Voices from the IU Bicentennial

Claudia Crump: Lifelong Educator and World Traveler

Posted on February 28, 2018 by sajacobi

By: Alexandra Stepp, IU Bicentennial Oral History Project, Class of 2019, History, IU Southeast

Dr. Claudia Crump alongside some of the culture kits in the Center for Cultural Resources at the IU Southeast library.

Certainly all of the oral history interviews I have conducted thus far have been fascinating. Everyone I have interviewed has provided such interesting details about their experiences at IU Southeast and how the campus has grown and evolved. One of the interviews that stands out to me the most, though, is the one that I conducted with Dr. Claudia Crump.

Dr. Claudia Crump taught at IU Southeast as a professor of education beginning in 1968 until her retirement in 1993. Even after teaching for over 25 years, Dr. Crump remained passionate about helping students. So, just months after she retired, she became co-founder and co-director of the Center for Cultural Resources at IU Southeast. She still holds this position nearly 25 years later. IU Southeast has been honored by Dr. Crump’s service for a total of over 50 years.

Dr. Crump was born in Sulphur Well, Kentucky, on February 21, 1930. Teaching was her first love. Ironically, she describes her own early education as sparse; for a significant portion of her childhood she attended a one-room schoolhouse near Canmer, Kentucky. Growing up in a very rural region meant that the schoolhouse was located quite a distance from Dr. Crump’s home. During my interview with her she recalled spending hours on a school bus travelling to and from school. She even remembered times when her father would have to take her to school on horseback.

But she loved even the few hours that she got to spent learning. She described herself as having been an ambitious child who was inspired by her aunt and mentor who was also a teacher. The example of her aunt in addition to Dr. Crump’s self-described natural instinct to help people drove her to excel in school. As soon as she graduated in 1948 from high school she enrolled at Western Kentucky University. But she did not even finish her degree before becoming a teacher. After just one year of college, Dr. Crump was hired at the age of 19 to teach second grade in a schoolhouse in Lebanon Junction, Kentucky. She continued to attend Western Kentucky University while she taught and graduated with her Bachelor’s degree in education in 1952. She then moved to teaching elementary education first in Charlestown, Indiana, and then in Clarksville, Indiana.

Dr. Crump describes her hope to become a teacher.

She quickly moved up the ranks in her positions at elementary schools in Indiana. She became the elementary coordinator for schools in Clarksville, a position which made her the supervisor of teachers much older than her. This position and her continuous desire to learn more inspired her to continue her education; she resigned from her teaching position and then enrolled at IU Bloomington. From there she earned her Master’s in Education in 1957 and then her Ph.D. in 1968.

Right at the time Dr. Crump was graduating with her doctorate, a position in the education department opened up at IU Southeast. For Dr. Crump, this was a position she deeply desired. Since she began her higher education, she said that “I knew that IUS was my place” and the school was where she one day hoped to teach. Despite a recent policy issued by IU administrators that ordered that faculty from outside the IU network be hired for the purpose of promoting more diversity of background, Dr. Crump received the position.

During her time on campus, Dr. Crump has certainly left her mark. She has worked hard to make a personal connection with her students and wrote on her life history form that she has about 5,000 children: none biologically, but many with whom she has become close during her time teaching. She also helped give rise to a generation of teachers who were focused on active, personalized teaching based on the needs of individual students. Her focus was utilizing the lessons she learned from her practical experiences in teaching to help her students become the best teachers possible. She did this for 25 years.

Listen to Dr. Crump describe the move from Jeffersonville to the new IU Southeast campus.

The desire to teach did not fade for Dr. Crump even once she retired. Rather, it combined with her second love: traveling and learning about other cultures. She has visited an astounding 45 to 50 countries during her lifetime; so many that when I asked her, her initial response was “I lost count.”

Of these countries, she has visited Russia and Japan four times each. But she was not about visiting as a tourist. Instead, she described how she stayed in houses while she was there to fully immerse herself in the culture of whichever country she was visiting. She wanted to learn not just about the major architectural attractions but about the people who populated each region.

Just as she applied her teaching experiences to her time as a professor at IU Southeast, she applied her love of learning about other peoples and the information she learned about other cultures to the second half of her time on campus. Only two months into retirement, Dr. Crump explains that while she was extremely busy after she retired she felt like she was “doing nothing worthwhile.”

Her boredom drew her back onto campus to work on the collection of culture kits that she and Professor Carolyn Diener had begun collecting while Dr. Crump was still teaching. This turned into a full-time volunteer position as she became co-founder of the Center for Cultural Resources alongside Dr. Diener when the center opened on April 22, 1993. The center has grown immensely since then. “We started out with 13 culture kits and now we have over 100,” Dr. Crump states.

This is the banner that hangs outside of the Center for Cultural Resources. It reads, “Our mission is to facilitate an acceptance of and appreciation for personal and global diversity.”

During this passage, Dr. Crump discusses coming back to IU Southeast and the development of the Center for Cultural Resources.

It is clear from her interview that Dr. Crump is passionate about these culture kits and the potential they hold for teachers in the region. These kits are large plastic containers which contain information about a specific culture. This information comes in the form of a lesson plan, artifacts, primary sources, books, and other resources from whichever region to which the kit pertains. Teachers from the region can come to the center and borrow a kit to take back to their classrooms and teach their students about different peoples. In this way, the center promotes diversity and provides a way for students to connect with people from other countries.

Throughout nearly all of my interviews, I have learned of the various ways in which IU Southeast has impacted its students and employees. Many have described how IU Southeast became like home to them, how their professors pushed them to excel, and how their education at the school helped them to understand themselves. Dr. Crump, too, described how the teachers, faculty, and staff whom she spent decades with shaped her and became like her family.

However, Dr. Crump provides an example of how IU Southeast does not merely shape people but of how the people of IU Southeast shape the campus. For so many years, Dr. Crump has dedicated her life in service to the school. She shaped generations of teachers, instilling within them her ideas of engaged, personal learning specific to each student. Not only did she share and spread her passion for teaching, but she also contributed the physical embodiment of her love for learning about other cultures in the form of the Center for Cultural Resources. In these ways she has left a permanent mark on the school.

Finally, Dr. Crump talks about the opening of the Center for Cultural Resources as a standout event in her memory.

The 25^th anniversary of the center is approaching rapidly. As it arrives, it will serve as a reminder not just of the efforts of the school to expand the community’s access to knowledge and diversity, but also the hard work and dedication of those who make the school function.

It is the honor and privilege of IU Southeast to claim Dr. Claudia Crump as one of our own, a person who betters not just the campus but also the world around her.

Founding the Asian Culture Center Podcast

Posted on February 21, 2018 by sajacobi

By: Kathryn de la Rosa, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2019, Journalism, Bloomington

The following interviews were conducted during October and November 2017. Click below to listen.

ELOIZA-DOMINGO SNYDER: For us to see all these pictures and to hear from people like you that say I work at the ACC now and I go there and I talk with Melanie… that is so cool.

KATHRYN DE LA ROSA: The Asian Culture Center has been on the corner of 10th and Woodlawn for almost two decades. It’s the youngest culture center at Indiana University Bloomington, and the story of its founding starts with students – one student, in the summer of 1996.

JOON PARK: It was the summer between my sophomore and junior year I stayed on campus and worked on writing a proposal.

DE LA ROSA: That’s Joon Park. When he was a sophomore, IU started accepting applications for something called the Strategic Initiatives Grant. They’d give 50 thousand dollars to a proposal that would further the mission of the university.

PARK: I think it was originally designed for academic grants, but there was nothing that said students couldn’t also submit recommendations. I think they just assumed students wouldn’t.

DE LA ROSA: Before Joon went to college, he felt like he had two lives.

PARK: One was a Korean-American community… but then also at at school and with friends that identity almost entirely faded to the background.

DE LA ROSA: He said that while he wrote the proposal, he thought it was a long shot. He referenced similar proposals from other Midwest schools and read some early works on Asian American studies, but still: a long shot. But the next school year, things took a turn.

PARK: A group of really impassioned students came together and we formed this group called the Student Coalition.

DE LA ROSA: The Student Coalition was a kind of union of 32 student organizations, including Black Student Union, Latinos Unidos, and the Asian American Association, which Joon was then president of.

