Further Reading

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** The First 'American' State   Ohio Goes to the Movies   In Your Head

October 2001

The First 'American' State

In 1803, the Buckeye State became the first addition to the Union to be carved out of the Northwest Territory. A year later, its fledgling legislature revoked an archaic buggery statute inherited from English common law.

Anti-sex laws crept back into Ohio only in the latter part of the 19th century. Dildos and other instruments of "self-pollution" were banned in 1876 at a time of nationwide moral panic over masturbation. Sodomy laws were not reintroduced until 1885, when Governor George Hoadly was forced to sign a bill forbidding "carnal copulation against nature." In The Sensibilities of Our Forefathers, historian George Painter suggests that Hoadly himself, who may have been gay, was probably the chief target of the new proscription.

Ohio has always reflected and exemplified American polarities. In the 19th century, the state accommodated both abolitionist sentiments and racist bigotry. Slavery was banned, but freed slaves were forbidden to enter Ohio or own property there. By the advent of the 20th century, Northern, industrial Cleveland had drifted toward trade unionism and left-wing agitation. Southern, mercantile Cincinnati, the city where in 1829 Frances Trollope invented the shopping mall, was becoming a center of religious fundamentalism, law-and-order zealotry, and reactionary politics.

Ohio has provided eight American Presidents, four of whom have died in office. Former Ohio state Senator Warren G. Harding, elected 1920, headed one of the most notoriously corrupt Presidential administrations in American history; his cronies were popularly known as "the Ohio Gang." During the Harding era, as the resurgent Ku Klux Klan gained ground in the North, Ohio boasted a Klan membership of 400,000, the largest of any state above the Mason-Dixon Line. (The Klan presence in Ohio, which persists to this day, gave rise in 1944 to a key Supreme Court ruling on hate speech, Brandenburg v. Ohio.)

The Almanac of American Politics notes that during the Depression, Ohio was "the scene of something like class warfare." Divisions between a predominantly Democratic work force and a predominantly Republican business elite remained heightened for decades. During the turbulent '60s, Ohio reflected the cultural rift that divided America as a whole, encompassing the hippie pacifism of Kent State students and the authoritarian violence of Ohio National Guard.

Ohio's tilt toward right-wing politics has been nudged along by PAC money from New Right sources. In 1994, Lieutenant Governor Mike DeWine became the first Republican elected to the US Senate from Ohio in two decades. Six years later, DeWine became the first Republican Senator from Ohio to be reelected in 48 years. After the 2000 election, he was joined in the Senate by George Voinovich, Ohio's conservative Republican governor, who succeeded retiring Democrat John Glenn. Republicans now outnumber Democrats in the Ohio Congressional delegation by 11 to 8. A redistricting maneuver is soon expected to unseat one of the incumbent Democrats.