BOOKS:
Baker, Ronald L., ed. Homeless, Friendless and Penniless: the WPA Interviews with Former Slaves Living in Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
“For the first time in one volume, Ronald L. Baker presents the WPA interviews with former slaves living in Indiana in the 1930s. Professor Baker has synthesized a mountain of material generated by inexperienced fieldworkers into a format accessible by professorial academics, local history enthusiasts, and general readers. Professor Baker gives us the 134 interviews of ex-slaves in discrete units in the central section of his book. His extensive introduction, aimed at the general reader, lucidly overviews central themes, such as life under slavery, escapes, religion, education, and folklore.” (From a review by Robert K. Phillips, published in Western Folklore 60, no. 4 (Fall 2001): 319-21.)
Ronald Baker is a professor of English at Indiana State University.
Bigham, Darrel E. We Ask Only a Fair Trial: a History of the Black Community of
Evansville, Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
“Bigham's carefully crafted history vividly details blacks' struggle to live in a small- to medium-sized Northern city. Evansville had only 10 blacks in 1820, 96 in 1860, and 8895 in 1950. At their relative peak, reached in 1900 when they numbered 1408, blacks were 12.5 percent of the city's population. Although battered by mobs and ostracized by law, they did more than simply endure; they developed a subculture that promoted their life, Bigham argues.” (From a review by Thomas J. Davis, published in the Library Journal 112 (Oct. 1987): 78.)
Darrel E. Bigham is a professor of history at the University of Southern Indiana.
Carmony, Donald F. Indiana, 1816-1850: the Pioneer Era. Indianapolis: Indiana
Historical Bureau & Indiana Historical Society, 1998.
“This volume explores the political, economic, agricultural, and educational developments in the early years of the nineteenth state. Carmony’s book also describes how and why Indiana developed as it did during its formative years and its role as a member of the United States.” (Abstract from publishers)
Donald F. Carmony was a professor of history at Indiana University.
Cayton, Andrew R. L. Frontier Indiana. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
“Cayton's lively new history of the frontier period in Indiana puts the focus on people, on how they lived and how they viewed their world and what motivated them. Here are the stories of, among others, Jean-Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes; George Croghan, the ultimate frontier entrepreneur; the world as seen by George Rogers Clark; Josiah Harmar and John Francis Hamtramck; Little Turtle; Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison and William Henry Harrison; Tenskwatawa; Jonathan Jennings; and Calvin Fletcher.” (Abstract from publisher.)
Andrew R.L. Cayton is a professor of history at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
Crocker, Ruth. Social Work and Social Order: The Settlement Movement in Two Industrial
Cities, 1889-1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
“In this informative book, Ruth Hutchinson Crocker studies seven social settlements in Indiana. . . . Crocker's greatest contribution lies in her exposure of the variety within the settlement movement. . . . With insight, Crocker lays out the response of her settlements to the migration of southern blacks to Midwestern cities after 1910. . . . [She] concludes that the settlement movement was more conservative, especially more committed to Christianity and capitalism, than the standard interpretation has admitted. This, she claims, set the movement in the mainstream of progressivism, the central drive of which was to discipline and modernize the urban masses.” (From a review by Robyn Muncy, published in the American Historical Review 98 (Apr. 1993): 573.):
58-60.)
Ruth Crocker is a professor of history at Auburn University..
Edmunds, R. David. The Potawatomis: Keepers of the Fire. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.
“This volume, the first scholarly history of the Potawatomis and their influence in the Old Northwest, is an important contribution to American Indian history. Many of the tribe’s leaders, long forgotten, such as Main Poc, Siggenauk, Onanghisse, Five Medals, and Billy Caldwell, played key roles in the development of Indian-white relations in the Great Lakes region. The Potawatomi experience also sheds light on the development of later United States policy toward Indians of many other tribes.” (Abstract from publisher.)
R. David Edmunds is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Endelman, Judith E. The Jewish Community of Indianapolis, 1849 to the Present. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.