PARK: And at the time this was 1996. Indiana University didn’t recognize Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a school holiday.

DE LA ROSA: While other campuses like IU Northwest did. So on MLK Day 1997…

PARK: We decided we were call going to come together and we were going to march on the chancellor’s office. We had seven demands.

DE LA ROSA: Some of those demands were the, the establishment of Latino Studies, the permanence of the GLBT Student Support Services Office, and a serious commitment to hiring more faculty of color.

PARK: One of them was the establishment of the Asian Culture Center. The other one was the establishment of the Asian American Studies Program. But ever since 1997 Indiana University recognizes Martin Luther King Jr. Day as an official school holiday, so all you guys who don’t have school that Monday, you can thank us.

DE LA ROSA: And for the next two years, the Asian American Association and other Asian student groups created the Asian Culture Center.

DOMINGO-SNYDER: I graduated from IU in 1999 for my bachelors and my masters in 01. We opened the center in 1998, so my junior year of college.

DE LA ROSA: This is Eloiza Domingo-Snyder. She was treasurer of the Asian American Association in 1998 and 1999.

DOMINGO-SNYDER: I remember picking out the couches that you guys sit on. I picked out the mailing boxes. You walk in theyre in the right hand side past the foyer. I created all of that.

DE LA ROSA: The center opened with an interim director and a group of volunteers, including Eloiza, in fall of 1998.

DOMINGO-SNYDER: We were the first ACC in the Midwest, ever, to open. It was only 8 or 10 of us that did this. And we were all straight-A students. We hand-hired Melanie.

MELANIE CASTILLO-CULLATHER: My name is Melanie Castillo-Cullather, and I’m the director of the Asian Cultural (sic) Center.

DOMINGO-SNYDER: It was a big deal that we all agreed that Melanie should be the director. She was, is, the first Filipina leader in IU history.

DE LA ROSA: Melanie was appointed in January 1999, and she’s been there ever since.

CASTILLO-CULLATHER: The first few weeks. We were so excited because there was a student group. The first student group who actually used the center was the Pakistani Student Association.

DE LA ROSA: For the first six months, it was just business – meeting with student groups, shaping the programs that are now the Center’s trademarks like Over a Cup of Tea discussion group and the ACC youth day camp. But then…

CASTILLO-CULLATHER: Won-Joon Yoon was murdered.

DE LA ROSA: On July 4, 1999, Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, a neo-Nazi and part of the World Church of the creator, murdered incoming grad student Won-Joon Yoon in a spree of drive-by shootings across Indiana and Illinois.

CASTILLO-CULLATHER: And the ACC was thrust into a space that personally, I wasn’t prepared. We grew immediately. You know how that is when you’re confronted by a very sad incident in your life, you sort of like turn 10 years older, 15 years older, that’s basically what happened to the center. We grew overnight and realized that we cannot anymore confine ourselves to doing things on campus, that we have to do things in the community and elsewhere were there’s a need for raising awareness about Asian-Americans about Asians in America, and also advocating for the members of our community.

DE LA ROSA: Daisy Rodriguez-Pitel was part of that outreach.

DAISY RODRIGUEZ-PITEL: And so for me it really made me think about where are safe places for AAPI students to talk about these issues?

DE LA ROSA: Daisy came to IU in fall 1999 to pursue her PhD. She and Melanie created one of the ACC’s long-running programs: Responding to Incidents of Casual Everyday Racism, or RICER.

RODRIGUEZ-PITEL: Won-Joon Yoon was murdered in July a month before I moved to Bloomington, so my parents were a little bit nervous about me moving there and they were concerned because… he was targeted.

DE LA ROSA: It became clear that the ACC was absolutely necessary – and it had arrived on campus at one of the most pivotal moments it could.

RODRIGUEZ-PITEL: I just knew that the ACC would become my home away from home. I don’t think I would’ve survived without the ACC.

DE LA ROSA: RICER, Over a Cup of Tea, Asian Cooking Demos, the mailboxes in the hall – these mainstays of the Asian Culture Center came from students, in both tragic and joyful circumstances.

CASTILLO-CULLATHER: 25:51 Well, it’s very rewarding. Rewarding to see and hear students who are accomplished… hearing from them and seeing how they’ve grown as a person, in their careers and then really good members of their communities. Hearing stories about those accomplishments is very rewarding.

PARK: We wouldn’t have got there if I didn’t sit there in the library all summer.

DOMINGO-SNYDER: Everyone always asks what is the thing you’re most proud of? And I always say opening the ACC. I had no clue what I was doing, but we created something that will stand in the history time and has given back to IU in a way we couldn’t have imagined.

DE LA ROSA: Do you think you’ll be here still in 20 years?

CASTILLO-CULLATHER: (laughter) I don’t know. I wish I knew the answer for that, Kathryn. I don’t know.

The music in this piece came from Podington Bear under a Creative Commons license. http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Carefree/Outmoded_Waltz

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear/Piano_I/No_Solace

Daisy Beck on the IU Auditorium Organ

Posted on February 15, 2018 by sajacobi

By: James H. Capshew, University Historian

Daisy and Frank Beck. Courtesy of IU Archives P0024845

Many people, in ways both large and small, have contributed much to the writing of the history of Indiana University over the years, and Daisy Beck is a fine example. In 1899, Daisy Woodward received her Bachelor of Arts degree and married Frank O. Beck (AB 1894, AM 1895).

After spending a quarter of a century in Chicago where they were involved in church work and social welfare activities, they retired in 1934 to Bloomington, where they were both unofficial counselors to the student body as well as the IU administration.

They were indefatigable advocates for a place of worship on campus serving all faiths, and through their moral and financial support, Beck Chapel was opened in 1957.

The exterior of Beck Chapel in 1957. Courtesy of IU Archives P0020420

Daisy, who was a direct descendent of John Ketcham, one of IU’s original trustees, published an informal history of IU in 1962, entitled Once Over Lightly: An Indiana University Story. In a series of delightfully written vignettes, she accurately sketches out the main events, the personalities, and the place of IU in different times. Here is an example:

“Indiana University has a magnificent spread of subjects from which to choose, and it is gratifying that so many students elect to learn something of the fine arts in addition to the more practical subjects.

The Auditorium offers this opportunity in abundant measure, be it music, drama, painting, that is desired. Is there a student who has been on Campus for four years who has not grasped an opportunity of hearing the Barnes organ, of listening to opera? Or has any student neglected to see and study the Thomas Hart Benton murals?

In 1942 the great Chicago Auditorium figured it had not used its organ for twenty-five years; therefore, it concluded, it no longer needed an organ. The instrument had been built in 1889 by Hilbourne L. Roosevelt, the greatest organ builder of his generation, at a cost of $65,000, a sizable sum in that day, and, when dedicated, it was the largest in America.

Dr. William Barnes, an organ architect and recitalist, had no earthly use for the huge organ, but he bought it at auction, anyhow, for a thousand dollars. After it was torn down, its parts were stored in the basement of the First Baptist Church in Evanston.

When Dr. Barnes heard from Robert L. Sanders, then dean of our Music School, of Indiana’s splendid new auditorium, he deemed it a fitting home for the magnificent organ, and gave it as a present to the new building.

In 1944 its parts were shipped to the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company in Boston who restored and rebuilt it, requiring two years for the work. Five months were spent in adjusting and tuning, after which the parts finally arrived by truck in Bloomington.

An interior view of the pipe organ. Courtesy of IU Archives P0050130

It is somewhat overwhelming to contemplate that the organ’s longest pipe is 32 feet, and 109 stops control register and tone, that twenty-five horsepower motors it and that 100 miles of electric wiring was used to install it.

Result: An instrument recognized among musicians as one of the greatest in the world in size and tone, besides having richness of historical background.

Grateful thanks to Messrs Barnes and Sanders.

Since its rebuilding and dedication in 1948, it has been played by some of the world’s greatest organists, including E. Power Biggs, Marcel Dupre, Alexander Schreiner, and Fernando Germani.” (pages 109-110)

Another view of this unique musical instrument. Courtesy of IU Archives P0050132

Writing over 50 years ago, Daisy Beck captured the excitement of the new Auditorium and the flavor of its impressive organ with its rich background, producing a gem of IU history.

