Author Archives: TrendyMinds

Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War

Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War is known as one of the most important visual records documenting the Civil War. This two-volume set from 1865 includes 100 albumen photographs depicting battle sites, forts, military structures and other sites during the war. The Indiana Historical Society’s copy of Gardner’s two-volume set was in good […]

Glamour in the Collection

Retired news anchor Howard Caldwell credits his grandmother and parents for instilling in him a love of movies and the theater, but the English Theatre holds a special place in his heart. “It was Broadway in Indianapolis,” he says. “My father loved a comic named Fred Stone who came to Indianapolis every year, and that […]

Duncan Schiedt Digital Collection

Duncan Schiedt married two hobbies and made a career. His union of photography and jazz proved a successful experiment through the decades. The span of his work and his acquaintance with jazz performers and venues, as evidenced in his portraits of jazz greats at various clubs and festivals, was a triumph. Schiedt was born in […]

Traces Is Now Online

Since its first issue hit IHS members’ mailboxes, the quarterly popular history magazine Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History has delivered to its readers engaging narrative, shining a light on little-known lives and events from the 19th state’s past. Now, for the first time, the articles featured in the magazine from 1989 through 2013 are […]

Domestic Life in the 1900s

The newly acquired Milhous Family Glass Plates and Prints Collection depicts household scenes, family and friends, and views of Indiana and California in the early 1900s. A gift of Gary A. and Shelley Milhous, the collection documents a Quaker family’s life in Southern Indiana and their move to the Whittier, California, area at the beginning […]

Donor Spotlight: David Meyer

Illinois resident David Meyer is a supporter of the Indiana Historical Society, and recently helped us acquire our latest William Henry Harrison letter. Born in Indiana, Mr. Meyer founded Meyerbooks, Publisher, in 1976 primarily to issue books on herbs and folk medicine written and illustrated by his father, Clarence. He serves as a consultant to […]

Civil War from Fort Sumter to Emancipation

In recognition of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, The Civil War from Fort Sumter to the Emancipation Proclamation is on display on the fourth floor of the History Center in the Rosemary McKee Lanham Gallery through April 13, 2013. This first of a two-part exhibit includes items depicting the beginning of the war through […]

Civil War Letter Filled with Bad News, Hope

Civil War letters and diaries written by soldiers who served with the 28th United States Colored Troops, Indiana’s African-American regiment, are rare. But IHS recently acquired an 1865 letter written by William Trail Jr. Trail, from Henry County, was the older brother of Benjamin Trail. Benjamin, a sergeant major and the first of four brothers […]

A Member’s Idea Brings a Chapel to Life

“It’s more than just a military installation,” says longtime IHS member Roy Zenor about Camp Atterbury. “It’s part of a bigger family that goes back to before there was a Hoosier State.” And Roy is certainly part of that family. He was a National Guard soldier for 22 years, and in and out of Atterbury […]

A Tale of Two Diaries

Civil War soldier Harvey Harry Boyd fought for the North and for the South in the Civil War, and we are thankful to have diaries telling his unusual story. Boyd was born in Monroe County in what became West Virginia in 1840. In May 1861, he enlisted in the Monroe Guards of the 27th Virginia […]