I find old medical books fascinating. They rank high on my list of favorite printed materials to catalog – right up there with yearbooks, cookbooks and maps. I’m no medical expert, but I enjoy reading about various ailments and how they were treated long ago. I also appreciate the accompanying illustrations. Far from being gory […]
I was very fortunate to spend the first week of June attending Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. Spending time with fellow bibliophiles in a place steeped in such rich history was a true gift for this librarian. I “lived” on campus, and although dorm life wasn’t as comfortable for me as […]
We typically collect photos, documents, books and other materials that relate directly to Indiana or to the Old Northwest. But sometimes our collections include materials from out-of-state and even overseas. This is especially true with family photograph collections that document vacations Hoosiers have taken over the years. My family and I just got back from […]
A few years ago, a colleague showed me a photo of an Asian man named Harry Sasaki from the Larry Foster Collection she was working on. The photo was dated April 20, 1943, and thanks to Larry’s notes, we know that Harry Sasaki was at that time a vendor at the City Market in Indianapolis. […]
While Indianapolis is considered the Crossroads of America, one of the city’s most significant builders could not have been born further from here. William P. Jungclaus was born February 22, 1849, in a small village near Hamburg, Germany, with a seafaring father and a stepmother whose wish for him was to enter education or the […]
Feature Photo: Repblican Presidential Candidate Wendell Willkie at English Theater in Indianapolis, 1940 (Indiana Historical Society) I spend a lot of time preserving and digitizing historical photographs of Indiana events, but I also like to take advantage of witnessing history with my own eyes when the opportunity presents itself. A big opportunity came this week […]
The Famous Door, Bellflower Clinic, Essex House, Body Works. What do these places have in common? They are just a handful of lost landmarks of the Indianapolis LGBTQ community. Even though the structures are gone, these demolished buildings still share their stories with us today. The Essex House was the youngest mid-rise apartment/hotel building in […]
Yesterday, around 80 organizations across the United States are sharing stories about the passage of the 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote. I polled some of our Collections staff members about interesting items that talk about women’s right to vote. We have what you might expect – great images of like the […]
Before we dive into a new topic, I’m sure you can’t wait to grade yourself on the following Indiana history questions from last month’s blog post: 1. What towns were the territorial capitals of Indiana? Vincennes (1st); Corydon (2nd) 2. Who was elected Indiana’s first state governor? Jonathan Jennings (In case there’s any confusion, William […]
Did you save a lock of your child’s hair from their first haircut? Have you found mementos such as this when looking through family materials passed down through generations? These are pretty common occurrences, but if you are searching through materials from the 19th century, you may find even more elaborate pieces made from human hair. […]