For further information about the subsequent career of the IU Auditorium organ, please consult:

http://www.iuauditorium.com/about-us/indiana-university-auditorium-organ

Roland Clark Davis, Pioneering Psychophysiologist

Posted on January 2, 2018 by sajacobi

By: Megan Henderson, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2020, Psychology, IUPUI

R.C. Davis at his work desk. Courtesy of ‘A Quiet Voice’ by F. H. Gabbay.

While researching Roland Clark Davis, often known as R.C. Davis, I had the fortune of being able to speak with his granddaughter, Francie Gabbay, who is in the same field of work as R.C. Davis.

She was more than helpful and provided many documents, photographs, and much information that I could not otherwise find (online or in the archives).

Young portrait of R.C. Davis. Courtesy of Francie Gabbay’s personal photo collection.

So, who was Roland Clark Davis?

Davis was a well-educated, curious man. People often described him as ‘lost in thought.’ “When Davis’s son Chris was in first grade, the children in his class were asked by their teacher what their fathers did. Chris answered that his father sat with his legs up on his desk and thought” (Gabbay, F. H., & Stern, R. M., 2012, p.9).

Davis was often found deep in thought like this, both in his office at the university as well as his study at home. According to his daughter, Davis would play opera music at their home on Sundays. He would walk around the house, “conducting” the orchestra.

Davis attended Harvard for his A.B. in English in 1924, however, he decided English was not his main interest. He then attended Columbia University and completed his Ph.D. in psychology in 1930. That next year, he and his wife moved to Bloomington, Indiana where he began working at Indiana University as an associate psychology professor, which was supposed to be a one-year job.

Davis ended up staying at IU Bloomington for the rest of his career, working as an acting associate professor of psychology at the Indianapolis Extension Center in 1935, and then later being appointed as a full-time psychology professor for IU Bloomington in 1938. (Davis, R. C., 1949, p.219)

R.C. Davis’s picture in The Indianapolis Star from the article “Appointed to Staff at IU Extension” in 1935.

His area of focus in psychology was psychophysiology, which focused on the physiological responses and bases for psychological processes. Davis was one of the first generation of psychologists to use the term psychophysiology, and one of the first full time psychophysiologists.

Davis attended many of the American Psychological Association (APA) meetings, at which he met other psychologists interested in psychophysiology. It was with this group of people that he helped create the Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR). SPR was created for psychologists interested in psychophysiology to meet and discuss their findings in this area of psychology.

Davis was appointed chair of the organizing board and was placed as the successor of the president of the group when the time came. The group had their organizational meeting in 1959 to discuss the what, where, and when of their meetings. Their first meeting was scheduled for September 5, 1961, but sadly Davis never made it to the meeting as he passed away seven months earlier.

When he began at IU, he established his psychophysiology laboratory in Science Hall (now known as Lindley Hall). His laboratory was in the same hallway as B.F. Skinner’s laboratory during his time at IU (1945-1948).

At that time, Skinner was carrying out experiments involving animals (mostly pigeons), and Davis was doing experiments requiring the burning of gunpowder. In a paper written about Davis, his son described the smell in the hallway as an “acrid smell of the recording paper mixed with the stench of clucking pigeons, which were housed next door in B.F. Skinner’s laboratory” (Gabbay, F. H., & Stern, R. M., 2012, p.3).

Science Hall (now known as Lindley Hall) in 1907. Courtesy of IU Archives P0020048

During his career at IU Bloomington, Davis mentored a number of students in psychology. One of his students was Oren W. Eagleson. Under Davis’s supervision, Eagleson completed his dissertation, “Comparison Studies of White and Negro Subjects in Learning to Discriminate Visual Magnitude”, and attained his PhD in 1935. Eagleson was one of the first ten African-American students in the United Stated to obtain a PhD in psychology (Capshew, J. H., 2014, p.49).

R.C. Davis head shot, Courtesy of Francie Gabbay’s personal photo collection.

R.C. Davis was very invested in his research, and published well over 100 papers throughout his career. He researched several areas of psychology, such as stomach issues and sleep, but his main focus was on galvanic responses. Galvanic responses are our bodies electrical responses to certain stimuli.

Davis, when he could, would take part in his own experiments. One specific experiment that he partook in was a galvanic stomach response where he was testing stomach contractions, or the electrical potential that the organs in the abdomen create.

For this, he and his volunteers would swallow balloons to measure the electrical potential. However, he later changed the method as the, “…balloon technique is too inconvenient and difficult for most to accept” (Davis, R. C., Garafolo, L., & Gault, F. P., 1957, p.1). He revised his methods for this particular experiment and used electrodes attached to the abdomen to record the data.

Davis working. Courtesy of Francie Gabbay’s personal photo collection.

His children were also often involved in his research as volunteer subjects. “She [Davis’ daughter, Susan] and her brother Chris (known then as “Kit”) made many visits to Science Hall and were frequently called into service” (Gabbay, F. H., & Stern, R. M., 2012, p.3). These research experiments were generally to measure a person’s galvanic response to some sort of stimulus, such as loud noise or gunfire.

They would take place by having the subject sit in a sheet metal box, with electrodes strapped to their arms, legs, and stomach to measure the electrical pulses the body gives off. As his daughter, Susan Gabbay, recalled:

“Thus arrayed, I was closed into the chamber, hand poised over the signal button. There were beeps. I pressed on cue. Suddenly there reverberated an indescribable burst of sound. My heart nearly left my chest and my breath stopped. Dad had pounded on the sheet metal box in which I was contained. He was looking for my physical responses to being startled. He got them.” (Gabbay, S., 2012, p.2)

Davis’s research on the galvanic responses led to his interest in lie detection; and this research may have been undertaken for the military, according to his granddaughter. IU Bloomington was given access to the patent for ‘Lie-Detection Apparatus’ in 1939, which stated that its inventor was R.C. Davis.

The original patent has not been able to be retrieved, and the best conclusion that we can draw about it is that once Davis passed away, the patent filing stopped.

There were lie detection devices invented before Davis’s version; they differed in how they detected lies. Prior to Davis’s device, lie detectors relied on blood pressure and the rate at which a person was breathing. The apparatus Davis came up with relied on the electrical resistance of the skin tissue, a method that came from his research on galvanic responses.

The electrical skin responses correspond with emotion felt by the subject, so when the subject was asked a question that riled their emotions, the needle on the device measured the presence of decreased resistance, and the degree to which it was present, thus indicating if a person was lying or not. (Foundation Given “Lie-Detector” Patent, 1939)

R.C. Davis posing with his lie detection apparatus, in 1958. Courtesy of IU Archives P0052136

In other research Davis carried out regarding lie detection, he noted differences in the circumference of the index finger of is subjects. As reported in the Indianapolis Star (1953), he found that when asked a question, a person’s index finger will shrink veer so slightly.

When the person lies about the answer to said question, their index finger would shrink again. This was an interesting point of focus for Davis, but it was not very reliable and thus not included in the apparatus that he created.

The lie detection apparatus patent was given to the university in 1939, and the police were very interested in using the device for investigations. Strangely enough, there was slim mention of Davis’s lie detection apparatus in the newspapers (regarding assisting investigations) before 1953. There were news articles describing the lie detector, as well as later articles about it being used in death investigations and disappearances.

His apparatus was used in 1935 to question two male suspects about the death of a 15-year-old girl. However, these results were not considered reliable by Davis, who said the suspects fatigue interfered with the results. Davis acknowledged that the lie detection apparatus was not 100% reliable. Even today, lie detectors are still used in investigations, however they are not considered permissible evidence in a court of law.

Multiple newspaper articles about Davis’s lie detection apparatus appeared in The Indianapolis Star in 1953.

The First Women of the Business School

Posted on January 2, 2018 by sajacobi

By: Ellie Kaverman, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2018, Journalism, Bloomington

“Full-time women were practically nonexistent in the early history of the school, with exceptions such as Lulu Westenhaver, who was hired in 1920, and Esther Bray, hired by Herman B. Wells. Both were teachers of shorthand and typing.”—Indiana University Kelley School of Business: The First One Hundred Years of Education for Business 1902-2002

It all started with two names: Lulu Westenhaver and Esther Bray.