“The distinctiveness of Indianapolis Jewry emerges in clear perspective from Judith E. Endelman's study. . . . A product of the new history, the book is replete with statistics concerning institutions and attitudes of this Hoosier community. Oral interviews lend a flavor of authenticity to the author's conclusions.” The distinctiveness of Indianapolis Jewry emerges in clear perspective from Judith E. Endelman's study. . . . A product of the new history, the book is replete with statistics concerning institutions and attitudes of this Hoosier community. Oral interviews lend a flavor of authenticity to the author's conclusions.”
(From a review by Myron Berman, published in the American Historical Review 90 (Dec. 1985): 1270.)
Judith E. Endelman is Director of the Benson Ford Research Center at the Henry Ford Museum.
Hendrick, George, Willene Hendrick, Levi Coffin and William Still. Fleeing for Freedom:
Stories of the Underground Railroad. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004.
“ A Quaker and abolitionist, Coffin was regarded as the principal organizer of the Underground Railroad. He recounted his experiences in Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, first published in 1876. Still was a freedman who authored The Underground Railroad in 1872. As each of these tomes was in excess of 700 pages, the Hendricks have significantly condensed the original text but have preserved the tone and voice of the authors. Their introduction is particularly valuable, offering excellent background for what follows.”
(From a review by Daniel Liestman, published in the Library Journal 129, no. 2 (Feb. 2004): 104-5.)
George Hendrick is a professor of English at the University of Illinois.
Lutholtz, M. William. Grand Dragon: D.C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1991.
“ Lutholtz's thorough book portrays the political struggles more completely. What is most pertinent is the picture that emerges of the quiet force of bigotry rather than overt Klan power. But Lutholtz resists all theory, so any conclusions about the broader relevance of the strange and fascinating story of Stephenson and the Indiana Klan in the 1920s will have to be drawn by the reader.” (From a review by Timothy Christenfeld, published in the Library Journal 116 (Aug. 1991): 123.)
M. William Lutholtz was an Indiana editor, writer, and teacher..
Madison, James H. Indiana through Tradition and Change: a History of the Hoosier State
and its People, 1920-1945. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1982.
“Forty-five pages, about equally divided between the bibliographical essay and index, will serve well those who use the book as a reference. The author throws a wide net. Artfully done, to be sure, but a maze of proper nouns and alphabetical shorthand that cannot all be blamed on the New Deal. . . . This book can be used with confidence. Madison covered his chosen ground, a broad spectrum of topics. One who comes to it as a reference will find a succinct discussion, easily reached through the comprehensive index, handled with scholarly candor, and the author's sources are there on the page in inclusive footnotes.” From a review by Robert C. Nesbit, published in the American Historical Review 88 (June 1983): 773.)
James H. Madison is a professor of history at Indiana University.
Madison, James H. The Indiana Way: a State History. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1986.
“Neither too detailed and provincial, nor too broad and comparative, The Indiana Way adopts an integrated analytical approach, but also includes some narrative and biography. The book skillfully outlines the nature of economic growth and social trends, shows their connections, and indicates how they shaped political patterns. In general, the economic analyses comprise the strongest sections in this volume.” (From a review by Philip R. VanderMeer, published in the Journal of American History 74 (Sept. 1987): 491.)
James H. Madison is a professor of history at Indiana University.
Nelson, Jacquelyn S. Indiana Quakers Confront the Civil War. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1991.
“[This book] is the fruit of careful and open-minded investigation. Scholars will benefit from Nelson's explication of the difficulties she encountered in her research and from the fact-filled appendixes, which constitute over half of the volume. In one of these entries, however--a list of Friends who bore arms for the Union--it is not clear that each soldier listed in fact held membership in the church at the time of the war. [Nelson] cogently argues her main point: Quaker support of the war was the rule rather than the exception.” (From a review by Lloyd A. Hunter, published in the Journal of American History 79 (June 1992): 279.)
Jacquelyn S. Nelson is an author.
