Naturally, Brian the archaeologist was intrigued. They made a date to continue excavating Michael’s factory, and then they expanded the search to dig through the catacombs in downtown Akron for hidden  treasure. They succeeded in finding four little clay marbles. But when a parking deck downtown was removed years later, they found the ground littered with marbles and old penny toys. They also found the oldest penny toy in their now large collection, a small Santa figurine.

The other part of this story begins 100 hundred years earlier, in the 1880′s, when a man named Samuel Dyke started the production of penny toys in Akron. Before this time, toys were handmade and very expensive, a luxury afforded only by the rich. With Dyke’s mass production of toys, though, a new toy-buying demographic was created. Kids with a penny or two in their pocket now had something other than sweets to purchase. Samuel Dyke’s business boomed until he was making over a million marbles per day and shipping them around the country.

The business became so successful that other local entrepreneurs opened up their own marble factories. At one time there were at least 150 toy companies in Akron.

The last marble company left Akron in the 1950′s. “In the 1950′s they started asphalting over the playgrounds because they didn’t want the little boys and little girls to get dirty knees,” said Brian. “All the great old games — top throwing, jacks and hopscotch — these were games that originated because of dirt…These games are in danger of extinction,” said Michael.

The two stories came together when Michael and Brian founded the Akron Toy & Marble Museum in the 1990s. Now, they are both toymakers. Michael came into the booth with clay under his nails from making reproductions of the prized blue Santa they found in one of their digs. Brian has become a glassblower and makes fine marbles. They have both became masters of arcane ceramic, glass, and stone marble making methods. “When I step into my glass shop and I make marbles the same way that they were made 100 years ago, it is as close as I am going to get to a time machine,” Brian said.

Alas, StoryCorps is leaving Akron, but we are leaving with the feeling that we have found something special here: a world of curiosity and play. Maybe you could even say we have found our marbles.

Luckily, Rose seemed to have a pretty good time remembering her many bartending years with her grandson Joshua during their interview. After divorcing her husband in the 1950s, Rose moved to Akron with her three kids and took over the Zanzabar, a tavern in a working-class African American neighborhood where most of the patrons were employed by Akron’s rubber industry. Rose, a white Jewish woman from Cleveland, stood out for more reasons than one. Open 21 hours a day, the bar was filled at 5:00 a.m. with men from the rubber-factory night-shift, singing and dancing and breakfasting at the bar.

After trying to get her barmaids to unionize on their own, Rose organized profit-sharing with her employees. She saved all the year’s pennies to rent a summer cottage for Zanzabar employees and their families. Rose was even known for locking up her patron’s paychecks so they couldn’t drink their salary away.

Rose, her grandson Joshua, and his wife and daughter have lived together for the past 10 years. “I believe that grandparents and great-grandparents are supposed to be close to us, to be part of our lives… I am so glad my daughter Amelia Rose has this time with her great-grandmother,” says Josh. As a filmmaker, Josh has been filming “Bubba” (the Yiddish term for grandma), and has put together a documentary about Rose’s life story called the  “Bubba Briefs.”

We cut the StoryBooth ribbon in this historic city on a cold day in front of the Akron-Summit County Public Library. WKSU, our public broadcasting host, warmed up the crowd with coffee and pastries while former Deputy Mayor Dorothy Jackson and Reverend Dr. Ronald Fowler christened the booth with the first conversation of the day.

Reverend Ronald Fowler served as Senior Pastor of the Arlington Church of God, in Akron for over 40 years. He has also served as a bridge-builder and adviser to countless Akronites, including Deputy Mayor Jackson herself. A tireless social activist, Dorothy Jackson was the first African-American woman to serve in an Akron mayor’s cabinet. Her lifelong work on behalf of fair housing, disabled workers’ rights, and as an interpreter for the deaf has earned her many humanitarian awards as well as a place in the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame.



Don and Patrick Primm kicked off Akron’s second interview with a conversation about car-racing, car-selling, and the changing industry. His father, brothers, and uncles all worked at Goodyear, but Don Primm took a different route into working with cars. At a time when “Porsche” was still a mostly unknown word in the U.S., Don founded one of first American Porsche & Audi dealerships. Now 78, Don recently retired, leaving the dealership in the hands of his children, including Patrick.