These names were the only mention of a female presence in the early days of Indiana University’s School of Commerce and Finance, which would eventually become today’s Kelley School of Business. The discussion of Lulu and Esther as “teachers of shorthand and typing” encompasses one sentence, but their impact on the business school was much more significant than just one sentence implies.

Lulu Westenhaver and Esther Bray were two influential figures and were part of a much greater legacy created by the women of the early business school.

Both women were on the business staff, Lulu as an instructor and Esther as one of the first female professors in the business school. Researching these two women led me to find Sarah Kirby, an instrumental secretary, and Blanche McNeely Wean, the first female admitted into the business school.

Together, these four women illustrate the stepping stone nature of female progression in the business and academic world of the 1920s and ‘30s.

Sarah Kirby began her work at IU in 1908 and was the first of the four women to begin at the university. She served the university as an administrative assistant for six different deans throughout her 38 years at the university.

In 1920, Sarah was appointed assistant to William Rawles, dean of the newly created School of Commerce and Finance. In her time between 1908 and 1946, she was responsible for assisting students who had served in World War I and II transfer credits and finish their education.

Sarah Kirby in 1941. Courtesy of IU Archives P0073336

Sarah Kirby was a dedicated steward of the business school, once saying, “My door will always be open to anyone who was ever enrolled in the school of business… and I hope I have lots of company.” Later, in 1922, Sarah would serve as the catalyst for Blanche Wean’s business education.

Lulu Westenhaver graduated from the University of Wisconsin and began her teaching career at IU in 1920 as an instructor in the newly formed School of Commerce and Finance. She taught stenography, typewriting, and other secretarial courses; she wrote two lesson plan books on Gregg shorthand.

From 1923-1935, Lulu was a secretary for the school alongside Sarah Kirby, in addition to her teaching. Dedicated to the networking and camaraderie of the female business students, she founded Chi Gamma, a professional organization for only women in business at IU. Later, she sponsored Omicron Delta, another professional organization for only junior and senior women in the business school.

Lulu Westenhaver in 1948. Courtesy of IU Archives P0073327

Lulu spent 28 years working at the business school, teaching and working for presumably classes of only men for the first two years before Blanche McNeely Wean was admitted into the school. She was an advocate for women, encouraging the professional careers of women as a charter member of the Business and Professional Women’s Club. Lulu was a member of eight different organizations dedicated to professional development and various teaching organizations.

She was a cornerstone in the education of business students. The resolutions committee, chaired by no other than Esther Bray, memorialized her with these words when she passed away in 1948: “Always striving for perfection, she was precise and exact in her own standards and in turn expected much from others… Miss Westenhaver contributed to the building of character and skill.”

Esther Bray spent her undergraduate career and most of her teaching career at Indiana University Bloomington. She received her undergraduate degree in 1927 and came back to the university to teach in 1937 at the request of President Herman B. Wells. She taught business education throughout her 34-year teaching career.

Esther Bray as an undergraduate student at IU in 1925. Courtesy of IU Archives P0073326

In 1971, she retired from the business school because she was appointed by Indiana governor Edgar Whitcomb to the Indiana Commission For Higher Education, serving on the commission for 21 years. When she retired, she was one of only two original members still serving on the commission.

At Indiana University, Esther was the only female on the business school faculty for many years, as instructors such as Westenhaver were not considered faculty at the time.

Esther Bray as a faculty member in 1966. Courtesy of IU Archives P0058296

Esther was instrumental in the development of young women both in and out of the business school; as she even organized trips to the statehouse in Indianapolis for women to practice their stenography skills in a professional setting. She also served as a Girls State and Girls Nation lead volunteer and furthered the development of thousands of young women.

Esther was married to twelve-term Congressman William Bray, with whom she visited over 100 countries throughout their lives together. Esther was named a Herald-Times Woman of the Century when she was 96.

Esther Bray in 1998. Courtesy of newspapers.com

Her life was varied from politics to business to education, but her motive was the same: to encourage young women to aspire to achieve more with their lives than being a traditional, domestic ideal of a woman.

When Esther passed away in 1999, a faculty memorial resolution was passed in her honor, calling Esther a “role model for women” and “had the time been right, she would have been a congresswoman.”

“For many years, I was the only female on the staff. The department head would open our meetings by saying, ‘Mrs. Bray and gentlemen, shall we come to order?’” —Esther Bray

To read more about Esther Bray’s legacy, please visit https://blogs.iu.edu/bicentennialblogs/2018/10/17/the-enduring-legacy-of-esther-bray-educator-and-civic-leader/

The next logical step in the inclusion of women in the business school was for a woman to be admitted. In 1922, Blanche McNeely Wean became that person. She grew up in Bloomington and began her undergraduate education at Indiana University in 1919. She was originally studying to be a teacher, but had ambitions to join the business world, which stemmed from working in her father’s grocery store as a child. She shared her ambition with a male professor who told her that business was a man’s world.

Blanche McNeely Wean as a business student in 1923. Courtesy of IU Archives P0073325

She turned to Sarah Kirby, a secretary with whom she interacted with frequently, who encouraged her to ask Dean Rawles for admission into the school. In Blanche’s memoir, Blanche Accounts, she credits her admission into the school to Sarah Kirby. She says of her conversation with Dean Rawles, “He [Dean Rawles] looked at me in this formal way, as though he had never seen me before although I’d worked as his secretary for a year, and answered, ‘You’ve done everything else. I don’t see why not!’”

Blanche became the first woman admitted into the business school. Two more women from the University of Chicago were admitted after Blanche. Anna Hasler, Athleen Catterson, and Blanche graduated together in 1923, making them the first women to graduate from the Indiana University School of Commerce and Finance.

After graduation, Blanche moved to Lafayette to begin work as a teacher and married Francis Wean in 1926. In 1930, Francis passed away, widowing Blanche and leaving her to raise three daughters under the age of three at the onset of the Great Depression.

Blanche writes in her memoir about the time: “The shock of his death was almost more than I could bear. I found it hard to make decisions, except one, and that with emphasis. Friends without children asked whether I would consider giving one of my children to them.

I was indignant and answered, ‘Why? I have my education and ability to work. I can take care of my own children.’”

Instead, Blanche went back to Bloomington after Francis passed away to substitute teach for Lulu Westenhaver. Blanche describes in her memoir that moving back to Bloomington was like a homecoming: “It was a time to renew old friendships with Herman Wells, Mr. Pritchett, Joe Batchelor, Esther Bray, and Miss Kirby.”

While teaching at IU, she was working on her master’s degree and was offered a trial position as the head of the business department at Central Normal College in Danville, Indiana. Instead of moving her family on the hope of a full-time position at the college, she woke up every Monday morning at 2:30am to drive to Danville and teach a 6:00am class.

In 1932, Blanche received an offer from Central Normal College to head the business school, serve as the dean of women, and be the student newspaper advisor—with the promise that she would finish her master’s degree. She moved her family to Danville and continued these roles for 17 years while also working as an accountant for outside businesses.

In the mean time, all three of her daughters attended Indiana University for both their undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

In 1947, Blanche left the college and started her own accounting firm out of her home, Blanche M. Wean and Associates. She ran the business on her own with a few employees until her grandson, Ted Andrews, joined the firm, renamed Wean, Andrews, & Co. in 1980.

Blanche McNeely Wean in her accounting office in 1996. Courtesy of newspapers.com

Blanche contributed greatly to the business education of students and shattered glass ceilings for many women aspiring to careers in business. Blanche was instrumental in proving that women could succeed in the business world, even without the assistance of a husband. In an interview with The Indianapolis Star in 1987, Blanche expounds on the importance of ability beyond physical attributes:

“I judge an individual on his or her merits. It’s not a matter of color or race, of women or men. It’s a question of ‘the job has to be done and let’s do it.’ If you can do it better than the other fellow, fine.”

Sarah, Lulu, Esther, and Blanche are the representations of the building blocks that women became for each other in the early days of the business school, all in an effort to gain equal footing.