Onuf, Peter S. Statehood and Union: a History of the Northwest Ordinance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
“In covering so much in relatively few pages, Onuf has had to be highly selective. His theme of national unity through economic growth as a congressional motive in the 1780s is a compelling one, but he pays scant attention to other compelling themes such as the perceived need for security in the Mississippi Valley. The compression of material also does not allow sufficient discussion of the precise way in which a Congress depicted as antispeculator became so involved with speculation in the sale and settlement of the land northwest of the Ohio.” (From a review by Reginald Horsman, published in the American Historical Review 93 (Dec. 1988): 1396.)
Peter S. Onuf is a professor of history at the University of Virginia.
Phillips, Clifton Jackson.Indiana in Transition: the Emergence of an Industrial
Commonwealth, 1880-1920. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Bureau, 1968.
“This volume covers the period during which Indiana underwent political, economic, and social changes that furthered its evolution from a primarily rural-agricultural society to a predominantly urban-industrial commonwealth.” (Abstract from book cover.)
Sugden, John.Tecumseh: A Life. New York: Henry Hold & Co., 1998.
“The biographical literature devoted to Tecumseh perhaps exceeds that given to any other American Indian. Now Sugden, whose previous title on the Shawnee leader, Tecumseh's Last Stand focused primarily on Tecumseh's final major campaign and ensuing death, has come out with a full biography of this great leader. This intelligent study of Tecumseh's life relates a great deal as well about the history of the Shawnee, especially in the Ohio region, and the wider context of Tecumseh's attempt to create a Pan Indian resistance, including a history of earlier such attempts.” (From a review by Charlie Cowling and Barbara Hoffert, published in the Library Journal 123, no. 4 (Mar. 1998): 100.)
John Sugden is a historian and author.
Taylor, Robert M. Jr. and Connie A. McBirney, eds. Peopling Indiana: the Ethnic
Experience. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1996.
“The book, which is lavishly illustrated, includes thirty-one chapters touching on many of the past and present ethnicities that populated the Hoosier state including: African Americans, Germans, Greeks, Chinese, Hispanics, Hungarians, Jews, Native Americans, French, Irish, Italians, Scots, Poles, and many others.” (From book cover.)
Robert M. Taylor Jr. was the Director of the Education Division at the Indiana Historical Society. Connie A. McBirney (Rendfeld) is Associate Director of Local History Services at the Indiana Historical Society.
Thornbrough, Emma Lou. The Negro in Indiana before 1900: a Study of a Minority. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993.
“Emma Lou Thornbrough's The Negro in Indiana before 1900: A Study of Minority is not only an examination of African-American life and actions in Indiana but also a study of white Indiana's struggle to define its relationship to African-Americans. Although it will reach its fourth decade in 1997, it still remains the model for examining 19th-century race relations and African-American history in a Northern state.” (From a review by Gregory Mixon, published in the Journal of Negro History 79 (Summer 1994): 311-3.)
Emma Lou Thornbrough was a professor of history at Butler University.
Thornbrough, Emma Lou and Lana Ruegamer. Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
“Indiana Blacks describes the impact of the national civil rights movement on Indiana, as young activists, both black and white, challenged segregation and racial injustice in many aspects of daily life, often in new organizations and with new leaders. The final chapter by Lana Ruegamer explores ways that black identity was affected by new access to education, work, and housing after 1970, demonstrating gains and losses from integration..” (Abstract from publisher)
Emma Lou Thornbrough was a professor of history at Butler University. Lana Ruegamer is an editor of the Indiana Magazine of History.
Tucker, Todd. Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux
Klan. Chicago: Loyola Press, 2004.
