The Ward M. Canaday Center

for Special Collections

The University of Toledo

Finding Aid

Betty Mauk Papers, 1969-1998

MSS-135

Size: 2 linear feet

Provenance: Received from Betty Mauk, January 15, 1999.

Access: Open

Collection Summary: Founder of Promenade Park in downtown Toledo, Mauk has championed a clean, safe, and revitalized downtown for over 30 years. Her papers consist of photographs, personal and business correspondence, printed materials, and ephemera related to various organizations she founded, causes she supported, and individuals with whom she corresponded.

Subject: Women

Related Collections: Alliance Francaise Records, MSS-142

Copyright: The literary rights to this collection are assumed to rest with the person(s) responsible for the production of the particular items within the collection, or with their heirs or assigns.  Researchers bear full legal responsibility for the acquisition to publish from any part of said collection per Title 17, United States Code.  The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections may reserve the right to intervene as intermediary at its own discretion.

Completed by: Marsha Weatherspoon and Laura Micham, July, 1999.  Updated by Barbara Floyd, January 2013.

Biographical Sketch

Betty Mauk, née Betty Blair, was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. She has been an orphan for most of her life as her mother died in childbirth and her father died five months later. Mauk, the youngest of the family, and her eight sisters and brothers were raised by their mother's two maiden aunts in Toledo's Old West End neighborhood. Mauk attended boarding school in Connecticut and earned credits towards a university degree. In 1941, she married William Mauk. They have four children, William, Catherine, Elizabeth, and Blair, and seven grand children.

Mauk is one of Toledo's best known community activists. The founder of Promenade Park (1972), she has been a long-standing and vocal foe of riverfront development. Mauk first came to public attention in the late 1960's when she established the Toledo chapter of the Alliance Francaise. Each of her projects, Promenade Park, Alliance Francaise, the purchase of the Arawanna (the downtown tour boat), the French Kiosk, and the clean up of Swan Creek to name a few, have brought the city of Toledo closer to its goal of downtown revitalization and prosperity.

Mauk died June 26, 2012, at the Kingston Residence in Sylvania, Ohio.

Scope and Content Note

The papers of Betty Mauk consist of photographs, personal and business correspondence, printed materials and ephemera. The majority of the materials are arranged in subject files that document the various causes Mauk supported, organization she established, and individuals with whom she corresponded.  There are also files devoted to family members, certificates and awards, Mauk's scrapbook and her collection of newspaper clippings relating to her causes, projects, and interests.

Among the topics covered in this collection are the Alliance Francaise of Toledo(founded by Mauk), Mauk's gift shop and crepe restaurant, the French Kioskin Promenade Park, the various speakers she brought to Toledo from France, the Manhattan Marsh preservation projectand the poem Mauk wrote for the Toledo Historical Taskforce Encyclopedia Project.

The collection provides an excellent picture of Mauk's long and ongoing career of activism and community service.

Folder List

Box

Folder

Folder Title

 

 

 

1

1

Alliance Francaise, 1964, 1972, 1981, n.d.

 

2

"Bouquet of Provence," shop and tour of France, 1990-94

 

3

Clergue, Lucien, 1986-1996

 

4

Crepes in Promenade Park, 1983, n.d.

 

5

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drum Major Award, 1991

 

6

Downtown Rooters group, 1994-1996

 

7

Ephemera, Certificates, and Awards, 1973-1997, n.d.

 

8

Ephemera, Plaques, 1972-1994

 

9

French Kiosk in Promenade Park, 1974-1982, n.d.

 

10

French House, "Maison Franchise" at BGSU, 1995, n.d.

 

11

Goodbody, Mary Blair and Harold (sister and brother-in-law of BM)

 

12

Manhattan Marsh, 1998

 

13

"My Heart's Downtown," photographs, February, 1975

 

14

Newspaper clippings, 1969-1997

 

15

Newspaper clippings, n.d.

 

16

"Ode to Swan Creek," for Toledo Historical Task Force, 1998

 

17

Rey-Herme, Yves, 1982-1993, n.d.

 

18

Speakers, Alliance Francaise, 1978, 1980, n.d.

 

19

"The Toleaguer," Fall, 1974 (interview with BM)

 

20

Van Gogh Project, 1987-1990, n.d.

 

21

Various Photographs, 1970's -1980's, n.d.

 

22

Warin, Patrick and Marie-Antoinette, 1975-1999

 

 

 

2

Oversize area

Scrapbook, 1969-1997

 

 

Certificate: "Ministere De L'Education Nationale Palmes Academiques, 1972

 

 

Proclamation: Betty Mauk's Day, " May 31, 1975

 

 

Photographs: 4 Black and White, 3 Color: All of downtown Toledo and Promenade Park Scenes, n.d.

 

 

2 Posters: Mayor's Waterfront Committee n.d. and Sister Cities Tour, 1998

 

Last Updated: 6/27/22