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- Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this evening devoted to Monroe County history and particularly

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- a discussion, a panel discussion by a group of people who are engaged in writing a new history of Monroe

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- County. I am Paul Lucas from the Department of History at Indiana and I will introduce the panelists

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- starting on the far right, Rose McElveen from the IU News Bureau and also a regular

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- columnist for the Herald Times. Ken Owen, a freelance writer, rock and tour, and Indiana historian.

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- Pam Service, who is a member of the city council and is also the Monroe County historian and the curator

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- at the Monroe County Museum. Jim Madison, my colleague from the IU history department and editor of

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- the Indiana magazine of history. And Donna Ray, who is a

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- a student of history and a writer of history and someone who we're happy to welcome to work with the

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- rest of us. Also, several people are not here tonight, or at least one that I know of, who will be working

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- with us, and that is Bruce Herrick Conforth, who is the archivist at Indiana University. And I might

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- also mention that we have lost one member who was working with us.

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- Tim Sayre, Timothy Sayre who was with the IU budget office and unfortunately or fortunately for Tim

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- is leaving to become director of campus planning at IU Kokomo. Tim was with us for about a year and

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- regretfully is going to take a better job and so will leave the work to us.

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- The format for this evening, and I hope that the members of the audience will feel free to join in.

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- This is a panel discussion in which the audience is welcome to chime in at any time. I can see most

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- of you. There are thousands of you out there, and I welcome you on an evening when there are tornado

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- warnings. There are so many tornadoes out there that apparently they're running into each other, but

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- I welcome you at any rate, and I'm happy you came out to talk and listen to words of wisdom about Monroe County.

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- What we're going to do is I have a series of questions in front of me, and I'll throw these questions

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- out to the panelists, and we'll use those questions as a basis for discussion. And as I said, please

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- feel free to enter in. If at the end of the hour or so we have any time left, why, we'll open the session

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- up for questions and answers. Very quickly, this project has been, I guess, stewing and fomenting, if

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- that's a word,

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- I'm fomenting. I guess it's been in the hopper for the last couple of years. And it was occasioned by

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- the Monroe County Historical Society's publication of a book of family history, which is out and is

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- available. And it was decided by the members of the society that they would very much like to see a

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- new history of Monroe County written.

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- And several of us were volunteers, primarily. We volunteered and we brought in other volunteers along

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- the way. And I must say that we've been working slowly, but hopefully carefully and measuredly in preparing

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- to get this project underway. We've been greatly aided by the support of the society and the support

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- of the community, and also by support from the Indiana Humanities Council through an Indiana Heritage

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- Research Grant, which has carried us

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- through this past year and is about to expire. So we've had a lot of support and I must say there's

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- been a lot of enthusiasm. The book is hopefully will be published in about three years. And the IU Press

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- has indicated that they will do the publication. So we're very enthusiastic about that and that takes

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- care of one of the questions that I'm going to throw out. And I might as well complete that question

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- by saying,

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- that at this time we're talking about 250 pages long that will include many pictures as well as text,

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- be of coffee table size and probably cost in the neighborhood of $25. And I'm sure if you'd like to

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- put in an early order why the IU Press would be happy to take that order. Well, let's move right on

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- to a discussion of the book and of the problem of writing local history and of the whys and wherefores of

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- Monroe County. So I'm going to throw out this first question to the panel, and as soon as I see them

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- wearing out, I'll move on to a second question. Panel, why do you think it's important for us to know

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- and understand our history as a county? Does anybody want to? Rose, go ahead. This is certainly not

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- original. Somebody else said it, and it may be a paraphrase of it, but I firmly believe that if we don't

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- know where we came from, we don't know who we are.

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- I think our history gives us a important sense of identity, which a community like Bloomington needs,

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- because we are such a transit community. There's so many people coming in and out all the time. We need

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- a real persona that people, when they come in, can recognize and identify with quickly. And that comes

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- out of our history. You both have raised interesting points. Can you give a specific instance of where

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- knowing history Monroe County might make a difference to someone who's like myself who's been here for

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- 22 years or someone who's been here for just 22 days. Well from the practical standpoint it's just kind

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- of nice to know the cast of characters when you drop into a location and some of the past cast of characters

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- but the past also helps us to explain what's going on now and helps us to understand it better.

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- Excuse me, go ahead, Pam. Just being on the city council, I see sort of the other end of the thing.

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- But I think it's really important for people to have a sense of what their community is. We have a lot

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- of times where there are major development proposals that come up before the city. And oftentimes people

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- will get up and say, well, it's changing the character of our community. But in order to argue that

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- strong in one way or another, you have to know what the character of the community is.

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- That has grown out of an historical, biological kind of process. If you're going to decide where you

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- want the community to go, in very concrete development, zoning or whatever terms, you have to know where

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- it has been and why it's the way it is now. That's a good point. You said zoning. I'll throw this out

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- at you. I don't know whether you can answer it, but does Monroe County have a strong history of zoning?

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- Is that an Indiana tradition?

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- No, no, and that might explain why it's a problem now, isn't it? Right, exactly. I think of right away

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- of the movie Breaking Away and what that must have looked like to people outside. Here's Bloomington

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- and the cutters and the university and all that loveliness, but behind that was a very, very old Monroe

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- County story of class differences, right? Am I correct?

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- Maybe I'm not correct. Oh, no. Are you correct? Of course you are. You're an historian. I couldn't be

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- wrong. Historians are by nature correct, otherwise they wouldn't be writing history, which is why I

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- am not an historian. No, it is an old story, but it is a story that seems to run counter to our Hoosier

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- myth of equality and of having a classless society that we all, all of us Hoosiers

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- are created free and equal, and no one person is any less or any better than any other. But Steve Tesich,

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- who of course didn't know about such things because he was born in Yugoslavia, grew up in Lake County

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- and then came to college in Bloomington, perceived a certain set of inequalities, which he was so bold

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- as to turn into a screenplay. And yes, it does challenge.

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- a great many things we like to think about ourselves, that we do not, in fact, have social and economic

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- differences that separate one person from another into classes. This is delightful. Hoosier myth and

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- indeed is an extension of the American myth about the American dream. But like so many other things

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- about what we presume to call geology or rather reality, there is a geology, layers and layers.

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- of years and perceptions and personal histories that underlie this surface that we're exploring. Ken,

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- I think you've put your finger, you may not be a historian, but you've certainly put your finger, maybe

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- your whole fist right now, on I think an interesting aspect. You mentioned the American dream of equality

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- and opportunity, and then you related that specifically to the movie Breaking Away, where you see the

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- difference between the university, the affluent university community,

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- and the so-called cutters who graduate from high school and then face an uncertain future, clearly without

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- the opportunities that the, and I remember particularly the juxtaposition, if I may use that word, between

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- the leading bicyclist and his girlfriend on the university campus who was a sorority girl. Excuse me,

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- go ahead. Without diminishing the accomplishments of the author of that screenplay, at some point in time,

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- It might be worthwhile, gently, to say that the term cutter is incorrect. Townspeople are counties or

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- stonies, but not cutters. Well, Tesich was dealing with the Serbian word for the oppressed underclass,

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- the proletariat, which is kuta. And I don't know whether that's Serbian or Croat. It's one or the other.

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- Maybe Montenegrin. Well, you can't expect an outsider to get it all right. No, no, and he never had.

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- With that as a background, let me throw this at my colleague, Jim Madison, as a historian. Why is local

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- history important, Jim? I mean, I have to answer it. Who else has already put me in that position? Well,

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- I think I can pick up on things that have already been said there, particularly by Pam Service, and

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- maybe begin by reminding you of the phenomenon of roots, now maybe 10 years ago. And I think that did

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- strike a chord, not only in the black community, but across America.

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- That's a genuine court. A human need to be connected, to have some room, some sense of place. There's

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- a lot of talk these days about a global society and a global economy, even to the point where now our

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- Indiana politicians are convinced that there's a world beyond the borders of Indiana, which they weren't

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- for the first 170 years or so of this state's history.

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- And of course, yes, we are a part of an international and global economy and society and culture. But

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- we all know, and those of us who've lived for any length of time in a place know, the important ways

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- in which we are connected locally. And I think that sense of place is terribly important. I think it's

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- inevitable that one develops that sense of place as one lives in a community, as one ages and matures.

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- One of the things I would hope this book would do, and one of the things I hope local history does,

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- is to help speed up that process of development, particularly for younger people, even in the schools,

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- in the public schools, and younger people in their 20s and 30s who move to Bloomington, who are going

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- to, if they stay here, develop roots in a sense of place. But I hope this book, this local history,

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- will help that process

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- occur more quickly and help those roots set a little deeper and the tree flower a little more to carry

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- the imagery. So that's, I think that's why local history is important. The second reason I think it's

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- important is because it's fun and that's sometimes a good enough reason to do some things. You mentioned

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- the, you mentioned, well I have a question later on down the line about who this book might have

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- this book would appeal so maybe I'll just hold off on that but let me move on very to the next phase

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- and that is to talk about the history that exists and some of you can comment on this what's wrong with

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- the history we already know that is what's wrong with what we know about Monroe County isn't it enough

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- I mean there are a couple of books on Monroe County what what's wrong with that stuff yeah Rose well

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- first of all we haven't

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- We haven't had any history written since the one that was in the early 1900s, and a great deal has happened

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- to Bowman since then, and we need to cover that area. As to the quality of those histories, they were what

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- what could be called in the publishing industry, quick and dirty. They were commercial publishing firms.