Sarah Kirby begins in a traditional role as a secretary to exclusively male deans, but is the catalyst to getting the first woman into the business school, which led to the fantastic, stereotype-breaking life of Blanche McNeely Wean.

Lulu Westenhaver helped break down barriers discouraging women to enter business by promoting and encouraging young women to be a part of professional organizations and by becoming an instructor.

Esther Bray contradicted the traditional role of a politician’s wife and accomplished substantial accolades in her own right. Sarah, Lulu, and Esther’s work and lives are exemplified in the life of Blanche McNeely Wean, who was able to completely break the mold of what it means to be a woman interested in business.

Blanche was able to not just be a teacher, but practice accounting in her own right. These four women represent the ways in which women progressed in the early days of the business school that is now the nationally acclaimed Kelley School of Business—a school that now has its first female dean—Dr. Idalene Kesner.

Works Cited

“Events of Day in Normal.” The Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), October 29, 1941.

“Honored at IU.” The Indianapolis News, May 9, 1942.

“Instructor at IU for 28 years Dies.” The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), April 23, 1959.

“New Courses Announced.” The Fort Wayne Sentinel, August 16, 1920.

Bray, Esther, and Harold Lusk. Memorial Resolution on the Death of Miss Lula May Westenhaver. Bloomington, IN.

Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors (1915-1955)

Butters, Mary Ann. “Dinner to Focus Spotlight on Mrs. Bray.” The Indianapolis Star, March 2, 1972.

Chaney, Ruth. “Congressman’s wife has life of varied interests.” The Daily Journal (Franklin, IN), October 6, 1964.

Ellis, Mike. “Book to be the keeper of the fate.” The Indianapolis News, September 9, 1987.

Gibbons, Helen. Memorial Resolution: Professor Emeritus Professor Esther Debra Bray. October 2, 2000. Bloomington, IN.

Hopper, Lynn. “Awash in Fond Memories.” The Indianapolis Star, February 27, 1998.

Jensen, Jean. “She’s at Home in Business.” The Indianapolis News, December 29, 1982.

McBride, Suzanne. “An Education in Higher Learning: 21-year board member sees progress.” The Indianapolis News (Indianapolis), June 22, 1992.

Parsons, Claude. “Esther Bray is serving 16th year on Higher Education Commission.” The Indianapolis News, April 9, 1987.

Rosenberg, Beth. “Blanche Wean, 86, Still Accountable.” The Indianapolis Star, September 24, 1987.

Spangle, Beth. “Blanche McNeely Wean left a legacy for town and family.” The Indianapolis News, June 9, 1999.

Stewart, Lotys Benning. “They Achieve.” The Indianapolis Star, June 30, 1946.

Strother, Bill. “Esther Bray recalled as leader, teacher.” The Herald Times Online, December 23, 1999. Accessed September 12, 2017. http://ww.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/1999/12/23/news.991223_A1_JPS09096.sto.

Vol. 15, No. 5 (May, 1929), pp. 405-415

Wean, Blanche McNeely. Blanche accounts: a McNeely family story. Danville, IN: Blanche McNeely Wean, 1996.

Wetuski, Jodi. “Her Varied Life Adds Up.” The Indianapolis Star, July 17, 1996.

Floriculture: Past and Present

Posted on December 18, 2017 by sajacobi

By: Maclaren Guthrie, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2021, Anthropology, Bloomington

Andrew Wylie House. Taken by Chas. Harris July 1928. Courtesy of Indiana University Archives, P0071639

In the past, agriculture was a much more dominant field than floriculture. Now both fields are appreciated and utilized by families everywhere, though some may argue floriculture is even more prevalent than agriculture in relation to how many people were taking part in the activities.

The reason for this transition is due mainly to technological advances, like the usage of trains for shipping and the invention of time saving farming equipment, which made it unnecessary for all families to do all their own farming.

More can be read about these changes in my previous blog, “Transition from Agriculture to Leisure Gardening in Bloomington, Indiana circa 1860s” (Guthrie 2017b).

Members of the Wylie Family at the 100th birthday party of Rebecca Dennis Wylie. Courtesy of Indiana University Archives, P0027265

Common plants around the 1860’s-1890’s, as noted by the “Affectionately Yours” Wylie Family Letters, included pansies, fuchsias, geraniums, begonias, roses, and gloxinias. There were many other flower varieties mentioned, but these were some of the most often written about.

For example, in an 1874 letter to Louisa Wylie from Emma Dennis, her aunt, she mentioned receiving a Forget-Me-Not from a woman named Lizzie (possibly Emma’s sister). To expand the view beyond the Wylie’s, some other common available plants in addition to those were hyacinths, lilies, daffodils, narcissi, gardenias, and violets (Leighton 1987).

The way that these flowers were displayed is still fairly similar to the way we decorate with them now. In this era, flowers were kept in vases, in window boxes, in their own patches outside, but also in garden pits. These garden pits are similar to early greenhouses, and the Wylie’s had two of these garden pits of their own (Guthrie 2017a).

A written account of the Wylie’s having window boxes is in a letter from Louisa Wylie to her husband Hermann from 1874. In this letter she says, “I am glad that the house is brick and that we can have a flower window. I must now determine what flowers to take with me.” (Herald 2011).

Additionally, the garden beds of the time were commonly circular, symmetrically arranged, and edged with rock (Leighton 1987).

Garden Plant at Williamston, drawn by Andrena Anderson Parker. Courtesy Frank Coleman. American Gardens of the Nineteenth Century, Ann Leighton, 1987

Floriography was also popular during the 19^th century, which was another way people became more involved in floriculture.

Floriography, more commonly known as the language of flowers, gained popularity due to the strict etiquette surrounding social interactions; the use of flowers to convey emotions helped get around these social rules (“The Language of Flowers”‘). This way to communicate became especially prevalent during Queen Victoria’s reign.

The first dictionary focusing on the meaning of flowers, Le Languge de Fleurs by Charlotte de la Tour, was published in 1818 in Paris, France. There were many other dictionaries published during Queen Victoria’s reign as well. One of the more popular ones was called Flora Symbolica by John Ingram from 1869.

Anton Mellette and Dick Speck at Rebecca Dennis Wylie’s 100th birthday. Courtesy Indiana University Archives, P0071649

Today, floriculture is something that many families are a part of in one way or another. Many of the flowers that were popular in the 19^th century are still popular today although we have more options for our gardens since seeds and pre-planted flowers from around the globe are more accessible.

Over the years our knowledge of gardening and flowers has increased, so it has become easier for us to utilize that knowledge into making the gardens of our dreams possible. We have different methods of getting similar results through the continued development of gardening tools among other things.

Floriculture as a whole is continually evolving as a field along with those who explore it, and even those who just want some pretty flowers in their yard or on their tables.

Sources

Guthrie, Maclaren. “An Introduction to Wylie House Floriculture.”, Indiana University, 17 October 2017, https://blogs.iu.edu/bicentennialblogs/2017/10/17/an-introduction-to-wylie-house-floriculture/

Guthrie, Maclaren. “Transition from Agriculture to Leisure Gardening in Bloomington, Indiana circa 1860’s”, Indiana University, 7 December 2017, https://blogs.iu.edu/bicentennialblogs/2017/12/07/transition-from-agriculture-to-leisure-gardening-in-bloomington-indiana-circa-1860s/

Herald, Elaine, and Jo Burgess. “Affectionately Yours, Volume II.” IUScholarWorks, Indiana University, 2011, http://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/20331

Leighton, Ann. American Gardens of the Nineteenth Century. University of Massachusetts Press, 1987.

“The Language of Flowers.” Royal Collection Trust, www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/painting-paradise/the-queens-gallery-buckingham-palace/the-language-of-flowers.

Diane Nash, Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement, Visits IU Southeast

Posted on December 18, 2017 by sajacobi

By: Alexandra Stepp, IU Bicentennial Oral History Project, Class of 2019, History, IU Southeast

Besides conducting oral histories, one of my favorite parts about working on the IU Bicentennial Oral History Project is searching through archives for important and intriguing events from IU Southeast’s history.