“On May 19, 1924, students at Notre Dame battled deputy sheriffs connected to the KKK. Though he highlights that incident, Tucker (Notre Dame Game Day) focuses more on the early history of the nation's leading Catholic educational institution, the Klan, and the men who led those organizations, President Matthew Walsh and D.C. Stephenson, the Klan's Grand Dragon in the state. Tucker tracks Notre Dame's rise to prominence and Walsh's seemingly inevitable ascension to its presidency, given his impeccable academic record, work ethic, and devotion to Catholicism. As Tucker shows, Stephenson, gifted in his own way, deftly built an upper-Midwest power base for the new version of the Klan, which targeted immigrants, Jews, and Catholics in addition to blacks. Ironically, Stephenson opposed the KKK's violent actions and rhetoric, although his treatment of women, involving repeated sexual abuse, eventually doomed him. By contrast, Walsh remained the embodiment of rectitude.” (From a review by R.C. Cottrell, published in the Library Journal 129, no. 16 (Oct. 2004): 97.)
Todd Tucker, a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, is an officer with the U.S. Navy.
Vincent, Stephen A. Southern Seed, Northern Soil: African-American Farm Communities
in the Midwest, 1765-1900. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.
“Vincent's portrayal of land ownership and development in the two free black communities is fully explored and convincing. . . . Vincent does not pretend that the two communities stand for the entirety of the black experience in the Old Northwest, but his excellent and thoroughly grounded study demonstrates the resilience of black communities over long passages of difficult times.” (From a review by Graham Russell Hodges, published in the Journal of American History 88, no. 1 (June 2001): 197-8.)
Stephen A. Vincent is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater.
ARTICLES:
Bir, Louis and George P. Clark, ed. “Remenecence of My Army Life.” Indiana Magazine of History 101, no. 1 (Mar. 2005): 15-57.
This article is a copy of the memoir of Louis Bir, who talks about his life as a soldier during the Civil War.
Louis Bir was a Sergeant in the 93rd Indiana Infantry during the Civil War.
Access: This article is available online through the History Cooperative.
Dearinger, Ryan L. “Violence, Masculinity, Image and Reality on the Antebellum Frontier.” Indiana Magazine of History 100, no. 1 (Mar. 2004): 26-55.
“This essay also addresses the paradoxical typology of lethal violence common to the antebellum frontier, in the process challenging conventional ideas about the extent to which gentlemen duelists were able to convince the public of their time as well as posterity that dueling was not only widely practiced and accepted, but was also more manly and honorable than the disorderly "roughhousing" engaged in by the lower sort. Portraying dueling as an exceptional, ritualistic, symbolic, neurotic, and ineffective practice embraced by a marginal segment of frontier society, this study compares the notorious custom to "common" violence that was, arguably, more effective, more consistent with democratic principles, and equally governed by civic parameters and conventional rules. In offering a new lens through which to view the relationship between violence, class, honor, and masculinity in a region emblematic of the democratic experiment in westward expansion, this essay considers the personal and regional realities that have been eschewed or overlooked in favor of a violent, oversimplified, and romanticized frontier image. Masculinity and honor, ideas imposed upon an expanding and diversifying society, were severely threatened in their frontier setting.” (Abstract from article)
Ryan L. Dearinger is a history graduate student at Purdue University.
Access: This article is available online through the History Cooperative.
Frantz, Edward. “A March of Triumph? Benjamin Harrison's Southern Tour and the Limits of Racial and Regional Reconciliation.” Indiana Magazine of History 100, no. 4 (Dec. 2004): 293-320.
Harrison's racial attitudes and actions were especially important because racial violence—a persistent problem throughout the post-Civil War South—reached new levels of frequency and intensity during his presidency. The precipitous rise in lynching during the Harrison administration was a brutal reality for African Americans. A reign of terror, the likes of which had not been seen since Reconstruction, swept through the southern states in particular. In 1891, 127 African Americans were lynched. For black Americans supremacy of the law and enforcement of the Constitution were not matters of abstract theory but daily issues of survival. The Republican president and congressmen were aware of the plight of black voters and black citizens in general, but all too often they failed to act decisively. Harrison's 1891 southern swing was therefore vital to African Americans' interests, because every action and every utterance would be filtered through the prism of southern race relations. Would Harrison support the rights of black citizens and rebuke white southerners for violence and fraud?" (Abstract from article)
Edward Frantz is a professor of history at the University of Indianapolis.