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- There were a fair number of them in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They brought a troop of research

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- gophers to Bloomington who did a quick survey of the history, collected as much as they could,

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- made no real effort, as far as I can tell, to verify the facts then, the dates and so forth, and slapped

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- them together. And one other comment in relation to the vanity biographies. There's always a heading

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- on those, no matter what county you're looking at, that says prominent people in the county.

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- There were a lot of prominent people not in the book for the very simple reason they were unwilling

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- to pay to have their names, their biographies put in the book. So they're very stylized. If you go to

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- the Monroe County Library to the Indiana Room and you take a look upstairs at what they're like, they're

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- very stylized. And in my estimation, they're incredibly dull.

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- I agree with your estimation. They're good resource material. I mean, if you're doing some research,

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- they list the people who bought land in each little township at a certain time. And you can earn the

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- biographical material. That which is there is interesting. If you happen to be doing some research on

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- an area where a character that who paid to have his biography in there is there, it's good basic material.

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- But I don't think we really had what we do and we know

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- consider a history book. I don't think we ever really have had one, one that sits back and analyzes

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- and takes a look at the big picture and puts the details into that picture. So it's, I mean, it's more

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- than time that we did have one and we are the seat of the state university and we don't even have a

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- history of ourselves. You're absolutely right and the 19th century history is

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- were large, they were money making operations, they were ego centered in that they were designed to

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- flatter the egos of the people that they served. Your comment though is about their accuracy is interesting.

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- Is that generally true? Are most of these histories reliable? My sense is that they vary considerably.

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- But are the Monroe County histories pretty good as far as

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- Or has anyone really tested them to find out? They're the only source in some cases. I just wonder.

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- When I've been writing Looking Back articles, I have sometimes bounced the material of the history,

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- say, against the census figures and census rules to be on the safe side. Or I have gone down to the

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- clerk's office and taking a look at some of the court cases to verify dates and the names of people

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- and so forth. Well, I think you're absolutely right in that the comments, both good and bad, about these

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- histories, and I think I might add another comment, and that is to say that the big picture you mentioned

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- is certainly missing from those books. There's no effort to do any of the kinds of things that we've

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- been talking that local history should do.

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- either tell the story of the people or to relate that story to the big picture. For example,

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- you can read the, and I've read parts of what's available and you'll find no mention of the industrial

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- revolution in the United States. You'll certainly find no mention of race as a factor or a problem.

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- You'll find no mention of hardly any of the kinds of things that we cover at the university in our freshman

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- surveys. And you wonder,

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- I mean, we clearly write a different kind of history today than they did in those days. Ken, you? Well,

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- it occurs to me that the popular, commercially sponsored histories of the late 19th century are very

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- revealing for several reasons, chief among them, that they present an idealized portrait of the county

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- in many cases for the purposes of economic development.

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- This is a matter of recruiting a local college, a local factory, persuading immigrants to come here

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- and set up shop and settle. So that in many ways, local and county histories do in fact present de-portrait

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- that has been touched up, that the warts have been removed in many cases,

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- that the lighting is a little better, that the dark spots are touched up or lightened up. And in effect,

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- then, the history of Monroe County that we have from the late 19th century is what the Monroe Countians

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- of the day, at least those who were paying for it, wanted to have. Wanted to have said about themselves,

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- about their community. And that is instructive. That gives us some idea, I think, of what kind

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- of values, of what ideals, if you will, of what sense of community those persons wished to project to

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- a larger readership. I'd like to suggest that maybe we ought to do the different here because when I

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- have four cars ahead of me at a four-way stop sign and when I get in other moments and when I think

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- that Bloomington is growing too rapidly and becoming too big, maybe we want to write a history that

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- makes Bloomington look like a dreadful place so no one else comes here.

00:19:52.770 --> 00:20:01.975
- I distributed it widely. That's the Oregon approach to the writing of history. Exactly. When Kent was

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- talking about the warts being removed from some of the county history, it reminds me of... In looking

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- back articles, I have touched on two or three occasions on the serious problem we had on the white cappers.

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- And for those who don't know who white cappers were, they were self-appointed attitude adjusters. And

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- if indeed people, they didn't think people behaved in the right way, they visited them in the middle

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- of the night and switched them very badly or whipped them or whatever. And you don't see that in either

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- one of the earlier county histories. And it certainly was a problem here. And it was part of, it was

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- not unique to Monroe County.

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- But it's certainly something that we should not overlook. Well, that moves me right into my next question,

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- which is what should our history include? And I think both your comment, Kent's comment, and Jim's all

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- bear on these. Should we write a book that includes the warts and all? That is, should we tell

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- Should we tell a balanced story, even if it doesn't make us look so good? After all, Monroe County is

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- growing quickly, there are businesses coming in, new people. Do we want to talk about a sordid history

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- of vice and racism and political corruption or whatever that we might find? Maybe you just want to track

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- it. And do we have the pictures to go with it? I got a few, I got a few.

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- I think if we're going to pretend that this is history, we have to do that. We have to be honest. And

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- it's certainly... Chicago, I don't think, is hurt by the image of what happened in the 30s and the gangster.

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- I mean, it's growing like Topsy anyway. And we don't have that sort of extremes. I mean, we're not talking

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- about major character flaws or anything of that nature. We're talking about the sort of thing that happened

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- in any other community in the United States.

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- But if we don't incorporate these things in with the rest of history, we're not being honest. It isn't

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- history. It's just like the vanity stuff from the last century. Excuse me. Jim? Well, I think the earlier

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- histories were excluded. They excluded certain kinds of people, excluded certain kinds of subjects.

00:22:26.958 --> 00:22:33.534
- And I think this history needs to be inclusive, to be as wide and embracing as it possibly can be.

00:22:34.178 --> 00:22:40.691
- reaching out and incorporate into the story of this particular place all the people that we know lived

00:22:40.691 --> 00:22:47.267
- here and still live here and all the kinds of activities and behaviors and ideas that they had and that

00:22:47.267 --> 00:22:53.590
- human beings everywhere have and any other kind of history is a history that really is hard to take

00:22:53.590 --> 00:23:00.040
- seriously for an intelligent reader. We had a comment from the audience I think. I disagree with this

00:23:00.040 --> 00:23:03.518
- self-appointed business of the flight captains. Now in

00:23:03.810 --> 00:23:12.854
- Bowen County, right after the Civil War, there were elections of committees of each of the townships

00:23:12.854 --> 00:23:21.809
- to appoint regulators who were to, because I believe Paul Lewis mentioned in a lecture last year at

00:23:21.809 --> 00:23:30.853
- Mathers Museum that we had a problem all over the United States concerning laws. We certainly had it

00:23:30.853 --> 00:23:32.734
- here in Bloomington,

00:23:33.570 --> 00:23:42.922
- You can't confuse the pro-Southern, which were the Knights of the Golden Circle, and headed in Indiana

00:23:42.922 --> 00:23:52.093
- by a man named William A. Bowles, a French slave. Now, he was a colonel in the Mexican War, had very

00:23:52.093 --> 00:23:59.902
- powerful friends in this country, and one of his closest friends was Jefferson Davis.

00:24:00.354 --> 00:24:09.051
- there are quite a bit of correspondence concerning between the two. Now, he was arrested during the

00:24:09.051 --> 00:24:17.313
- Civil War for treason, and was going to be executed. And Abraham Lincoln commuted his sentence

00:24:17.313 --> 00:24:26.270
- to imprisonment in the federal penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. Well, he was released after the war and

00:24:26.270 --> 00:24:29.662
- went back to French Lake and so forth.

00:24:29.986 --> 00:24:36.842
- He was certain that the whole Southern, his second wife, or maybe it had been his third, because he

00:24:36.842 --> 00:24:43.836
- had been divorced several times, was a Kentucky woman. And they brought seven slaves to Fred's state.

00:24:43.836 --> 00:24:51.035
- And they were named slaves, but that's the way things were. Now, here in Bloomington, we had a pro-South

00:24:51.035 --> 00:24:58.028
- led by Cornelius Varsan, who was a slave catcher, along with two carceral brothers. Now, it ties into

00:24:58.028 --> 00:24:59.262
- this white cavern

00:25:00.354 --> 00:25:10.369
- The white campers in Bloomington and Monroe County were the same type of thing of regulators as in Owen

00:25:10.369 --> 00:25:19.999
- County. We see things concerning the Wild West. There were people who took up, instead of get small

00:25:19.999 --> 00:25:29.918
- business. Now, the white campers in Bloomington were led by ex-Guggen soldiers, some of them officers.