One event I found particularly interesting was Diane Nash’s visit to IU Southeast. In my studies through the class Civil Rights Era in the United States, taught by Dr. Elizabeth Gritter who also heads the IU Bicentennial Oral History Project at IU Southeast, I learned that Nash was a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement. She was particularly active in the local movement in Nashville, Tennessee.

Details of Nash’s visit were reported in the student newspaper The Horizon. The presentation, titled “What Should People Interested in Struggling for Liberation be Doing Now,” took place at 8 p.m. on February 7, 1990, as a part of Black History Month. Prior to the event, clips of Eyes on the Prize, an esteemed documentary series on the Civil Rights Movement in which Nash is featured, were shown in the University Center on campus. Nash spoke in the Hoosier Room, and the event was free to the public.

Nash’s visit was advertised in The Horizon.

For Nash, the event was not just in honor of Black History Month, but it also was meaningful in that it occurred almost thirty years exactly to the day the Nashville sit-ins began in 1960. When these sit-ins started, Nash was just 22 years old and a student at Fisk University in Nashville.

Originally from Chicago, Nash was not fully exposed to the injustices of racial segregation in the south until she came to Fisk. While discrimination certainly existed toward African Americans in the north, it was the intensity of the discrimination in the south that pushed Nash to attend meetings on nonviolent resistance led by James Lawson.

Lawson, a well-known activist, had studied the nonviolent principles of Gandhi and taught these principles to students in Nashville as they prepared to protest segregation in restaurants. Nash used these meetings to begin the Nashville Student Movement alongside John Lewis and other budding activists. This organization was comprised of the student activists and initiated the sit-ins in Nashville.

The Nashville sit-ins were not the first in the movement, however. On February 1, 1960, four college students from Greensboro, North Carolina, initiated this form of protest at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in that city. Nashville soon participated in the wave of sit-ins that followed which began on February 13, 1960.

The movement soon gained over two hundred people. After encountering much violence from white reactionaries, including the bombing of the home of black lawyer Z. Alexander Looby who had defended the sit-inners, the movement soon grew to thousands who marched to city hall. It is here that Nash, determined and impassioned, asked Mayor Ben West if he personally believed that segregation was morally right. He responded that he did not believe that segregation was right. As a result, businesses soon agreed to integrate.

A young Nash, seen third from the left, sits-in at a lunch counter in Nashville.

In her presentation, Nash, at age 52, was still encouraging others to fight for liberation and the social issues in which they believed. She told the students who attended the event that they were the ones who made change. “The Civil Rights Movement was classified by the media as King’s movement,” she said. “However, it was really a people’s movement.”

She set forth a strategy for how students could achieve liberation. Instead of just encouraging nonviolent resistance, she spoke of what she called “agapic energy.” She defined such energy as acting out of love for humanity, something she found deeper than nonviolence.

One could exercise this energy through five steps. Nash told the audience that these steps include “investigation of the situation and how the oppressed are addressing the situation; education of the opposition; negotiating to explain your position; demonstration against the oppressor to win public support; and, once the object has been reached, taking measures to prevent the oppression from occurring again.”

After Nash participated in the sit-ins, she continued to raise awareness about the issues plaguing African Americans. She went on to be a Freedom Rider in 1961, protesting the segregation of public transportation in the south. She also participated in a meeting hosted by esteemed civil rights advocate Ella Baker after the Nashville sit-ins–a meeting which led to the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

It is not surprising, then, that Nash encouraged students throughout the interview and during the following questions, including those from the Black Student Union on campus, to make an effort to make change even if the leadership for a movement did not yet exist.

The students of IU Southeast were told to create their own movement. Nash left them by stating, “It is time we quit being a nation trying to dull its pain.” In other words, she told them it was time to take a stand.

Diane Nash is now 79. She continues to give speeches and presentations and maintains her efforts in protesting for what she believes is right. Such determination characterized her early life and shone through her presentation to the IU Southeast campus.

One can only imagine how impassioned those who attended the presentation must have been.

Transition from Agriculture to Leisure Gardening in Bloomington, Indiana circa 1860s

Posted on December 7, 2017 by sajacobi

By: Maclaren Guthrie, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2021, Anthropology, Bloomington

Agriculture. When hearing that word most people think of a farmer sitting on a tractor in a big field, or something along those lines. This is a reasonable image, but when thinking back to 19^th century agriculture the scene was pretty different.

Agriculture is defined as “the science, art, or practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock and in varying degrees the preparation and marketing of the resulting products” according to Merriam-Webster. It has been extremely important to the development and subsistence of the United States of America, and still is today.

In contrast, the definition of floriculture, or leisure gardening, as written in Loudon’s Encyclopedia of Gardening by John Claudius Louden in 1835 is, “…comprehending whatever relates to the culture and arrangement of plants, whether ligneous or herbaceous, grown chiefly on account of their flowers, or as objects of taste or curiosity.”

What this definition means in more simple terms is floriculture includes plants that are grown for their beauty, their usefulness, or just the way in which the flowers are planted in a way to landscape or beautify a location.

Professor Theophilus A. Wylie, Wylie House Blog

Professor Theophilus Wylie, cousin to Indiana University’s first president Andrew Wylie, and his family were involved in both agriculture and floriculture.

They grew a fair amount of crops including corn, grapes, a vegetable garden (beans, turnips, cabbage, asparagus, etc.), various fruit trees (peach, apple, pear), strawberries, and pumpkins to name some mentioned in their family letters. There is no current definite information about what livestock the Wylie’s owned themselves, but it was common for people to have hogs, cattle, and chickens.

Additionally, because of a letter written by Redick Wylie, a member of the Andrew Wylie family, we know he owned cattle and hogs in the Bloomington area in 1860.

Many Americans farmed in some way or another, whether to sustain themselves or to supplement their food supplies. The wealthier were usually able to farm more effectively because they could own more land and buy increasingly advanced and newly invented inventions that allowed farming to be more efficient.

New inventions of the 19th century included mechanical reapers (1834) by Cyrus McCormick, as well as a new type of plow with a steel blade by John Deere. These inventions allowed farmers to move more quickly and use less human labor since these tools only required a horse or two and one person.

Another technological advance that affected agriculture was the use of trains (first used in Bloomington in 1853); which allowed goods to be transported further and faster than ever before.

Since less people were required to farm, especially those who had money that could be spent on unessential goods, they needed another way to spend their time and money.

Reaper Illustration, Cyrus McCormick, 1840

Interest in flowers and planned gardening on properties actually began as early as the late 1700s on the east coast of the country among wealthier classes. This was mainly due to the influence of England and royal gardens from European countries.

Americans really began learning floriculture from horticultural magazines that were imported from England and reprinted and distributed throughout America. The first horticultural magazine, The Seed Drill, was written by Jethro Tull in 1701 (Garofalo 2002).

These magazines were quickly absorbed into the American scene in some form or another in all social classes (Leighton 1987). For example, the less wealthy would try to recreate the gardens of royalty using native plants from their area. This was the beginning of floriculture in the United States. Another way floriculture began was that cemeteries were considered public parks up until around the 1850s and flowers were used to beautify these spaces.

The plants used in people’s gardens were not usually limited to the native plants in the area. Plants were brought back from trips to places outside of the country and other places in the U.S.

An example of this, is in an 1812 publication Thomas Nutall wrote about a trip to the Arkansas Territory and how he brought back around 300 plants (Leighton 1987). Trading seeds with others is another way people got nonnative (and native) seeds.

The Wylie Family did both things as mentioned in their family letters. It is noted that they traded seeds with many people and that Louisa Wylie would presumably bring back seeds from where she was travelling at the time.

There are letters written to Louisa, such as a letter from October 1, 1874 from an Emma mentioning that she would be sending seeds to her and Louisa could have sent her some in return.

Additionally, the field of botany was also advancing around this time, so it was possible to get plants that had been genetically modified to be prettier in gardens around the country (Leighton 1987) via catalogs. It is unknown whether or not the Wylie’s had these types of flowers though.

The transition to floriculture, or leisure gardening, was a shift seen all over the United States. Wealthier families, such as the Wylie’s, were able to gain access to more resources and variety than others but it still was a transition felt by many.

A person’s circumstances, such as their location, budget, and personal preference, affected how they participated in the sensation of floriculture.

