Written by Michael DiVittorio
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A little light reading about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War helped guide a young eastern Ohio boy into becoming the new curator and social historian at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, with a few historic stops along the way.
Jon-Erik Gilot grew up in Mt. Pleasant in Jefferson County, Ohio, near Steubenville.
The central part of his hometown is a National Historic Landmark District of the Underground Railroad. Several of the town’s buildings served as stations for the organization that helped smuggle escaped slaves before the war.
Gilot’s mother, Joni Elerick, would take him to the big battlegrounds in places like Gettysburg and gave him books on President Lincoln and that time period.
“It wasn’t so far off,” Gilot said about the war. “There are still people in my hometown that remembered some of the veterans. It wasn’t like reading about something in ancient Rome or a 1,000 miles or 1,000 years ago. The people I grew up with still knew some of these people — like a grandson of a Civil War veteran.”
The war between the Union and the Confederacy ended in May 1865. It is believed to be one of the most written subjects in the world, with about 60,000 books.
Elerick made sure her son got a couple of them.
“She was always interested in history, so those were the kind of books she gave me and what I was interested in reading when I was a kid,” said Gilot, 37, of Wheeling, W.Va. “I think she’s just happy that I was able to take an interest and make it into a career with archives, my interest in that kind of stuff and interest in history.”
Formal education
Gilot graduated from Buckeye Local High School in Rayland, Ohio, in 2002 and would go on to earn a bachelor’s in history at Bethany College in 2006.
It was at the private liberal arts school in West Virginia the young historian would find a mentor in Gary Kappel.
“Bethany was a small school, and being from a small town, that appealed to me,” Gilot said. “I didn’t want to sit in a lecture hall with 300 people. I got to sit in one of Dr. Kappel’s lectures, but it was more than a lecture, it was more like a performance.”
Kappel focused more on European history and the evolution of warfare, something different than what interested Gilot.
“He pushed me outside of my comfort zone and exposed me to a lot of other areas in history that I otherwise wouldn’t have paid attention to,” Gilot said. “He forced me to be a better historian and look at the bigger picture instead of pigeonholing myself self into one era.”
Gilot would go on to take Kent State University classes at Ohio State University. He finished his master’s in library and information science through Kent State via online classes in 2011.
Work and hobbies
Gilot moved to Washington, D.C., after graduating from Bethany College and worked for about a year at the Library of Congress.
He learned about the deacidification process at the library — the process that extends the usable life of paper by neutralizing the acidity found in newsprint that, over time, becomes yellow and brittle.
His current full-time job is record manager and archivist for a religious organization. He declined to say what group.
Gilot also writes for a Civil War blog called Emerging Civil War, a group of like-minded historians who frequently publish materials on the subject.
“My real interest in history has become my hobby,” he said.
Gilot has a book slated to come out in October with co-author Kevin Pawlak. It is about John Brown’s raid against a federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Va., in 1859.
He lives in Wheeling with his wife Heather, and their two daughters, Liliana, 8, and Emilia, 3.
Liliana has started taking a liking to World War II and the children’s section of the Carnegie library.
Gilot found an interesting way to get his significant other involved in his passion for history — he proposed to Heather at Maryland Heights in Harpers Ferry in 2009.
“That was selfish, that wasn’t romantic,” Gilot said. “Harpers Ferry is a really powerful place with the stories that it could tell,” Gilot said. “It’s almost like it’s frozen in time. You go back there and it feels like you’re stepping back to the 1860s.
“It’s one thing to read about these places in a book or to watch a movie. To be there, to walk the same streets or to go into the same buildings. That’s a more powerful effect than just reading it or looking at pictures.”
The couple tries to return to the historic spot every year to enjoy the wineries and breweries.
Carnegie Carnegie
Gilot was recently selected to succeed Diane Klinefelter as curator and social historian at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall. Klinefelter had retired to spend more time with family, and more time researching and writing.
“It’s definitely like a homecoming, coming back after almost a decade now,” Gilot said. “The library in Carnegie, it’s like everything you can imagine the little community library being like.”
Gilot lived in Scott Township from 2009 through 2011 and interned at the library as part of his graduate studies.
He now works there part-time and is fascinated by the Captain Thomas Espy Grand Army of the Republic Post, also known as the library’s Civil War room.
“I’m excited to build on the work that my predecessor had done at the Espy post,” Gilot said. “There are too many people locally in Carnegie, in the South Hills, in Pittsburgh, in the tri-state area, that don’t know that the Espy post is there in spite of all the publicity over the years and in spite of having speakers that we bring in there every month. I want to continue to get the word out about the treasure that we have there. We have a dedicated staff of volunteers.”
Michael DiVittorio is a TribLive reporter covering general news in Western Pennsylvania, with a penchant for festivals and food. He can be reached at mdivittorio@triblive.com.