Ohio, state, United States: Twentieth-Century Developments

Floods in the many rivers flowing to the Ohio and in the Ohio River itself have long been a problem; a devastating flood in 1913 led to the establishment of the Miami valley conservation project. Continuing long-term state and federal projects have improved locks and dams along the entire length of the Ohio and its major tributaries, for navigation as well as flood control purposes.

Both farms and industries in Ohio were hard-hit by the Great Depression that began in 1929. In the 1930s the state was wracked by major strikes such as the sit-down strikes in Akron (1935–36) and the so-called Little Steel strike (1937). World War II brought great prosperity to Ohio, but labor strife later resumed, as in the steel strikes of 1949 and 1959. Political unrest also affected the state in the protests of the 1960s and most violently in 1970 when four students were killed by national guardsmen who fired on a group of Vietnam War protesters at Kent State Univ.

Ohio's economy went into massive decline in the 1970s and 80s as the automobile, steel, and coal industries virtually collapsed, causing unemployment to soar. Akron, once world famous as a rubber center, stopped manufacturing rubber products altogether by the mid-1980s. During this period, the state's northern industrial centers were especially hard-hit and lost much of their population. Since then, Ohio has concentrated on diversifying its economy, largely through expansion of the service sector. The state became an important center for the health-care industry with the opening of the Cleveland Clinic. Industrial research is also important, with Nela Park near Cleveland and Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus among the more notable research centers; there are also still important rubber research laboratories in Akron.

Republicans George Voinovich (1991-99) and Bob Taft (1999-2005) governed the state for 16 years, but a Democrat, Ted Strickland, was elected to the post in 2006, serving one term. Republicans John Kasich (2011-19) and Mike DeWine (2019- ) followed; Kasich unsuccessfully ran for in the Republican Presidential primaries opposing Donald Trump in 2018, and endorsed Joe Bidenin the 2020 election.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Twentieth-Century Developments
• The Civil War, Industrialization, and Politics
• The War of 1812 and Further Settlement
• From the Settlement of the Old Northwest to Statehood
• Prehistory to the American Revolution
• Government, Politics, and Higher Education
• Economy
• Geography
• Facts and Figures
• Bibliography

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