00:25:30.050 --> 00:25:39.248
- vegans on that particular control wall that was certainly quite notorious nationally, when the crook

00:25:39.248 --> 00:25:48.355
- Mershon and bougie Mershon were arrested for murdering an itinerant who had come to the Bloomington

00:25:48.355 --> 00:25:56.734
- and got quite drunk. And I think you find in the Theodore C. Wiley journal that he mentions

00:25:58.594 --> 00:26:08.463
- but that wasn't where he was committed. He should have said it was Oscar Souther's, Wainer's, who was

00:26:08.463 --> 00:26:18.138
- connected. However, there were certainly what the opposite Wiley, he said, he might have said, good

00:26:18.138 --> 00:26:26.942
- bet and rinse the bad rubbish, and that underlaid what he said. People down in New Albany,

00:26:27.106 --> 00:26:43.070
- That seems to me, if you will permit the interruption, an important point about the underlying strain

00:26:43.070 --> 00:26:51.678
- of populism throughout the whole history of the state.

00:26:52.066 --> 00:27:00.065
- and that populism in some cases produced the excesses of the Klan in the late teens and 1920s, but also

00:27:00.065 --> 00:27:07.834
- the excesses of the white cappers and the other regulators earlier in the state's history, but these

00:27:07.834 --> 00:27:15.833
- are not necessarily identical, but they are aspects of the same kind of popular movement, the same kind

00:27:15.833 --> 00:27:19.294
- of urge to have the people take charge, lest

00:27:19.490 --> 00:27:27.587
- government fall into the hands of elected public officials. I think that's right. Is that right Jim?

00:27:27.587 --> 00:27:35.685
- Absolutely right. Absolutely right. I know that the white campers died out in the teams. I know that

00:27:35.685 --> 00:27:43.702
- one of the last things mentioned in the NAPA's news was terribly anti-Loomington and the university

00:27:43.702 --> 00:27:47.550
- would be always shipped up there. But they were

00:27:48.450 --> 00:27:55.542
- incessantly putting down moving them in editorials where certain things happened, tipping particularly

00:27:55.542 --> 00:28:02.634
- to white capping, which happened all over the country in certain forms. But we could have had the last

00:28:02.634 --> 00:28:10.139
- laugh, but our papers kept still when an incident of white capping happened in Annapolis, and the Washington

00:28:10.139 --> 00:28:17.438
- Democrat, the Washington-Diana Democrat, really lambasted Indianapolis if we hadn't last come up with it.

00:28:18.146 --> 00:28:25.835
- I always thought that the nursing lobby couldn't end a white camping because of defamation of character.

00:28:25.835 --> 00:28:33.377
- Al, what can we do or what should we do about the fact along the line of what we've been talking about

00:28:33.377 --> 00:28:40.700
- of stories that have not been told properly? Many local histories are notorious for being histories

00:28:40.700 --> 00:28:42.750
- of the rich and the famous.

00:28:43.426 --> 00:28:51.367
- and chronicles of the activities of the well-born and the well-bred. How are we going to handle that?

00:28:51.367 --> 00:28:59.542
- Well, that's a tough one. I think any historian with his or her salt today is convinced of the necessity

00:28:59.542 --> 00:29:06.782
- of doing that. The question is, how do you do that? How do you write this inclusive history?

00:29:07.138 --> 00:29:14.494
- how do you write what is sometimes called history from the bottom up, or the history of ordinary people,

00:29:14.494 --> 00:29:21.500
- or the history of everyday life, which is something I think, as I say, every historian wants to do,

00:29:21.500 --> 00:29:28.577
- and something that distinguishes historians in the late 20th century from historians 100 years or so

00:29:28.577 --> 00:29:35.863
- ago. There are ways, techniques, and methods that have been developed to do that. None of them provides

00:29:35.863 --> 00:29:37.054
- the absolute key

00:29:37.378 --> 00:29:43.257
- to doing any of that. One particular kind of technique or method is statistical analysis. And we do

00:29:43.257 --> 00:29:49.135
- have statistical data from Monroe County, particularly from the U.S. Census reports, but from other

00:29:49.135 --> 00:29:55.131
- reports as well. And so we can say things about infant mortality rates, for example, which are one of

00:29:55.131 --> 00:30:01.304
- my favorite pieces of statistical data because they tell us a great deal, not only about how many babies

00:30:01.304 --> 00:30:07.006
- died before they reached their first birth date, and Donna Rae can tell us even more about this,

00:30:07.426 --> 00:30:15.851
- But that reflects a much broader sense of the quality of health care and really the quality of life

00:30:15.851 --> 00:30:24.697
- in a particular place. So we have statistical data. We have oral history interviews for the recent past.

00:30:24.697 --> 00:30:33.206
- Some of those have been done, some of them 10 or more years ago, I guess. But it's a tough question.

00:30:33.206 --> 00:30:35.902
- We have photographs which help.

00:30:37.474 --> 00:30:43.909
- There's no single answer to it. When I was going through the museum collection, pulling out photographs

00:30:43.909 --> 00:30:50.344
- that I thought might work into this book, and we are talking about a heavily photographic kind of book,

00:30:50.344 --> 00:30:56.718
- I was trying to focus in on ones that showed what life was like at a given time, a given place, rather

00:30:56.718 --> 00:31:03.153
- than pictures of leading citizens sitting there in front of the photographer looking stuff, or pictures

00:31:03.153 --> 00:31:05.566
- of major buildings, just the building.

00:31:05.826 --> 00:31:11.242
- You know, this guy is important. People in front of it, cars, you know, something that gives it sort

00:31:11.242 --> 00:31:16.605
- of a snapshot of a life kind of a look. And I think that will help, too, if we are selective in the

00:31:16.605 --> 00:31:22.075
- photographs that really show it. Sometimes it's hard to do that because the things you really want to

00:31:22.075 --> 00:31:27.652
- have pictures of, nobody thought of taking a picture of. You know, just the family sitting around after

00:31:27.652 --> 00:31:33.121
- dinner, you know, listening to the radio. You know, I don't have pictures like that, but that made up

00:31:33.121 --> 00:31:34.462
- a lot of people's lives.

00:31:34.850 --> 00:31:42.802
- But in some cases you have ones that come close in on that. We've got some individual people pictures

00:31:42.802 --> 00:31:50.832
- that I pulled out. I tried again to stay away from individuals just standing there, but this is a neat

00:31:50.832 --> 00:31:58.706
- picture of Daniel Kirkwood and Theophilus Wiley and Reverend Minton in the First Presbyterian Church

00:31:58.706 --> 00:32:03.774
- standing there, obviously a totally candid picture in front of a

00:32:03.970 --> 00:32:11.702
- railroad car, arguing apparently about something. It's an interesting picture, even though it's important,

00:32:11.702 --> 00:32:19.146
- people, it has a little life to it. But here's a picture of the Nury Fourth of July parade, the mirror

00:32:19.146 --> 00:32:26.878
- company just going down the street with just ordinary employees of the company sitting there on the float.

00:32:27.266 --> 00:32:34.167
- There's pictures in schools of kids just sitting around their school desks. This is the sort of thing

00:32:34.167 --> 00:32:41.203
- that I hope we can highlight. Some people are going to ask us, is this just going to be another history

00:32:41.203 --> 00:32:48.103
- of the university? How are we going to answer that? I don't think you can separate the history of the

00:32:48.103 --> 00:32:53.854
- university from the history of the Wilmington community or from the Northern County.

00:32:55.138 --> 00:33:01.720
- What has been done in the past is that the university has been set off in its own section in the history.

00:33:01.720 --> 00:33:08.116
- Is there a story to be told about the university that has not been told? And maybe you put your finger

00:33:08.116 --> 00:33:14.450
- on it, Rose. You say it's been, we have Tom Clark's magnificent volumes on the university. But is the

00:33:14.450 --> 00:33:20.722
- story of the university in the Monroe County setting, has that been told? Let's say the relationship

00:33:20.722 --> 00:33:23.454
- between the university and the communities.

00:33:23.746 --> 00:33:30.844
- I don't think the impact of the University and the community has ever really been told. And of course,

00:33:30.844 --> 00:33:37.873
- since the time of the last history up until now, the impact has been enormous. And I think that's one

00:33:37.873 --> 00:33:44.902
- way in which it could be approached. I wrote an irate letter to the editor in the local paper of, oh,

00:33:44.902 --> 00:33:48.830
- it's been six weeks, eight weeks ago in which the author

00:33:49.410 --> 00:33:54.951
- talks about the wage structure in Monroe County and says that, well, everyone knows that the wages are

00:33:54.951 --> 00:34:00.438
- low in Monroe County because the university won't pay anything and everyone else takes their cue from

00:34:00.438 --> 00:34:05.979
- the university. Now is that, I won't ask you to comment on the veracity of that, but this person wrote

00:34:05.979 --> 00:34:10.014
- it and said, everyone knows that. Well, I didn't know that. I mean, I was,

00:34:11.330 --> 00:34:17.785
- I mean, that's not something that we talk about at the breakfast table. But that certainly would be

00:34:17.785 --> 00:34:24.240
- a kind of relationship between community and university that would be worth exploring, wouldn't it?

