Editor's note:
This is part of an ongoing series about people in Akron and Summit County with interesting jobs. Know someone who fits the bill? Email Culture & Arts reporter Brittany Moseley at brittany@signalakron.org.
On a recent unseasonably warm Tuesday, Caitlyn Conley unlocked the doors to the Akron History Center. The museum looks vastly different than the first time Signal Akron visited in October. Outside of a few boxes on the lower level and a final cleaning, the long-awaited museum is ready for its opening day April 5 — just in time for the city’s bicentennial.
It will open the same day as the Downtown Akron Sakura Festival and Light The Locks. Both events take place along the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail, which is visible from the Akron History Center’s back door.
“I’m actually really just excited to get open, to see people’s reactions, and to share Akron’s history with a lot of people,” Conley said. “People don’t realize the depth of Akron history.”
As the local history and museum specialist for the Akron-Summit County Public Library, Conley will oversee the Akron History Center once it opens. The role is the result of a collaboration between the library and David Lieberth, the museum’s founder. When she started working with the history center last January, Lieberth and others were in the process of choosing the exhibits for the museum.
Conley dove in, familiarizing herself with the library’s special collections and assisting Lieberth with finalizing museum exhibits.
“Every time an artifact came in or something was going to go in the museum, I did my best to do as much background research as possible,” she said. “That way I wasn’t just there showing people pretty things. I knew about the pretty things.”
Trying to be Indiana Jones
Conley studied history as an undergraduate and a graduate student at the University of Akron. But her love of the subject goes back even further.
“I wanted to be Indiana Jones when I grew up,” she said. “I really wanted to be Indiana Jones.”
Her passion took root in eighth grade thanks to her history teacher at Saints Philip and James School.
“The first day of class, she looked at me and she was like, look, ‘Think of me as a movie screen, and everything that I say is a movie.’ And from that point on, I was essentially hooked,” Conley said. “I don’t know if it’s how she presented it to me or what we were learning that day, but I fell in love with history, and from then on out, I knew I wanted to be a historian.”
Before coming to the library, Conley spent five years at the Hower House Museum as a museum specialist. She also worked for the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, where she surveyed sites all over the state, including Mammoth Cave.
“Any type of government project [or] state project that needed to be done, surveying had to be [conducted] to make sure there were no disruptions to archeological sites,” Conley said.
Family ties to Akron-area history provide roots
Today, Conley’s job looks a bit different, but it’s no less exciting for her. She described herself as “the odd duck” who likes to “nerd out” on history all day. She mentioned her great-grandfather, who moved to Akron from Pennsylvania to help build one of the Goodyear buildings. She recounted childhood stories from her mom about the since-shuttered Young’s Restaurant in Portage Lakes. She explained that the picturesque setting of Glendale Cemetery was a way to encourage people to use the area as a park.
With the Akron History Center, she’s ready to share her passion with others.
“I once ran the tagline by Dave, ‘Akron: We’re more than just rubber. We’re America.’ We have produced something [that’s] in almost every home in America,” Conley said, citing the Akron roots of PVC and vitrified tiles.
She continued, “I think that it’s important for people to be proud of their city and not just think of what it currently is, but what it has been and what it can be again.”