Even those who were worse off were able to participate in some way if they had the inclination to do so. Agriculture was a way of life for many people in the past and still is today, but leisure gardening is a popular pastime for people of all social and economic classes.

References

Garofalo, Michael P. “The History of Gardening”, The Spirit of Gardening, 1 Mar. 2002,

www.gardendigest.com/timel18.htm#Start.a

Herald, Elaine, and Jo Burgess. “Affectionately Yours, Volume I.”

IUScholarWorks, Indiana University, 2011,

scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/20222/20330.

Herald, Elaine, and Jo Burgess. “Affectionately Yours, Volume II.”

IUScholarWorks, Indiana University, 2011,

scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/20331.

Leighton, Ann. American Gardens of the Nineteenth Century. University of

Massachusetts Press, 1987.

The Theophilus Adam Wylie Family Correspondence, Wylie House Museum, Indiana

University Libraries, Bloomington

The Untold Stories of May Wright Sewall and Alma Eikerman

Posted on November 29, 2017 by sajacobi

By: Alexandra Schrader-Dobris, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2021, History and Sociology, Bloomington

Alma Eikerman. Courtesy of IU Archives P0026411

Artistic expression at Indiana University fosters creativity among faculty and students. Many male artists experience praise for this creativity, however we neglect to honor women’s artistic legacies.

My interest in art history inspires me to recognize reformer and art administrator, May Wright Sewall, and IU Bloomington professor and artist, Dr. Alma Eikerman, in an effort to uncover their untold stories.

“Mrs. Sewall Valiantly Takes Mayor to Task.” The Indianapolis Journal, 3 Feb. 1904.

Sewall was a founder of the Indianapolis Propyaleum, an institution that continues to promote educational opportunities for women in the sciences and in the arts today. In addition, she helped found the Art Association of Indianapolis, which is now the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Eikerman is best known as a distinguished professor at IU who taught metalworking and jewelry design classes.

As a successful and skillful artist, her philosophy suggests that the “true function of jewelry is to decorate, to ornament, and thus command the attention and admiration. The ornament in this sense must reveal form that is worthy and expressive of its time.”

Sewall was born May 27, 1844 in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. Her father encouraged her education, which was unusual for the time period. It is plausible that his encouragement was a central factor in her decisions to pursue higher education and to teach. After completing primary and secondary school she went to Northwestern Female College which was the Harvard equivalent for females at the time.

“Ground Broken for the New Building.” The Indianapolis Sunday Star, 24 Sept. 1905, p. 24.

Upon the completion of college Sewall taught for several years with her second husband (there is not sufficient information regarding her first husband), Theodore Sewall, in Michigan and Indianapolis.

In 1866, she was awarded a laureate of science and received a Master of Arts degree in 1871. Then, in 1883 she founded the Art Association of Indianapolis, which later became the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

She served in several officer positions for the association, including president. Although, I have not found evidence that Sewall was an artist herself, she was an art enthusiast and promoted art within her community.

Boomhower, Ray E. “May Wright Sewall and the Girls’ Classical School.” Ray E. Boomhower’s Books, 2 March 2017

Her contributions as a feminist and suffragist are numerous. Among other accomplishments she founded the Indianapolis Woman’s Club in 1875, founded the Girls Classical School in 1882, and was a committee member of the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1882-1890.

At the 40^th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, she is formed national and international women’s councils to discuss suffrage.

Women did not get the right to vote until August 18, 1920, and unfortunately Sewall died July 22, 1920, a month before equal suffrage. Although Sewall was unable to experience the freedom to vote, her dedication and hard work will continue to benefit generations of women.

Finally, she is known for creating the Indianapolis Propylaeum, an educational center for women, which allows them to acquire and cultivate literary, scientific, musical, and artistic skills.

Offen, Karen. “CLIO TALKS BACK: May Wright Sewall Organizes the International Conference of Women Workers to Promote Permanent Peace, 1915, in San Francisco, California,” Her Blueprint: The Global Fund for Women Blog, 14 May 2015.

Beyond her commitment to feminist causes, Sewall invested in helping others and promoting peace. For example, toward the end of her life in 1915 she was among 60 delegates who joined Henry Ford’s Peace Ship, on an attempt to halt the war in Europe prior to WWI.

She had an immense, fascinating, and rich history in which she had a profound impact on the lives of many Hoosiers and people around the world.

After traveling to IUPUI, the Indiana Historical Society, and the Indianapolis Museum, I realize that although there are many sources of documentation regarding Sewall’s accomplishments, it was hard to find tangible copies.

National Woman’s Party Records. Courtesy of Library of Congress

During her lifetime, the Indianapolis Star mentions Sewall’s educational and activist ventures, which can be found electronically, on newspapers.com. Furthermore, there are over 500 digitized copies of letters of correspondence between Sewall and prominent historical figures such as Clara Barton and Booth Tarkington at the Indianapolis Public Library.

Nonetheless, the Herron School of Art + Design Archives did not have physical copies of primary documents.

The Indiana Historical Society which had two small folders, including several letters which were near illegible, a passport which only had her husband’s name on it and she was mentioned as “wife,” and a document inviting her to join the Board of World’s Fair Managers of Indiana.

“Want Peace Days in Public Schools.” The Washington Times, 7 Sept. 1908, p. 7.

To continue my efforts investigating Sewall’s history, I went to Crown Hill Cemetery in search of her grave. It took me all of two seconds to find Booth Tarkington and James Whitcomb Riley’s impressive grave sites and over two hours to find May Wright Sewall’s plain, nondescript grave.

When I contacted the funeral home, they had never heard of Sewall. In the end, I gave the funeral home her husband’s name and they were able to locate her husband’s name grave. I was then finally able to locate her grave site.

Booth Tarkington once said, “in company with General Harrison and Mr. Riley [James Whitcomb] Sewall would necessarily have been chosen as one of the three most prominent citizens of Indiana.”

If that is the case why do so few people today know who she was, let alone what she has contributed to Indiana? She was a phenomenal reformer, suffragist, leader, and patron of the arts, who accomplished so much in her life time and yet she is not properly honored or celebrated.

This is why it is essential to tell Sewall’s story on behalf of the bicentennial.

Hanafee, Susan. “Around Indiana.” Indianapolis Star, 14 July 1985, p. 14.

The second woman I researched was Alma Eikerman, a former art professor at IU Bloomington. In comparison to Sewall, I have made more progress and there is a substantial collection at the Bloomington archives which includes documents and resources commemorating Eikerman.

Born in 1908 in Pratt, Kansas, Alma Eikerman grew up on a small farm during the Great Depression. Despite financial struggles her family, like Sewall’s, encouraged her to pursue an education. She earned her bachelor’s degree in studio art at Kansas State University in 1934. In 1942, she went on to receive her master’s degree at Columbia University.

To fund her education, she taught jewelry design Wichita State University. Then in 1947, she joined the IU Bloomington faculty.

Jewelry photograph found in the collection of Alma Eikerman. Courtesy of IU Archives P0026414

She was an active member in various clubs and metalwork organizations such as, the College Art Association, Indiana Artist Craftsmen, and World’s Craft Council. In 1950, Eikerman went on sabbatical to work on metallurgy. She apprenticed with internationally renowned silversmith, Karl Gustav Hansen and master craftsman Henrick Boesen in Denmark.

Alma Eikerman with her students at a Silversmithing Conference in 1954. Courtesy of IU Archives P0025296

While in Denmark she studied hollowware/hollowware vessels (tea pots and serving dishes) and brought this technique to the metalsmithing and jewelry program at IU, where she won the Handy and Harmon Silversmithing Award. She inspired many of her students to become successful artists and joined them at numerous silversmithing conferences.

Alma Eikerman pictured (left) with Tom Coleman, second from the left, Chairman of the IU Art Department in 1980.

Eikerman received grants from the Carnegie Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. In 1976 IU awarded her the distinguished professor award, and in 1981 she received a distinguished teaching award from IU College of Arts and Sciences Graduate School Alumni Association.

Later, in 1986, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts, from Miami University and was asked to speak at their commencement ceremony.

