Four Cincinnatis

Since 1978, public historian Dan Hurley has worked as a television reporter, newspaper columnist, and popular presenter helping greater Cincinnatians create a context to better understand the dynamics of our region. Four Cincinnatis pulls together 88 essays written over the last 25 years that tackle a wide range of issues and forces shaping our community for the future. Some of the essays were published earlier in The Cincinnati Post or Cincy Magazine. Many others appear here for the first time.

The breadth and richness of the essays gathered in this book are possible only because Dan Hurley has been working in the library and archive collections housed at the Cincinnati Museum Center since 1978. The depth and breadth of those materials are critical to understanding our regional history in the context of larger social and political trends.
– Elizabeth Pierce
President and CEO, Cincinnati Museum Center

By focusing many of the essays in this collection on the local African American experience, Dan Hurley has helped center that experience at the core of the Cincinnati story. That includes original research on the 1841 race riots as well as oral histories with contemporary leaders like Theodore Berry, William Mallory, and Dr. Lawrence Hawkins.
– John Fleming
Past President, Association of African American Museums
Director Emeritus, Cincinnati Museum Center

As a columnist for The Cincinnati Post, Dan gave current events a historical context—and also gave local history the relevance it deserves. Consider his columns about the Great Flood of 1937, which drew on his oral history interviews with 24 survivors of that cataclysmic event. Their recollections, and Dan’s ability to draw on what they told him, brought the flood alive and confirmed it as an enduring reminder that the same river that contributes to our city’s beauty and vitality has another, more menacing capacity as well.
– Mark Neikirk
Managing Editor of The Cincinnati Post, 2001–2007

Dan Hurley is a great storyteller. Going on a bus tour, a walking tour of the subway, or standing with him at Eighth and Plum, his favorite streetcorner, is memorable. I am glad he has translated his tour presentation into the title essay of this collection.
- Amy Thompson, President and CEO,
Cincinnati Youth Collaborative