Author Archives: Adam Harness

STAY CURIOUS, MY FRIENDS

In September, the Local History Services team attended the 2016 American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) annual conference in Detroit. We had the opportunity to spend time with our Field Services colleagues, reconnect and network with museum professionals from all over the country, see Detroit’s amazing architecture and museums, and find out about […]

New IHS Exhibit Explores the Life and Legacy of Colonel Eli Lilly

Indianapolis—This Bicentennial year, the Indiana Historical Society (IHS) is using its award-winning You Are There series to pull back the curtain on the man behind Indiana’s most successful startup. IHS’s newest exhibit, You Are There: Eli Lilly at the Beginning, opens Saturday, Oct. 1, at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, open 10 […]

New IHS Exhibit Highlights High School Hoops History

Indianapolis—The Indiana Historical Society’s (IHS’s) newest exhibit celebrates one of Indiana’s favorite pastimes—basketball. The six-week exhibit, The Hoosier Hardwood Photo Project: A Journey to Indiana’s Historic High School Gyms, officially opens on Saturday, Oct. 1. The goal of the project, featuring photographs by Michael E. Keating and Chris Smith, is to document some of the […]

From the Cataloger’s Desk: Back to School with a Domestic Science Cook Book

The IHS library is fortunate to hold a rich variety of materials representing schools across the state. From 19th-century primers to20th-century yearbooks, elementary schools to universities, extracurricular activities to commencement exercises, we have it covered! For this month’s blog, I am pleased to share a domestic science cook book published by the South Bend Board […]

Listen Up!: Keeping Your Audience in Mind

One of the services that the Local History Services Department offers is on-demand workshops. We work with local organizations to figure out which of our workshops they might want and how we can tweak the workshops to fit their needs. When I work with the local organizer to plan a workshop, I ask about the […]

Celebrating Shortridge High School

Recently, we were contacted by a patron who wanted to know about items in our collection related to Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, and whether we would be interested in putting together an exhibit about it. We thought that was a great idea, so I got to work researching Shortridge and looking through our collection. […]

From the Cataloger’s Desk: A.E. Kunderd’s Gorgeous Gladioli

Amos E. Kunderd, a plant breeder from Goshen, Indiana, developed a fascination with flowers at an early age. Over time, he studied hybridization, raised seedlings of his own and originated stunning new varieties of gladioli. After introducing the first Ruffled Gladiolus (Kunderdii Glory) in 1908, his business boomed. By the time this catalog was published, […]

Looking Beyond Cute

Part of my job the best part really involves looking for collections images to share on Twitter and Instagram. Sometimes these images relate to what is going on in the world or the news. Sometimes they relate a piece of on-this-day history. But sometimes they reflect my mood that day and are spontaneous. I search […]