00:34:24.240 --> 00:34:31.276
- Well, Paul, it's the relationship between university knowledge and common knowledge, or university knowledge

00:34:31.276 --> 00:34:37.925
- and common sense, what we the people hold to be self-evident and certain home truths that may not have

00:34:37.925 --> 00:34:40.894
- penetrated the confines of the old Dunn farm.

00:34:42.338 --> 00:34:51.711
- It seems to me that a large part of what makes Monroe County and Bloomington in particular distinctive

00:34:51.711 --> 00:35:00.812
- must be centered in Indiana University, its history, its legends, its mystique. Especially when one

00:35:00.812 --> 00:35:11.550
- moves the perspective from which one views this area, this history, from the place itself to a transcendent location.

00:35:12.194 --> 00:35:19.596
- so that we take into account what Tokyo thinks of Indiana University, what Berlin or Paris or Rome or

00:35:19.596 --> 00:35:26.925
- Rio may think of Indiana University. And very often, those locations, the persons there, think of it

00:35:26.925 --> 00:35:34.254
- in relation to the Kinsey Institute, to the School of Music, to a timid young man the name of Robert

00:35:34.254 --> 00:35:41.438
- Montgomery Knight, or a coach with the name of Jim Councilman. They may think of it in relation to

00:35:41.570 --> 00:35:48.951
- Herman Muller or Herbert Muller may think of it in relation to the late lamented School of Letters to

00:35:48.951 --> 00:35:56.259
- a great many things that are directly connected to Indiana University. For that reason, I think what

00:35:56.259 --> 00:36:03.495
- may make us singular, if not altogether unique, will be in many ways Indiana University. We are not

00:36:03.495 --> 00:36:04.798
- limited, however,

00:36:05.378 --> 00:36:12.106
- as a culture, as a society, by whatever Indiana University has produced and bestowed upon us. I think

00:36:12.106 --> 00:36:19.032
- that that is the important thing, that the history of Monroe County must be seen as considerably richer,

00:36:19.032 --> 00:36:25.694
- more expansive, and livelier than what the university culture would provide. Does that overstate the

00:36:25.694 --> 00:36:32.158
- case? No, I think along the same line I'll ask the question, the next quite the obvious question,

00:36:32.418 --> 00:36:37.971
- dwelt on Bloomington and Monroe and the University, what about the rest of the county? Are we going

00:36:37.971 --> 00:36:43.580
- to write a history of Bloomington or are we going to write a history of the county? Yeah, I think we

00:36:43.580 --> 00:36:49.299
- are going to write a history of the county. And I think to follow from Kent, we're really going to try

00:36:49.299 --> 00:36:54.852
- to, I hope, juggle three balls and interweave them. One, the university, two, the city of town, the

00:36:54.852 --> 00:37:00.461
- city of Bloomington, and three, the whole county from Harrisburg and Smithville to Alexville and all

00:37:00.461 --> 00:37:02.238
- the farms and folks in between.

00:37:02.754 --> 00:37:09.985
- And I don't think we can go about doing that by segregating and separating. I don't think we can have.

00:37:09.985 --> 00:37:17.075
- I hope we're not gonna have a chapter on the university and a chapter on the county and a chapter on

00:37:17.075 --> 00:37:24.305
- Bloomington. It'd be easier to do that. It'd be much easier to do that. But I think the far better way

00:37:24.305 --> 00:37:28.798
- to do it is to integrate it and to bring forth the connections.

00:37:29.026 --> 00:37:34.467
- because they really are connected, all three of those places. The folks who live in Harrodsburg often

00:37:34.467 --> 00:37:39.962
- end up working at the university or in Bloomington. And there are all sorts of other ways in which the

00:37:39.962 --> 00:37:44.923
- connections and relationships are there. And I think the challenge for us up here is to find

00:37:44.923 --> 00:37:50.417
- those connections and bring them forth. As was pointed out, there already are quite adequate histories

00:37:50.417 --> 00:37:56.072
- of the university. And we don't really want to repeat that. We don't need to list when each new president

00:37:56.072 --> 00:37:58.686
- came on and when this and that faculty expanded.

00:37:58.850 --> 00:38:06.235
- What we need to know is when these things affected the community as a whole. Like when Wells became

00:38:06.235 --> 00:38:13.694
- chancellor and president, that had a major effect on the community. Because the effect he had on the

00:38:13.694 --> 00:38:21.152
- university was to tremendously expand the directions it went, the size, the student body, everything

00:38:21.152 --> 00:38:25.214
- else. And that is something that we need to bring out.

00:38:25.314 --> 00:38:30.456
- That transition in the time of the university hasn't affected the community, but there are a lot of

00:38:30.456 --> 00:38:35.753
- things in the history of the university that don't really make any more difference than in the history

00:38:35.753 --> 00:38:41.256
- of any individual family, which is important to the family, but its impact on the community is negligible.

00:38:41.256 --> 00:38:46.707
- So I agree, I think maybe it wouldn't be a good idea to have a separate university chapter, but integrate

00:38:46.707 --> 00:38:47.838
- all of that together.

00:38:48.098 --> 00:38:55.661
- Is there, along the same line I was just thinking, is there something or are there anything unique about

00:38:55.661 --> 00:39:02.936
- Monroe County that would make it stand out among all the counties in Indiana or whatever? I mean, is

00:39:02.936 --> 00:39:10.427
- there any particular reason why someone would want to pick up our book and read just to learn something

00:39:10.427 --> 00:39:16.766
- that they might not find in the history of Shelby County or Warren County, Iowa or such

00:39:19.426 --> 00:39:28.486
- For example, the university, I'm sure, has shaped the growth of Bloomington in ways that most probably

00:39:28.486 --> 00:39:37.282
- people don't realize. For example, I'm thinking of some research that another member of the history

00:39:37.282 --> 00:39:46.430
- department directed a couple of years ago, in which they found in the census of 1880 and 1900 in there,

00:39:46.562 --> 00:39:52.628
- strictly 1880, they found in a small community like Bloomington, they found that the literacy was above

00:39:52.628 --> 00:39:58.637
- the national average, the number of years of school, and there were all kinds of things that indicated

00:39:58.637 --> 00:40:04.586
- a community that was very closely tied to what was then a very small university. The fact that almost

00:40:04.586 --> 00:40:10.419
- every home had at least one university student living in it. And then compare that with a county at

00:40:10.419 --> 00:40:12.286
- that time, which were where the

00:40:12.418 --> 00:40:20.015
- where the number of years attended at school was way below the average, and the income was way below

00:40:20.015 --> 00:40:27.536
- the average. So it was, go ahead, Rose, you wanted to make a comment. I was just gonna say that I'm

00:40:27.536 --> 00:40:35.283
- not sure I can answer your question about what makes Monroe County absolutely unique, but when I think

00:40:35.283 --> 00:40:41.150
- about Bloomington, and we might as well say the county as well, there's this,

00:40:41.506 --> 00:40:49.949
- There's a strange contradiction between the university as a cosmopolitan community within a larger community

00:40:49.949 --> 00:40:57.849
- that is not cosmopolitan. There are two other thoughts that occur to me about the relationship to the

00:40:57.849 --> 00:41:05.594
- university. I suspect the statistics would indicate that we have a fairly high number of university

00:41:05.594 --> 00:41:11.326
- graduates in this community for the very simple reason of the convenience

00:41:11.458 --> 00:41:20.627
- of the university's presence. Another thing that occurs to me is that World War II was a watershed as

00:41:20.627 --> 00:41:29.976
- far as the growth of the university was concerned, and it was the GI Bill that suddenly, the university

00:41:29.976 --> 00:41:37.886
- just suddenly burst at the seams, and we started building buildings to keep up with it.

