Akron community members and history buffs got together at the Linda Theater in Goodyear Heights Sunday afternoon for a screening of “Akron Stories”; a new documentary based on an oral history project that got underway in 2019.
“Akron Stories” paints a fascinating picture of Akron when it was the “Rubber Capital Of The World”, with good paying jobs for workers, sports leagues, new opportunities women, minorities, and even a very large community of deaf employees between 1900 and the early 1970’s.
But then, everything changed, in the 1970’s and 1980’s, when most of the big rubber companies closed up shop and moved out, putting thousands of people out of work, and laying waste to the city’s once thriving economy.
Mac Love, who spearheaded the project, tells us tells us even people who have lived here their entire lives, will be surprised by many of the details that come out through the recollections of the many rubber workers and their descendants.
If you’d like to see the documentary, “Akron Stories” will be shown again on November 23 at the Main Library in downtown Akron. You can also hear many of the stories, and see historical images included in the documentary, on the Akron Stories website.
Mac Love (Photo credit, Arts Now)
BIO
Mac Love is the Co-Founder and Chief Catalyst at Art x Love, LLC, a creative agency based in Akron, Ohio. Art x Love (pronounced art-by-love) specializes in public art and design that strategically changes the way people think, feel, and operate in select environments. As an international artist and marketing consultant, Love has 30 years of experience working on some of the most iconic brands in the world.
Mac was born in New York City, grew up in Belgium, and has worked in Scotland, Japan, and Singapore. He is driven by a deep appreciation for cultural value systems and multi-sensory communication, as evidenced by his continuing study of Synaesthesis, the harmony of different or opposing impulses produced by a work of art. Mac is married to Allyse Love, a native Akronite and Co-Founder of Art x Love. They have two children, Gemma (2) and Oliver (4), and have lived in Ohio since 2013. Mac served in Leadership Akron Class 38.
(Source, Akron Roundtable)