Besides all of her notable awards and research abroad, Eikerman worked for the Red Cross while traveling the world and served in Italy during WWII. Moreover, in 1970 she founded the Society of North American Goldsmiths. By 1993 she was awarded the American Craft Council’s Gold Medal and the Indiana Governor’s Art Award in 1993.

Jewelry photograph found in the collection of Alma Eikerman. Courtesy of IU Archives P0026415

Her artwork was featured in over 200 exhibitions and priced between hundreds to thousands of dollars. Eikerman’s work has been displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York City and in the “Objects USA” Smithsonian exhibit in Washington D.C.

This exhibit traveled to 25 U.S. countries and 11 European countries. In addition to her countless exhibitions, as a personal project in 1980, Eikerman drew designs for a house in Bloomington. The house featured white walls, red carpeting, and cathedral ceilings.

Bowl photograph found in the collectionof Alma Eikerman. Courtesy of IU Archives P0026416

At this stage in my research I have concluded that both May Wright Sewall and Alma Eikerman share their love and appreciation for the arts.

Courtesy of IU Archives, IU News Bureau Photo

However, without Sewall’s efforts as a reformer, champion of women’s rights, and a founder of the Art Association of Indianapolis, women like Alma Eikerman would not have been able to cultivate their own artistic abilities and share their knowledge with students in the IU Bloomington community.

This has been a valuable experience and rewarding process. I am grateful I have had the privilege to research the lives of these phenomenal women and to share their stories with IU students, faculty, and the public.

The Poetry of Leadership: Remembering Kenneth R. R. Gros Louis

Posted on October 31, 2017 by sajacobi

By: Michael Wilkerson, Director of Arts Administration Programs, SPEA

There was a period not long after his second retirement when Ken Gros Louis talked about writing a book called The Poetry of Leadership, his response to our data-obsessed and sometimes dehumanizing 21^st century. I asked him what he meant by that title, and he answered: “Everything you need to know is in King Lear.”

Throughout his 23 years as chancellor and as dean, department chair and professor, Ken drew his ideas from his encyclopedic knowledge of medieval literature and, of course, Shakespeare. He never wanted to give a speech without including a poem, with a twist of literary analysis to make it relevant to the occasion. Gros Louis knew what made people tick, understood how to draw the best work from them, how to figure out what they needed most–and then to try to help them get it.

He was a master at maneuvering around obstacles, often joking about “the fine print of Machiavelli” as a secret source for his creative problem-solving. He believed that technology and careers change, but that the nature of humanity is usually good and always enduring.

Ken Gros Louis in 1966. Courtesy of IU Archives P0026866.

He continued to believe this even after the tragic early death of his irrepressible wife and feminist scholar, Dee Gros Louis; and then of his closest assistant and “surrogate son,” Bill Van Antwerpen; and still, after being denied the presidency of IU on more than one occasion (though he was offered several other presidencies, he declined them all without a second thought to stay at his beloved IU).

He kept going, regardless, for himself, his second wife Diana, the campus, and his daughters, Amy and Julie.

How should we now remember this legendary administrator, whose management of the campus was simultaneously strong-willed and light-handed, who enjoyed his place in the spotlight but who never needed the fulsome praise that so many others demand? He drew his inspiration from Herman B Wells, who made the Bloomington campus a world-renowned yet strikingly informal institution.

Like Wells, Ken hired first-rate faculty and administrators and proudly turned them loose to do their jobs in their own ways.

Ken Gros Louis and Herman B Wells at the Distinguished Service Awards in 1998. Also pictured are Deborah Freund (back row on right) and Howard Mehlinger (front row bottom left). Courtesy of IU Archives P0072575.

The mission of the campus leadership, Ken often said, was to serve the faculty first, the students second, and everyone else after that. (Sometimes this did not sit well with the board of trustees, powerful donors, or politicians, yet most came to like him once they grew to understand him.)

It was my great fortune to work for Ken Gros Louis for many years and in several capacities. One year, he appointed me “student liaison” but in only a few months revoked the title and changed my duties, not because I had failed in the position, but because he wanted to be the one to meet with the students himself, a tendency that never ceased for the rest of his life.

Ken Gros Louis with office staff in 1988. Front Row, L to R) Doug Priest, Perry Metz, Rozzie Gerstman and Norma Fox. (Back Row, L to R) Diane Van Buskirk, Michael Wilkerson, Twanette Newton, Wanda Summers, Ken Gros Louis, Bill Van Antwerpen, Asha Swarup, Bob Cochran and Jonathan Milne. Courtesy of IU Archives P0072272.

As a boss, he was as hilarious as he was inspiring, sometimes carrying on elaborate jokes that could last for months. Upon his first retirement in 2001, we watched as he emptied out his desk drawers. Most of what was inside was not awards or office supplies, but various prank gifts he’d collected over the years.

Ken’s on-the-job comedy was as legendary as his accomplishments: at the formal dinner with the first group of distinguished scholars from China ever to visit IU, in 1982, he insisted that all of us young staff members attend, knowing that this was to be a profound learning experience.

But he also wanted us to witness some trickery. He introduced then-intern Bill Van Antwerpen to the Chinese delegation as “one of the West’s foremost scholars of contemporary China,” who “just happened to be hobbled that night by laryngitis.”

Poor Bill was fawned over repeatedly by the visitors, who were eager to hear his scholarly insights on the new China, about which he knew nothing, while he desperately feigned the inability to speak for several long hours.

It was a typical Ken trick, and he enjoyed equally being the recipient of Bill’s retaliation. I need say no more about the time he accepted a student group’s invitation to visit Briscoe Quad for the first time as chancellor, and he appeared in their meeting room on horseback.

Ken Gros Louis and a student at Model U.N during 25th Anniversary of Wilkie Quad. Courtesy of IU Archives P0072270.

After retirement, Ken had an office in Wylie Hall and was able to park illegally for years because the officer who ticketed cars on that part of campus said, “Dr. Gros Louis, you were the only one of the VIP’s who always wanted to know about me, how I was doing, how my family was. Now that you’re retired, if you want a place to park, you just go right ahead.”

Stories like that are everywhere, being told and retold in these sad days after Ken’s passing. He stood for a kind of egalitarian collegiality that offset his relentless quest for academic and administrative excellence. Without him, there would probably not be a Wells Scholars program or a Neal-Marshall Center or a new theatre building or the campus GLBT center, or even the beautiful green Arboretum that has made the north side of campus almost as beautiful as the original Old Crescent.

I recall the behind-the-scenes maneuvers he used to make all those things come into being, and I’m sure there were many more I never knew about. Like Herman Wells, his legacy is everywhere; yet nothing on campus is named for him.

Ken was well known for taking copies of his speeches and crossing out words and phrases with a perfect straight line and writing the corrected wording in above in unique but perfectly readable handwriting. Courtesy of IU Archives.

So what was in King Lear that enchanted Ken Gros Louis and informed his unique world view? Lear is a complex, messy tale in which ambition destroys a family and a kingdom, in which disaster is fueled by the failure of the characters to know themselves, in which the worst “administrator” in literary history carries out the order to execute an innocent, saying “if it be man’s work, I’ll do it.”

(Ken would quote this passage and shake his head, still astonished on the hundredth reading that the man went ahead, bureaucratically, with the killing.)

In King Lear people persevere through astonishing adversity and ultimately find some hope and peace in self-knowledge. Only one character, “The Fool,” sees the situation clearly from start to finish, while he both entertains and schemes, holding the world together with witty songs and perfectly timed acts of valor and compassion. That was how Ken handled himself, and it was how he led the campus.

Two legendary IU Chancellors-Ken Gros Louis and Herman B Wells.

That way of being, of putting the human heart and mind first and the rules and the money and the data second, of seeking a creative solution to every problem no matter how immense–that was the true poetry of leadership.

No book, unfortunately, was left behind for those of us who mourn Ken, but he left us something far more important: a good life, a series of lasting accomplishments, literally thousands who were proud to call him their friend, and, ultimately, a campus vastly better than it would have been had he not led it for so many years.

At various points in my career, I would visit Ken as I was embarking on some new job or adventure, within the university or across the country. Each time he would offer congratulations, but then look me in the eye and say, “Go out there and do something good.” It was, after all, the only thing he ever wanted from anyone, especially himself.