00:41:38.498 --> 00:41:45.070
- What Pam was saying, you know, we don't need a separate chapter, but what we need is these relationships

00:41:45.070 --> 00:41:51.892
- because obviously as the university increased in size, the community, the merchants, the number of merchants

00:41:51.892 --> 00:41:58.714
- increased because of the demand for them. I don't know if there's really anything that's really outrageously

00:41:58.714 --> 00:42:05.223
- unique about Monroe County. The combination might be unique. There are many communities that have large

00:42:05.223 --> 00:42:08.478
- universities. There are other communities that have

00:42:08.898 --> 00:42:14.473
- uh... major uh... industries that rely on natural resources such as limestone in our case. There are

00:42:14.473 --> 00:42:20.214
- others that may have had, you know, big furniture factories or something like that. But the combination

00:42:20.214 --> 00:42:25.955
- we have is somewhat unique. But not that outrageously unique. Not that people would say, you know, this

00:42:25.955 --> 00:42:31.640
- community is just so fantastically different. We have to search out a book on it. I think that in some

00:42:31.640 --> 00:42:37.326
- ways that's good. I think that what we've got here is on the whole a fairly typical American community

00:42:37.326 --> 00:42:38.430
- with its own little

00:42:38.690 --> 00:42:45.331
- So I think that allows us to focus in on what makes a typical American community rather than focusing

00:42:45.331 --> 00:42:52.102
- in on what is aberrant about the community. In some, if you're doing history of some communities, you'd

00:42:52.102 --> 00:42:58.613
- end up focusing in on that particular feature that everybody associates with. Even if it were, say,

00:42:58.613 --> 00:43:05.385
- like at the confluence of two major rivers, you'd end up focusing your, that would be the theme of your

00:43:05.385 --> 00:43:08.510
- history. The crossroads of America or whatever.

00:43:08.674 --> 00:43:17.771
- And you'd lose a lot of the ordinary stuff that people were living every day. I thought of something

00:43:17.771 --> 00:43:26.958
- unique. Monroe County was the center of population in the United States and that center of population

00:43:26.958 --> 00:43:34.974
- was found to be a snake-infested briary picket in the Benton Township until business and

00:43:35.170 --> 00:43:45.653
- scientific it's uh... uh... recalculated discovered that it was now rose knows where she speaks just

00:43:45.653 --> 00:43:56.447
- as last weekend i thought when they and i can't decide as a pollitzer prize-winning reporter who during

00:43:56.447 --> 00:44:04.542
- his days on the a herald telephone late and lamented uh... did a piece on the

00:44:04.706 --> 00:44:11.792
- of the center of population. And according to him, it was placed on the near west side in an almost

00:44:11.792 --> 00:44:19.019
- entirely black neighborhood. And that the city fathers decided that this was too much of an indignity

00:44:19.019 --> 00:44:25.751
- for such a marker to have to bear up on her. So they moved it downtown to the courthouse lawn,

00:44:25.751 --> 00:44:32.766
- or thereabouts. And that it was a racist matter, not a matter of brambles and thickets and swamps.

00:44:33.090 --> 00:44:40.699
- This is a matter we'll have to sort out, quite obviously. But I do want to take exception, if I may,

00:44:40.699 --> 00:44:48.383
- not just to Ms. McElvine, but to Ms. Sears, on the uniqueness or the singularity of Monroe County and

00:44:48.383 --> 00:44:55.917
- Bloomington. For all of the things that we seem to have in common with other Midwestern or at least

00:44:55.917 --> 00:45:00.286
- southern Midwestern counties, I believe there are factors

00:45:00.962 --> 00:45:08.464
- that do set us apart. Almost to the point, if we are not utterly unique, or just unique, you can't qualify

00:45:08.464 --> 00:45:15.476
- unique, we are quite different. Pam may not see it this way because she is a Californian, which has

00:45:15.476 --> 00:45:23.048
- to be taken into account. This will not impugn her motives, but it will say something about her perspective

00:45:23.048 --> 00:45:28.798
- on the mind run of humanity. I think that we are at a point of confluence between

00:45:29.058 --> 00:45:39.101
- cosmopolitan university elite culture, if you will, and a down-home Hoosier culture, and that that confluence

00:45:39.101 --> 00:45:48.231
- or conflict or clash has produced some very interesting results. If one talks about this place with

00:45:48.231 --> 00:45:57.726
- persons from other parts of the world, as I have rather insistently, not deliberately, but insistently,

00:45:58.274 --> 00:46:07.116
- I am amused and very often surprised by what comes up about us, that there is a Bloomington Mystique,

00:46:07.116 --> 00:46:15.958
- or if you expand it to the edges of the county, a Monroe County Mystique. We are a musical center not

00:46:15.958 --> 00:46:26.014
- simply because of the Beaux-Arts train, or because of Janis Stark, or because of the riches of the School of Music,

00:46:26.498 --> 00:46:34.528
- We are a center because of John Cougar Melon Camp, because of Sheila Stevens, because of a very active

00:46:34.528 --> 00:46:42.636
- rhythm and blues and rock and roll and home industry, almost cottage industry recording business around

00:46:42.636 --> 00:46:49.886
- here. We are known for our music and we are known in Liverpool and we are known in Yokohama.

00:46:50.530 --> 00:46:57.176
- We are known in some parts of the world because of a rich literary culture, which may have begun with

00:46:57.176 --> 00:47:03.691
- the publication of the new Purchase to scandalize local society, but which was certainly evident in

00:47:03.691 --> 00:47:10.206
- the works of James Woodburn as a popular historian, which certainly picked up 40 years ago with the

00:47:10.206 --> 00:47:17.438
- publication of Ross Lotridge's Rain Tree County. And today we have authors, poets, essayists, novelists living

00:47:17.634 --> 00:47:25.246
- and working right here in Monroe County. James Alexander Thom is a good example of a local colorist,

00:47:25.246 --> 00:47:33.084
- a writer who uses the area and exploits it marvelously well. Are you exploiting the area in outer space

00:47:33.084 --> 00:47:40.922
- and interstate space? Well, now I am, yes. I've got three books that say right here and here. The point

00:47:40.922 --> 00:47:44.766
- that I would make, whether it has to do with PCBs,

00:47:45.762 --> 00:47:53.710
- whether it has to do with the Indiana University basketball team or swimming team or track team, whether

00:47:53.710 --> 00:48:01.355
- it has to do with the School of Levitts, whether it has to do with this place, we have created about

00:48:01.355 --> 00:48:09.151
- ourselves a mystique. And we are perceived in ways that Martinsville is not perceived or even Columbus

00:48:09.151 --> 00:48:15.358
- is perceived, although Columbus has its own mystique, which is worth considering.

00:48:15.970 --> 00:48:22.973
- What I submit is, and this is a matter that I intend to investigate closely, trying to ward

00:48:22.973 --> 00:48:30.966
- off sentimentality on one hand and just share fraudulence on the other, I am eager to know what accounts

00:48:30.966 --> 00:48:38.883
- for how we are perceived, how we are understood as a community. And many of those things are not simply

00:48:38.883 --> 00:48:45.886
- reducible to the census returns or who lived in what neighborhood when or what the relative

00:48:46.338 --> 00:48:54.605
- incomes were. Many of these things have to do with the star-dusted lyrics of Hoagy Carmichael. Many

00:48:54.605 --> 00:49:03.451
- of them have to do with the Book Nook and the Bent Eagles. A lot of them have to do with the down hominess

00:49:03.451 --> 00:49:11.718
- of William Lowe Bryan. But they also have a reality. Well, I don't know whether or not we have that

00:49:11.718 --> 00:49:13.950
- kind of an aura around us.

00:49:14.466 --> 00:49:22.015
- But my perception is that Monroe County has most of the major elements of the American story in it,

00:49:22.015 --> 00:49:29.790
- as opposed to, I don't want to pick on Warren County, Iowa, but I know Warren County, Iowa, and Warren

00:49:29.790 --> 00:49:37.490
- County, Iowa doesn't have all the elements of the American story. But there's agriculture here. There

00:49:37.490 --> 00:49:41.566
- is the high culture, low culture split that you note.

00:49:41.954 --> 00:49:49.316
- There's industry, the Industrial Revolution, there's class, there's race, there's progress, there's

00:49:49.316 --> 00:49:56.825
- small homogenous communities, there's diversity, and we have to, I think we have to keep in mind that

00:49:56.825 --> 00:50:04.481
- thousands of IU alums are going to read our book and are going to remember that they were nurtured here

00:50:04.481 --> 00:50:06.174
- also, so we have lots.

00:50:06.434 --> 00:50:12.024
- I have to put that in, in case the audience is getting a sense that we're anti-IU. We're certainly not.

00:50:12.024 --> 00:50:17.560
- But this is, I think, a very good story to tell, and a story that, while there may not be a uniqueness

00:50:17.560 --> 00:50:23.097
- here, certainly, and there may well be a uniqueness. We'll figure that out. We may have two books. But

00:50:23.097 --> 00:50:28.579
- certainly, it's a story that people ought to read, because I think it's a very American, very typical

00:50:28.579 --> 00:50:34.169
- American story. Well, we're getting a little short on time, and there are a couple of other things that

00:50:34.169 --> 00:50:36.158
- I wanted to cover before we gave up.

00:50:36.354 --> 00:50:42.262
- The next item, obviously, who is going to read this new book? Is it going to be an academic book full

00:50:42.262 --> 00:50:48.055
- of footnotes and academic jargon like infrastructure and high culture, low culture, and things like

00:50:48.055 --> 00:50:53.963
- that? Or are we going to write a popular book that has pop-up cartoons and things like that? What are

00:50:53.963 --> 00:50:59.872
- we going to do? Rose? Scratch and snoop. I have an absolutely marvelous book at home that some of you

00:50:59.872 --> 00:51:02.942
- might have heard of that's called 1066 and all that.

