'BLICATION OF THE INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

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F- 521 - 148- VOL 16- N02 INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF TRUSTEES SARAH EVANS BARKER, Indianapolis f\.liCHAEI A. BucKMAN. Indianapolis, Second Vice Chajr MARY ANN BRADLFY, Indianapolis EDWARD E. BREEN, f\·farion, First Vice Chair DIANNEJ. C.'\RT).JI::L, Brown'ilOWll PATRICIA D. CURRAN, Indianapolis EDGAR CLtNN o,wrs, Indianapolis DANIEL M. EN'"I, lndiHnapolis RJCIIARD D. fELDMAN, Indianapolis RJCIIARD E. FORD, Wabash R. R-wI I AWKINS, Cannel THO�IA5 G. HOBACK, Indianapolis, Secretary lVlARTIN LAK•:, Marion LARRY S. LU'IOJS,Indianapolis POLLYjON TZ LENNON, Indianapolis jAMES H. MADISON, Bloomington MARYj ANE MEE.KER, Carmel ANUR£W \V. NICKLE, South Bend GEORC:F F. RAPP, Indianapolis BONNIE A. REILLY, indianapolis £VALINE H. RHODEHAMI�L, Indianapolis l.r\N M. ROLLAND, Fort \r\'ayne, Chair jAMES C. SHOOKJR., Indianapolis P. R. SwEENEY, Vincennes, Treasurer RoBERT B. ToOTHAKER, SouLh Bend W!LI.IA·'I I-f. \oVJC,GINS jR., Bloomington

ADMINISTRATION SAI.VAJ'ORE G. Cn.ELLAJR., President RAY\·IOND L. SHOEMAKER, Executive Vice President At'\/NAHELLhj. JACKSON, Controller SuSAN P. BROWN, Senior Director, Human Resources STEPHEN 1. . Cox, Vice President, Collections, Conservation, and Public Programs TIIOl\IAS A. MASON, Vice President, IHS Press BRENDA MYERS, Vice President, Marketing and Public Relations LINDA L. PRATI, Vice President, Development and Membership DARA BROOKS, