By: Maclaren Guthrie, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2021, Anthropology, Bloomington
Starting this fall, Indiana University’s Wylie House Museum and Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology began a joint bicentennial project that will be ongoing until 2020. The purpose is to discover more about IU Bloomington’s cultural heritage, protect local archaeological resources, contribute information to enrich the university’s mission, and to supplement the documentation and interpretation of campus history.
The first stage of this joint project focuses on the Wylie House, which was built in 1835 and was the home of IU’s first president, Andrew Wylie, and his family. Research efforts are being made to expand more on what is currently known about the house gardens and 19th century floriculture as a whole and specifically relating to the Bloomington area.
The resources currently being used to better understand Wylie House floriculture are the “Affectionately Yours”, a two volume compendium of Wylie Family letters, historic photographs from the Indiana University Archives Photo Collection, a sketch map drawn by Theophilus Wylie, Louisa Wylie’s essay on gardening, and various text sources outside of the Wylie House and IU Archives.
These sources provide first-person documentation of the types of flowers and other plants that the Wylie family grew during their time living in the Wylie House. Smilax, fuchsias, geraniums, begonias, and roses are the flowers that are most often mentioned in the Wylie family letters.
The letters also mention that the family often bought plants from a “Heinl” who gets imports from France, as well as trading for seeds with others from all over Indiana and from other states.
Another important aspect of this bicentennial project is uncovering more information about the garden “pits” that the Wylies had in their front yard. These “pits” were small shelter-like containers built into the ground to house plants during cold or bad weather so they didn’t wilt or die.
There are a few photos of these Wylie House pits, as well as a drawing and mentions of them in the Wylie family letters.
Today, the Wylie House Museum shares the life of the Wylies who lived there, mainly focusing on the second Wylie family, Theophilius Wylie and his family. The Wylie House also has an heirloom seed-saving garden in which flowers, herbs, and vegetables that were grown in the Bloomington area prior 1875.
In this way, the museum attempts to both accurately reflect the historic property as well as share these varieties and growing practices with the community.
The exact varieties of all of the plants is a mystery we hope to solve through this bicentennial project.
Learn more about Wylie House’s history: https://iu.maps.arcgis.com/apps/StorytellingSwipe/index.html?appid=2c3a5bdd898441328418f239ae4d093b#
https://blogs.iu.edu/bicentennialblogs/2017/03/30/the-legacy-of-andrew-wylie/
https://blogs.iu.edu/bicentennialblogs/2017/03/31/researching-the-life-of-andrew-wylie/
References
Herald, Elaine, and Jo Burgess. “Affectionately Yours, Volume I.” IUScholarWorks, Indiana University, 2011, scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/20330.
Herald, Elaine, and Jo Burgess. “Affectionately Yours, Volume II.” IUScholarWorks, Indiana University, 2011, scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/20331.
The Theophilus Adam Wylie Family Correspondence, Wylie House Museum, Indiana University Libraries, Bloomington