00:51:03.650 --> 00:51:11.412
- It's sort of a classic, and it has, in the introduction, it has this statement, history is not what

00:51:11.412 --> 00:51:19.329
- you thought, it is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself. And I'd like to make plea

00:51:19.329 --> 00:51:27.246
- for a readable history that when people have put it down, they've not used it only for reference, but

00:51:27.246 --> 00:51:32.446
- they will put it down with some knowledge that they have absorbed.

00:51:32.642 --> 00:51:40.498
- because I have enjoyed it. That's important. Yeah, I think that's quite... I agree with you very strongly,

00:51:40.498 --> 00:51:47.987
- Rose, and I think that means that there's a cost to that kind of history, and I'm willing to pay that

00:51:47.987 --> 00:51:55.623
- cost and to admit it up front, at least for my own purpose here, that this book will not be a reference

00:51:55.623 --> 00:52:01.790
- book. You won't be able to pull it off the shelf and find the name of every family,

00:52:02.434 --> 00:52:08.601
- of every church, the date the church was founded, the schools listed by names. I don't think it's going

00:52:08.601 --> 00:52:14.649
- to have that kind of detailed reference purpose. You may find the answers to some questions. There'll

00:52:14.649 --> 00:52:20.816
- be an index and you can look in the index and it may provide answers to some questions. But I hope it's

00:52:20.816 --> 00:52:26.864
- going to be a book that rather than serves that kind of reference function is going to serve the kind

00:52:26.864 --> 00:52:30.718
- of function that Rose is talking about, a book that can be read.

00:52:31.138 --> 00:52:37.659
- and that can be absorbed and can help to create these kinds of roots and understandings of place. I've

00:52:37.659 --> 00:52:44.052
- got to tell you how many times people have come into the museum and to our gift shop there and said,

00:52:44.052 --> 00:52:50.573
- I'm looking for a book about Bloomington to send home to my mother for Christmas. And there just isn't

00:52:50.573 --> 00:52:56.904
- one. And I think that there is a built-in market for people out there. There's a constantly turning

00:52:56.904 --> 00:53:00.702
- over market. Every four years, totally new people are here.

00:53:01.026 --> 00:53:07.735
- looking for something to send to the relatives for Christmas about the town where they are spending,

00:53:07.735 --> 00:53:14.644
- you know, four years or eight years or whatever of their lives. And it's not just for the people coming

00:53:14.644 --> 00:53:21.354
- into the university, but it's something that all of us have at some point wanted something like that

00:53:21.354 --> 00:53:28.130
- and it just is not available. Last week I was several weeks ago actually on the gift committee to buy

00:53:28.130 --> 00:53:30.654
- gifts for our sister city delegation,

00:53:31.010 --> 00:53:37.220
- 13 people from Luchow, Taiwan. And we wanted to buy a whole bunch of books with lots of pictures and

00:53:37.220 --> 00:53:43.554
- stuff that would show them something about the city that they had formed this alliance with. And there

00:53:43.554 --> 00:53:49.703
- just wasn't anything available that really gave a good flavor of what Bloomington and Monroe County

00:53:49.703 --> 00:53:54.622
- are like. I think that's what we need, not an academic detailed reference book.

00:53:55.106 --> 00:54:01.747
- but something that gives a good overview that people can read and look at the pictures and come away

00:54:01.747 --> 00:54:08.322
- with a much better grounding in where we're from. I might add, by the way, for those of you who are

00:54:08.322 --> 00:54:15.095
- watching this program, and the thousands of people who are here will barely be accommodated by all the

00:54:15.095 --> 00:54:21.933
- seats, but they've been very quiet, that the profits from this book are not going to go to our pockets.

00:54:21.933 --> 00:54:24.958
- The money that this group is going to receive

00:54:25.186 --> 00:54:32.205
- The money that this group is going to receive will probably barely cover the cost of typing paper, but

00:54:32.205 --> 00:54:39.019
- the purpose of the book is to raise money for the Monroe County Historical Society and specifically

00:54:39.019 --> 00:54:45.969
- to establish a publications fund that will allow books and diaries and letters to be published in the

00:54:45.969 --> 00:54:53.328
- future. One of the things that is very obvious when you look at Monroe County is that the lack of materials

00:54:53.328 --> 00:54:54.078
- available.

00:54:54.370 --> 00:55:01.155
- And we hope to help remedy that by giving a publication fund, a research fund, if you will, a good shot

00:55:01.155 --> 00:55:07.874
- on the arm. So that's where the royalties from this book, assuming there are any, will ultimately wind

00:55:07.874 --> 00:55:14.398
- up. And I might add there's a lot of high-priced talent here. And the talent is, for the most part,

00:55:14.398 --> 00:55:16.094
- volunteer. And so I think

00:55:16.514 --> 00:55:23.968
- I'm not asking for mercy, but I just want you to know that this is not a group of people who are here

00:55:23.968 --> 00:55:31.276
- at $5,000 an hour, which is, I think, what Jim Wright's attorney is getting as he peers. Do we need

00:55:31.276 --> 00:55:38.657
- any help? I address this to the audience. Yes, we do need help. If anyone out there is interested in

00:55:38.657 --> 00:55:42.750
- helping us or would like to volunteer time or whatever,

00:55:43.106 --> 00:55:49.763
- We would be happy to have you get a hold of me or get a hold of anyone in the Historical Society. Call

00:55:49.763 --> 00:55:56.356
- PAMP Service at the Monroe County Museum. And if you have any letters, diaries, or anything like that

00:55:56.356 --> 00:56:03.014
- that might be useful, books, newspapers, pictures, please let us know about those. Let us borrow them.

00:56:03.014 --> 00:56:05.470
- At least read them. Let us copy them.

00:56:05.890 --> 00:56:10.957
- if possible. Now I can make a particular appeal for pictures. We have a fairly good museum collection.

00:56:10.957 --> 00:56:15.926
- We've been open 10 years and people have been bringing in pictures over that time, but there are big

00:56:15.926 --> 00:56:20.994
- gaps. And I know there are pictures out there in the community that people have that could really help

00:56:20.994 --> 00:56:26.012
- illustrate aspects of the art history which we'd like to illustrate. So I suggest bring them into the

00:56:26.012 --> 00:56:31.177
- museum. We'll have them copy. You get back the original and then you get the picture in the book. Before

00:56:31.177 --> 00:56:33.342
- we open it up for questions from the floor,

00:56:33.634 --> 00:56:40.183
- Those of you who are watching will probably have noticed by now that one member of our panel has been

00:56:40.183 --> 00:56:46.604
- conspicuously silent. And you're going to say, boy, have they done a number on poor Donna Ray. That

00:56:46.604 --> 00:56:53.025
- is not true. Donna is probably somewhat intimidated by this group. But let me very quickly say that

00:56:53.025 --> 00:56:59.446
- Rose McElveen is going to be working heavily on the limestone industry. Ken Owen is going to handle

00:56:59.446 --> 00:57:01.758
- the cultural history of the county.

00:57:01.922 --> 00:57:07.417
- And Pam is working on the prehistory, incidentally, the Indians, and we haven't given her much chance

00:57:07.417 --> 00:57:12.859
- to talk about the Indians, but Jim Madison is going to be working primarily on the 20th century. I'm

00:57:12.859 --> 00:57:18.677
- going to be working mainly on the 19th century, and Donna is going to do something that is very interesting

00:57:18.677 --> 00:57:24.119
- in that she's going to talk about the development of one of the major, I guess you'd say industries,

00:57:24.119 --> 00:57:27.998
- and certainly an important facet of Monroe County today, and that's the

00:57:28.290 --> 00:57:35.810
- the medical community in the hospital. So Donna, you have about, you have a couple of minutes if you'd

00:57:35.810 --> 00:57:43.183
- like. Two minutes, huh? Two minutes. I am going to write about the medical history of Monroe County.

00:57:43.183 --> 00:57:50.630
- And to answer one of these questions, how do you write a history and what is your source? Some of the

00:57:50.630 --> 00:57:54.718
- sources that I've been using are public health records,

00:57:55.714 --> 00:58:02.811
- I've been to the Indiana State Library to search through some of their volumes. I've been to the Indiana

00:58:02.811 --> 00:58:09.975
- Historical Society. They've just recently published a book about a surgeon who is during this same period

00:58:09.975 --> 00:58:16.733
- of time that I'll be writing about that will help lend some ideas of what may have happened or what

00:58:16.733 --> 00:58:18.558
- happened during that time.

00:58:19.650 --> 00:58:29.049
- I spent several days with Bea Snoddy, who was a local secretary at the hospital for I think more than

00:58:29.049 --> 00:58:38.725
- 30 years to learn firsthand knowledge of working with the nursing school and physicians and just general

00:58:38.725 --> 00:58:48.862
- running of the hospital. I've done some oral histories with retired physicians who practice in Monroe County.