Access: This article is available online through the History Cooperative.
Hamm, Thomas D, April Beckman, Marissa Florio, Kirsti Giles, and Marie Hopper. “'A
Great and Good People': Midwestern Quakers and the Struggle Against Slavery.” Indiana Magazine of History 100, no. 1 (Mar. 2004): 3-25.
The racial attitudes and practices of Friends in what was then the West differed significantly from those of Friends back east. As organized bodies, Midwestern Friends systematically and repeatedly condemned racial prejudice. They did not segregate their schools, their meetinghouses, or their graveyards. They opposed legal limits on African-American rights, such as the notorious Indiana and Ohio black laws. They gave considerable time and effort to promoting black education and relieving cases of poverty. They aided fugitive slaves, and gave time and money to rescue kidnapped free people from slavery. (Abstract from article)
Thomas D. Hamm is archivist and professor of history at Earlham College. April Beckman, Marissa Florio, Kirsti Giles, and Marie Hopper are graduates of Earlham College.
Access: This article is available online through the History Cooperative.
Kotlowski, Dean J. “'The Jordan is a Hard Road to Travel': Hoosier Responses to Fugitive Slave Cases, 1850-1860.” International Social Science Review 78, no. 3/4 (2003): 71-89.
"This article explores Hoosier responses to fugitive slave cases. In 1851, Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, who had helped to fashion the Compromise of 1850, reported that the fugitive slave law was being enforced in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Real fugitive slaves received little sympathy, but communities resisted attempts to kidnap into slavery people who were known to be free. At the same time, the state's small African-American and Quaker populations used clandestine, sometimes illegal, means to resist slave catchers. The last fugitive slave trial in Indianapolis, Indiana demonstrated that the general public did not always resist the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850." (Abstract from Inspire).
Dean J. Kotlowski is a professor of history at Salisbury University.
Access: This article is available online through Inspire.
Nesper, Larry. “Remembering the Miami Indian Village Schoolhouse.” American Indian
Quarterly25, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 135-55.
"Examines the relation of the schoolhouse project with the cultural history of Miami Indians in Indiana. Significance of the schoolhouse on the cultural traditions of Indians; Repartition of the reserve under the General Allotment Act; Social condition of the tribes following the repartition." (Abstract from Inspire).
Larry Nesper is a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin.
Access: This article is available online through Inspire.
Nation, Richard F. “Violence and the Rights of African Americans in the Civil War Era.” Indiana Magazine of History 100, no. 3 (Sept. 2004): 215-30.
"In August 1859, an African-American man by the name of James Hays was attacked and brutally beaten by a small group of Franklin County white men, allegedly under the hire of George W. Kimble, Hays's employer. The intention of the beating was to drive Hays from the neighborhood, forcing him to join the substantial exodus of African Americans from Franklin County and indeed from the whole of rural southern Indiana. While Hays did move his family just across the county line into Fayette County, he stood up to Kimble and his hired thugs, who faced not only criminal prosecution but were forced to reply to the civil action Hays filed against them." (Abstract from article)
Richard F. Nation is a professor of history at Eastern Michigan University.
Access: This article is available online through the History Cooperative.
Sellman, James Clyde. “Social Movements and the Symbolism of Public Demonstrations:
the 1874 Women’s Crusade and German Resistance in Richmond, Indiana.” Journal
of Social History 32, no. 3 (Spring 1999): 557-89.
"Presents information on the women's crusade in 1874 and the German resistance in Richmond, Indiana. Its significance as a conflict over the nature of community life; Information on the Richmond Crusade." (Abstract from Inspire)
James Clyde Sellman is an independent scholar from Massachusetts.
Access: This article is available online through Inspire.
RECOMMENDED SOURCES:
IHC smartDESKTOP Resource Connection
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Indiana Historical Society
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Indiana State Library
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Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana
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Historic Southern Indiana
University of Southern Indiana
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Northern Indiana Center for History
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website: http://www.centerforhistory.org
