Updated: 2:33 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016 |
Posted: 2:33 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016
Historical
society revisits Middletown’s 1957 All-America City status
By Mike Rutledge
Staff Writer
MIDDLETOWN —
The Middletown Historical Society
Wednesday will transport people back to 1957, when Middletown
was named an All-America
City.
The society will host a 7 p.m.
presentation that features a video interview of 97-year-old Middletown
native Knight Goodman, the man who gave the presentation in Cleveland
that won the award for Middletown.
The video will be shown at the society’s building, 120 N. Verity Parkway, Middletown.
Although Middletown won the award in 1957, work toward
that award started 70 years ago, in 1946. Interest in the award was revived
recently when http://www.journal-news.com/news/news/local/middletown-wants-to-be-an-all-america-city-in-2020/nqNJF/" rel="nofollow - “The work that eventually led to the All-America City award started in 1946, right after
the war,” said Sam Ashworth, president of the society. “That’s kind of why
we’re featuring it now.”
“They actually started working when the
soldiers came back home and there was the need for housing and all that kind of
stuff,” Ashworth said. “So they got this stuff going that over the next 10
years, they were able to achieve all these things, and then submitted an
application for All-America City designation, made their presentation up in Cleveland.”
After the 20-25-minute video, Ashworth
will give a presentation about the “Middletown Peace Plan,” which was developed
here, as Americans dealt with “a real paranoia about the atom bomb, and what to
do about that,” he said. “They were absolutely afraid in this country that Russia was
going to get the bomb. The gist of it was to strengthen the United Nations, to
avoid World War III.”
|