00:58:49.090 --> 00:58:57.537
- before antibiotics and after antibiotics and what a change that was. I've talked to professors at the

00:58:57.537 --> 00:59:05.901
- IU School of Medicine and that was a major part of the training of physicians. In the beginning they

00:59:05.901 --> 00:59:14.844
- were just, they learned by being with another physician and I'll be touching on the aspects of the training

00:59:14.844 --> 00:59:17.246
- and licensing of physicians.

00:59:17.986 --> 00:59:27.458
- And another aspect I'll be looking at is the effect of wars on medicine. So it would be kind of encompassing

00:59:27.458 --> 00:59:36.669
- with the university and general life and how life changes, how medicine, how physicians treated something

00:59:36.669 --> 00:59:45.880
- as simple as the sore throes or as difficult as a heart attack in the 1800s and how that's treated today.

00:59:45.880 --> 00:59:47.966
- So basically that's it.

00:59:49.218 --> 00:59:56.515
- Well, I've got the floor. I'm not going to do that. No, go ahead. It's yours. The library closes in

00:59:56.515 --> 01:00:03.957
- 25 minutes. One thing I think about when Kent was speaking was about the mystique Bloomington has and

01:00:03.957 --> 01:00:11.400
- how we're perceived by other communities. And I think we're perceived by who's looking at us. If it's

01:00:11.400 --> 01:00:19.134
- industry, and these will be people who will be purchasing the books, if it's industry that's coming here,

01:00:19.746 --> 01:00:27.089
- potential new employees, management people, they can look at the book and see what Bloomington is and

01:00:27.089 --> 01:00:34.360
- who are the people, where they're coming from and where they're going. I think it could be a general

01:00:34.360 --> 01:00:41.774
- interest book. I think the schools should be able to use it very well. I think new people just looking

01:00:41.774 --> 01:00:44.798
- at Bloomington, new professors coming in,

01:00:45.986 --> 01:00:53.610
- business people can use this book. And I think it should be used maybe by the welcome community, whatever

01:00:53.610 --> 01:01:00.802
- their group is called, to welcome new people to Bloomington. So I think there'll be a great deal of

01:01:00.802 --> 01:01:08.138
- use. It'll be used for gifts, as Pam said. Because if you've ever sent a young person away to school,

01:01:08.138 --> 01:01:11.518
- you want to know something about the town that

01:01:11.874 --> 01:01:18.308
- your child, your young person is attending. So I think it's a very helpful book. I think that is a real

01:01:18.308 --> 01:01:24.557
- audience, and I agree with you strongly, Donna. But I'm not going to give up the hope that among the

01:01:24.557 --> 01:01:30.867
- people who are going to learn something from this book are people like, let's say, Janet Dunn and Mr.

01:01:30.867 --> 01:01:37.116
- Leffler and some of the others who know a great deal about the history of Monroe County. But I hope,

01:01:37.116 --> 01:01:41.694
- and they'll have to tell us three or four years down the road, but I hope

01:01:42.210 --> 01:01:50.125
- that they might learn something too from this book. Let me ask a question of Donna along the lines of

01:01:50.125 --> 01:01:57.963
- what Jim Madison has proposed. This will undo some of my ignorance, not all of it, but some of it. I

01:01:57.963 --> 01:02:06.422
- was denied a Monroe County birthright back in 1938 while my parents were living in Spencer because according

01:02:06.422 --> 01:02:10.302
- to every tale that is still around in the family,

01:02:10.466 --> 01:02:17.139
- The Bloomington Hospital had the highest infant mortality rate in southern Indiana, at least in south

01:02:17.139 --> 01:02:23.681
- central Indiana. Do you recall why my mother had to be taken to Indianapolis to Coleman Hospital so

01:02:23.681 --> 01:02:30.878
- I could be delivered there because the local hospital was so dreadful? Would that have been true at the time?

01:02:32.898 --> 01:02:47.481
- I don't think I could. There are many answers to a question like that, but I will withhold. I would

01:02:47.481 --> 01:02:53.022
- like to say that I certainly survived

01:02:53.634 --> 01:03:00.316
- arriving in the Bloomington hospital. Oh, my dear, if I had only known. Let me add very quickly, Janet

01:03:00.316 --> 01:03:06.803
- Dunn has a question. Let me add the composition of this panel is there are two Bloomington natives,

01:03:06.803 --> 01:03:13.356
- or at least Monroe County natives. I believe, Donna, you're not. No, I'm not. I'm sorry. But Jim is.

01:03:13.356 --> 01:03:14.718
- Jim is not here. No.

01:03:14.818 --> 01:03:21.707
- You've been here a long time. You've been here over 20 years. There's one, Rose. There's one fan from

01:03:21.707 --> 01:03:28.597
- California. There's Kent from Indiana, and I'm from Iowa, and Jim is from Pennsylvania. But we're all

01:03:28.597 --> 01:03:35.419
- long-time residents in Monroe County. Now with that, Janet, go right ahead. What I want is for y'all

01:03:35.419 --> 01:03:37.310
- to hurry up and get it out.

01:03:37.506 --> 01:03:48.144
- for three years. Oh, sure. I am so excited about what you're doing. I think it's something that means

01:03:48.144 --> 01:03:58.573
- real and true to me. And in spite of what you're all saying, we are unique. May I quote you, Janet?

01:03:58.573 --> 01:04:04.830
- I'm collecting evidence. Thanks. Yeah, Bob, go right ahead.

01:04:05.698 --> 01:04:16.404
- anything about social services in Monroe County? Yes, yes I could. Cecil Baldwin gave me a lot of materials

01:04:16.404 --> 01:04:26.515
- so I went to the museum and I have her theses. She received her master's in 1920 from IU and they had

01:04:26.515 --> 01:04:33.950
- 1924-25 and she received a PhD. And I have her theses which tell all about

01:04:34.466 --> 01:05:03.326
- May I say that we hope to have forums like this

01:05:03.874 --> 01:05:09.667
- I mean, more than just this one before the book comes out to keep that appetite wedded, but also maybe

01:05:09.667 --> 01:05:15.291
- to start a tradition again of getting together and talking about Monroe County history. This is our

01:05:15.291 --> 01:05:20.972
- second time this week that we've done it, and it's been very useful, not just for us, but for people

01:05:20.972 --> 01:05:26.652
- in general. So maybe something like that will happen as well. Someone here wanted to make a comment.

01:05:26.652 --> 01:05:30.814
- Didn't it, Rose? I would like to put in a bid on the health front for the

01:05:31.202 --> 01:05:38.339
- Marvelous story about the wells downtown in front of the stores and the courthouse lawn and the inability

01:05:38.339 --> 01:05:45.273
- of county residents or city people to see any relationship between the sudden rash of ailments and the

01:05:45.273 --> 01:05:52.343
- arrival of a man from the State Department of Health who dropped a concentrated blue dye in the outhouse

01:05:52.343 --> 01:05:59.614
- and drew blue water out of the wells around the square within fairly short order, within a couple of hours.

01:05:59.906 --> 01:06:08.140
- I think that kind of story will be used, and I also have a cartoon that will go along with that, of

01:06:08.140 --> 01:06:16.456
- like a typhoid, sitting at the town pump. And this was, I think, out of the Indianapolis Star. Those

01:06:16.456 --> 01:06:24.937
- are fun stories, and I think that they'll make the reading readable. Sir, yeah? This is not a profound

01:06:24.937 --> 01:06:28.478
- analysis of the problem, but just for your

01:06:28.962 --> 01:06:38.743
- in this area, and it is a fact, I think, that the first dean of the graduate school, Eichmann, was the

01:06:38.743 --> 01:06:48.239
- first surgery patient at Louisville Hospital, and he survived. At the beginning of the hospital, he

01:06:48.239 --> 01:06:58.494
- died for a while. Why was that? Were several blind fish removed from his gullet at that time? I don't know.

01:06:58.946 --> 01:07:07.369
- Well, I think it's likely, and you have gotten it, I'm sure of it, we have a hospital, because the ladies

01:07:07.369 --> 01:07:15.871
- of the city of Louisville decided we had to have one, and the hospital is still owned by the local council

01:07:15.871 --> 01:07:23.975
- of women. Why, let me ask you a question, since in almost any other place there is a county hospital,

01:07:23.975 --> 01:07:27.710
- why no county hospital in this county does it?

01:07:27.938 --> 01:07:36.097
- There never was one? But there never was any... We can have county people on the... And we, I think,

01:07:36.097 --> 01:07:43.610
- are given... I'm not sure if we get any money at all. They do take care of some of the debt.

01:07:43.610 --> 01:07:51.850
- Does it get 50,000 pounds a year? They may. They used to. Yeah, you were on campus. I've just been on

01:07:51.850 --> 01:07:57.182
- the foundation. The hospitals just started becoming... I'm sorry.

01:07:57.506 --> 01:08:06.261
- I think we still are unique because it is the only one in the country that's known by name.

