Cincinnati, Ohio

The River City

Settled in 1788 as part of the postRevolution speculation in Ohio lands, the fledgling village first bore the name Losantiville. Conflicts with Native Americans stunted its growth, but in 1789 Losantiville became the home of Fort Washington, which garrisoned the federal troops that would sweep most natives from Ohio by the mid-1790s. The fort provided protection for Losantiville, and eventually it led to the city's new name, put forward by General Arthur St. Clair, who disapproved of the initial name's awkwardness. St. Clair took the new name from the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of former Continental Army officers, of which he was a member.

Cincinnati was one of dozens of Ohio River settlements that boosters hoped would become a commercial center. However, Cincinnati had several advantages over wouldbe competitors. Its high, flat basin kept it mostly dry during floods, and, more important, its proximity to several small rivers, including the Licking, Little Miami, and Great Miami, gave it easy access to good farmland. During the first two decades of the 1800s, the region filled with farmers, and the young city benefitted from agricultural trade, especially in grain and pork. In the late 1820s, Ohio joined the national canalbuilding craze, and by the 1830s the Miami Canal connected Cincinnati with Dayton and other growing cities to the north. The canal extended Cincinnati's commercial reach and encouraged its industrial development. Cincinnati also benefitted from another transportation innovation, the steamboat, which allowed commerce to travel upstream as well as down, greatly facilitating trade along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Cincinnati benefitted doubly, since it became a shipbuilding center.

By 1840, Cincinnati had become the Queen City of the West, famed for its phenomenal growth and seemingly endless potential. By 1850, Cincinnati's population had surged to 115,000, having more than doubled in each of the previous five decades, and it had grown to be the nation's sixth largest city.

Industrial Diversification

Until the Civil War cut off Cincinnati from its natural trading partners to the south, the city grew right along with inland river trade. With its strong economy, the city attracted European immigrants, especially Germans, and became a significant destination for African Americans fleeing the South, despite overt racism in Cincinnati. With so much of its economic activity focused on the riverfront and along the canal, Cincinnati's diverse population lived in an extremely compact city, one of the nation's most densely settled places. The “walking city,” in which most of the population moved from home to work and shopping all on foot, featured a remarkable mixing of race and class, but some separation developed. While not truly segregated, African Americans clustered in two lowrent areas, one along the public landing in a neighborhood called “Little Africa” and the other near a polluted stream in a neighborhood known as “Bucktown.” More famously, Germans flooded into the expanding neighborhood north of the canal that took its name from the immigrant population—Overthe-Rhine. (The canal served as the Rhine.) Germans arrived in such large numbers through midcentury that they exerted great influence over the city's culture, especially through the development of a lively saloon culture and a large brewing industry, but also through the creation of several musical institutions.

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