime victims, how are gay Americans equal? Even worse, gays and lesbians are being jailed or killed – legally and by their government – for their sexuality. A 2015 report compiled by The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association states that gay sexual acts are illegal in over 70 countries and that homosexuality is punishable by death in some African and Middle Eastern countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia. If we can be killed for being who we are, how are gays equal? The fact of the matter is that we’re still being ignored, devalued, fired, beaten, and killed for our sexuality. These aren’t even all of our problems – the Human Rights Campaign acknowledges inequalities in housing laws, anti-bullying policies, and nondiscrimination legislation for lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans; transgender individuals have an even longer road ahead in their own fight for equality. We’re still social anomalies. We’re just social anomalies who can get married in the United States now; therefore, this revolution is far from over. Onward the fight must continue – and those who commit their lives to their sexuality have the track record of getting things done. Take a look at the Stonewall riots, or more importantly, the AIDS panic of the 1980s: the people who sparked the gay revolution were the ones who demanded to be heard. If it weren’t for those pioneers, we would still be in the shadows. The murders of gay men would still bear the same significance as the death of a dog in the eyes of the media. The government would still feign a deaf ear as AIDS ravaged the gay male population. Bathhouses and parks would still be our bedrooms. Today, in a nation of substantial advantage for our community, we must grab the baton from our predecessors – and luckily, the tallest hurdles have already been jumped for us. At the very least, we must elicit and embrace those stares in everyday life to better blend into the social landscape without forfeiting what makes us unique. The more we are seen, the less foreign we seem. It is our responsibility to demand and create not only equality, but also everyday normalization through visibility. Equality is change in law. Normalization is change in overall mentality. In the United States, we’ve reached a level of equality – but that’s one battle in the war we have yet to win. We’re obligated to continue our own elevation and bridge the gap between equality and normalization; those who came before us worked too hard for us to stop here when our roles are comparatively less straining. While it won’t happen overnight, achieving normalization is obtainable in the long-term if we just remain visible. That’s it; that’s all we need to do to carry this onward. Rainbow flags and HRC bumper stickers are great, but they’re byproducts of what is really keeping this revolution in motion: people who are seen and heard on a daily basis simply by holding great confidence in their beliefs and living their lives unabashed of their own individuality. Whether you’re gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, a straight ally, or anything in between, challenge yourself to be one of those people. After spending days, if not weeks, pondering all of this, I know I’m going to. Editor’s note: This article has been abridged. To read it in full, visit tutystenac.com/perspective/. THE TYSTENAC, APRIL 18, 2016, PAGE 8 Student-made musical steals reviewer’s heart by JESSICA HOLLAN Staff writer The script. The blocking. The actors. The singing. The costumes. Now I knew what I was walking into; I had spent collectively a near 10 hours in rehearsals for Prodigal Hearts. I knew the lines. I could sing along to every song. At this point, I was probably such a groupie that I thought nothing could surprise me. Boy, was I wrong. Walking into a packed house, I was filled with immense pride for all the actors that I had come to know so well. I found a seat and fumbled around for my phone, joyfully holding it up so that I could get pictures of the performance. So when Rachel Chiles walked out in her Ace of Spades costume, I was so surprised I nearly dropped my phone (again). I didn’t recognize her. I had spent countless hours watching her rehearse, getting to know her. But when she walked out on stage, she was not Rachel. She was the Ace of Spades. The attention to detail that all the actors put into their costumes was remarkable. I knew they were dressing nice, but I thought, Hey, this is just a run through – nothing elaborate. But the thought behind the Student actors helped Ian Holbrook’s vision come to life. photo by JESSICA HOLLAN costumes was incredible. Brandon Utley’s Alex McKinney was in blue (the color scheme of Alice from Wonderland), and Heather Traska donned the stage in green and black leather, looking very much the part of a character based off the Wicked Witch from Oz. And had that simply been the most they had put into the performance, I would have still been very much impressed with the entire production for the thought process behind the scenes. But it wasn’t. I praise the blocking (although minimal, it was streamlined in a clean fashion that both elated and amused