01:08:06.261 --> 01:08:16.157
- It's a magnificent institution. May I add a Jack Legg opinion to that, which I hope will be worked into

01:08:16.157 --> 01:08:25.768
- somebody's presentation. It seems to me that much of what makes us a singular community has been the

01:08:25.768 --> 01:08:26.910
- presence of

01:08:27.490 --> 01:08:36.595
- women's leadership at levels of great significance in this community in comparison with other communities

01:08:36.595 --> 01:08:44.498
- of comparable size and social and economic composition that we have and I hope this doesn't

01:08:44.498 --> 01:08:53.088
- sound patronizing. I think we have been blessed by unusually bright and able women who have been in

01:08:53.088 --> 01:08:56.094
- positions to express their talents

01:08:56.354 --> 01:09:03.554
- for the good of the entire community. And my guess is that this is not evident in comparable communities.

01:09:03.554 --> 01:09:09.803
- Now, that, as I say, is a jack-leg opinion that is put forward as a thesis, which will have

01:09:09.803 --> 01:09:17.003
- to be investigated. That I think that this is one of the reasons for what makes it single. I think you'll

01:09:17.003 --> 01:09:24.542
- find that Antelope Hill Cemetery was taken over by the group of women here in New England, and there were once

01:09:25.058 --> 01:09:32.967
- and pass it over to the city. That's another thing. That's just what I thought, from the cradle to the

01:09:32.967 --> 01:09:40.800
- grave, from the hospital to Rome too. By the way, I'm sorry. No, there's a comment. I'll come back to

01:09:40.800 --> 01:09:48.555
- you, Bob. Go ahead. You'll have to speak up a little. Well, I'm speaking from the point of view of a

01:09:48.555 --> 01:09:53.470
- librarian. This project is really needed. I mean, I know people

01:09:54.082 --> 01:10:18.526
- I have been observing Amal Altomah work when people come in here asking for a really good

01:10:19.106 --> 01:10:25.329
- history of Monroe County, and I have noticed that most often she gives them a copy of James Joyce's

01:10:25.329 --> 01:10:31.739
- Ulysses or one of the Henry Miller books, either Tropic of Cancer or Tropic of Capricorn, and you have

01:10:31.739 --> 01:10:37.962
- helped to create some remarkable impressions of the community. Not Raindrie County, though. No, no.

01:10:37.962 --> 01:10:44.186
- I give them Raindrie County. You do give them Raindrie County, but you don't urge that they see the

01:10:44.186 --> 01:10:48.542
- movie, I think. Bob, go ahead. This has to do with the water problem.

01:10:49.410 --> 01:10:58.355
- And what followed up was a blue dye on the north side of the courthouse, the outhouse there, going down

01:10:58.355 --> 01:11:07.128
- to the well of College Fire for a blank one. But this has to do with, just after the Indianapolis and

01:11:07.128 --> 01:11:16.074
- Southern Railway was built, all the blasting that occurred in the cutting of all the stone and so forth

01:11:16.074 --> 01:11:18.654
- in order to clear the tracks.

01:11:20.034 --> 01:11:28.122
- they had to pass the law, forbidding anyone to use their wells because they became contaminated with

01:11:28.122 --> 01:11:36.210
- water that flowed through. And they were allowed to use systems. So this was about 1904 or five when

01:11:36.210 --> 01:11:44.458
- I'm there. And that is a facet of the water problem the voters had here. I know that oddly enough, one

01:11:44.458 --> 01:11:48.702
- of the reasons Bloomington was founded, where it is,

01:11:48.962 --> 01:11:56.504
- aside from the fact that the university had, or the seminary rather, had nice springs down there, which

01:11:56.504 --> 01:12:03.757
- was quite flowing. This north of Abner Blair's long cabin, which is on the northeast corner of what

01:12:03.757 --> 01:12:11.082
- is known Madison and Fifth, there was quite a flowing spring there. That impressed the commissioners

01:12:11.082 --> 01:12:17.246
- appointed by the state. Now the first commissioners were really from other counties.

01:12:17.954 --> 01:12:25.277
- Now, there's also one on the southeast corner of 6th and what is now Madison. Then there was one up

01:12:25.277 --> 01:12:32.746
- the main stream, which has quite a history about it. There are anecdotes about it. It was between 7th

01:12:32.746 --> 01:12:40.215
- and 8th Street, what was then Spring Street now, of course. And there were so many streams, you know,

01:12:40.215 --> 01:12:45.854
- there are many branches growing on it. You have Springer's branch, you know.

01:12:46.402 --> 01:13:09.510
- Yeah, if I may put in a plug then for chapter one, which is my chapter. Actually, I'm very lucky to

01:13:09.510 --> 01:13:15.518
- have that chapter because

01:13:15.938 --> 01:13:23.980
- It starts about 600 million years ago and ends in 1816. So why I'm lucky is because there's no one around

01:13:23.980 --> 01:13:31.794
- who can tell me it wasn't that way. But I'm doing the best to try to get a close approximation of what

01:13:31.794 --> 01:13:39.837
- actually happened during that considerable period of time. But actually, it isn't just an academic matter

01:13:39.837 --> 01:13:41.278
- of vague interest.

01:13:41.410 --> 01:13:47.065
- It directly relates to very real things like this question of the water shortage. You know, this was

01:13:47.065 --> 01:13:53.055
- a recurrent theme throughout our history. And it's because of the geologic past, where we have the springs

01:13:53.055 --> 01:13:57.534
- and where we have the karsticography, the sinkholes and all this sort of thing.

01:13:57.890 --> 01:14:04.130
- comes directly out of our geologic past. And it has had a very profound impact on us, the agricultural

01:14:04.130 --> 01:14:10.370
- history of the community. True, we do have agriculture that is a part of our history. But this is not,

01:14:10.370 --> 01:14:16.852
- and never really has been, a major agricultural community for very specific geologic reasons. The glaciers

01:14:16.852 --> 01:14:23.092
- didn't come here. We have these lovely scenic hills. But we have very shallow, nasty soil on hills and

01:14:23.092 --> 01:14:27.454
- hollows. And you see that theme all the way through the Indian history.

01:14:27.714 --> 01:14:33.512
- of the thousands and thousands of years that Indians lived here, this was a very marginal area. And

01:14:33.512 --> 01:14:39.484
- they only really lived here with any intensity when the population size was such that they were forced

01:14:39.484 --> 01:14:45.630
- out of the more desirable areas into Monroe County. Let me put you on the spot, Councilman, Councilwoman.

01:14:45.954 --> 01:14:53.516
- Are you suggesting that maybe we're limited in our development possibilities? Are we going to reach

01:14:53.516 --> 01:15:01.758
- a point where we don't go any further? I think that's a very significant consideration. We just recently had

01:15:02.018 --> 01:15:07.200
- an out-of-town developer drops sort of a development bombshell on us and says, here, we're going to

01:15:07.200 --> 01:15:12.486
- come in and do this for you. But Bloomington isn't like a lot of other communities because we do have

01:15:12.486 --> 01:15:17.668
- some real physical constraints on the kind of development that can go on here. We've seen this with

01:15:17.668 --> 01:15:22.953
- what are we going to do with all our solid waste? We've got a landfill that's filling up. It's in the

01:15:22.953 --> 01:15:26.270
- only part of the county, really, where you can have a landfill.

01:15:26.402 --> 01:15:31.585
- The state says you've got to have another one, you've got to do something, you're running out of space.

01:15:31.585 --> 01:15:36.668
- Where are we going to put it? There is no place geologically that is safe to put it. If you put it in

01:15:36.668 --> 01:15:41.801
- an incinerator, then you've got a whole lot of other problems to develop. This sort of thing, you like

01:15:41.801 --> 01:15:46.984
- to think that you don't really have to read those early chapters in the history book because it doesn't

01:15:46.984 --> 01:15:52.068
- affect you, but it does, right? Sure. Well, we're about out of time. We are out of time. So there are

01:15:52.068 --> 01:15:56.254
- a lot of topics that we haven't covered. We haven't talked about religion, which is

01:15:56.770 --> 01:16:03.204
- big part of Monroe County's history. We haven't talked about the good old American staple, the speculation

01:16:03.204 --> 01:16:09.397
- bomb, which someone told me the other day there are 450 realtors in Monroe County right now. There are

01:16:09.397 --> 01:16:15.230
- a lot of topics. We'll come back the next time, but I want to thank the members of the audience.

01:16:15.586 --> 01:16:22.683
- And again, it's a bad night. It's a dark and stormy night, a Snoopy would say. And we have a crowd,

01:16:22.683 --> 01:16:30.063
- I estimate, closely at around 180,000 people here, give or take 179,800. But I want to thank the people

01:16:30.063 --> 01:16:37.302
- in the audience, ladies and gentlemen, the members of the panel. This has been a lot of fun. And have

01:16:37.302 --> 01:16:42.270
- a safe moment. We'll see you again soon. Thank you. Massive applause.

01:16:44.130 --> 01:16:58.462
- Thank you.