the audi- ence) and the facial expressions all the actors conveyed. I was especially impressed with Julius Eckroth’s Chess, the Cheshire Cat. In all my time in rehearsals, I had never seen such a beautiful display of emotions; however, this performance was full of it, and it was lovely. Utley and Dillon Mikan gave stunningly enthusiastic performances at a level I was not expecting of a read-through script debut. That is all well and done, but Prodigal Hearts is first and foremost a musical, which brings us to the singing. Talent. Sheer and utter talent. Act II was dominated by a heart wrenchingly emotional duet between leads Utley and Ian Holbrook. Heather Traska stopped hearts with her dramatic solo and Rachel Chiles dominated the audience with her rap, “Bow or Die.” My favorite song came in a form of comedic relief Maddie Hatter (played by Liv Woods) and Chess (Eckroth) in their quirky duet about breaking out of prison. The entire performance closed on the White Rabbit’s (Tabitha Miner) hauntingly gorgeous voice, luring Alex back into modern society. Of course, none of this would even be possible if not for the mind of Holbrook. From the first moment I read the script (albeit before I should have; there is a certain level of advantage to being friends with the cast), I knew I loved it. After seeing it performed, I loved it even more. The entire performance was absolutely wonderful. After the finale, I congratulated Holbrook on a spectacular performance and he told me he is looking to clean up the script one last time before (hopefully) performing it on an actual stage next year. And you better believe I will be sitting front and center for that performance, too. TU professor completes first performance for university audience by ANDRE DREW Staff writer Tiffin University music professor, Jeanette Berry, and her band, The Soul Nerds, performed for the first time in Tiffin since Berry’s arrival in fall 2015. Osceola Theater was packed with students and some faculty members who came out and supported the band for its Jan. 22 performance. The band’s sound can be described as rhythm and jazz soul, although the band mixes and blends genres. Formed in 2008 by Berry and Ian Rafalak, both graduates of the University of the Arts, the Soul Nerds features Berry as the lead vocalist and a collective of musicians. By 2010 the band had released its first extended play, Peace, Love and Music, with the song “Love Stomped,” featured on the VH1 series Single Ladies. Following its release and success, Berry landed a gig as a background vocalist for Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter Lauryn Hill. Berry toured with Hill for two years while preparing for the Soul Nerds’ debut album, Allegiance to Love. Recorded in 2013 it featured all original songs written by Berry with arrangements by the Soul Nerds. The group has since toured to promote the album, released last August. Berry wanted her debut performance at TU to be special and welcoming for the students. When talking about who she would like to collaborate with in the future, Berry said that after being at TU and meeting the many songwriters invited to campus, Sidewalk Chalk is her first choice. The Chicago-based band that has performed on campus a few times. She would also love to tour with Corrine Bailey Rae, play with Grace Potter and the Nocturnals and have Stevie Wonder listen to her music because he is her biggest influence. If she could select anyone to produce her next album she would enlist Pharrell, Missy (Elliott), and D’Angelo. Berry recently received her master’s degree in humanities from TU. She was “deeply impacted” by the program’s transmedia storytelling class. “[While] studying that I wrote a screenplay, and I wrote a transmedia plan. It’s about creating this universe and telling different parts of the story through different media,” she said. Transmedia storytelling is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple Jeanette Berry is the frontwoman of Jeanette Berry and the Soul Nerds. photo by DYLAN DISHAW platforms and formats using current digital technologies. She wants to use her debut album, Allegiance to Love, “as background for different vignettes and music videos.” Berry and her brother are in the planning stages of developing a nonprofit organization to be called We Are Soul Nerds. “We did this when I was back home. What we want to do is have a production company and an education company where we can produce independent works and curate stuff and involves the Soul Nerds.” When asked about the advice she would give to hopeful artists, she said: “Work on your craft [and] be as great as you can be at whatever it is you’re doing. If you want to be a singer, make sure you know how to sing well [or] you know your instrument. Put yourself out there and not expect anything at the beginning. Don’t expect to play the big venue in town when you haven’t been out of the practice room, building relationships and community. Have thick skin and be confident because you have to sell yourself.” Follow Berry on Facebook and YouTube at Jeanette Berry and the Soul Nerds; Instagram, Twitter and Periscope at JB_Soulnerd. Visit the band’s website at Soulnerds.com.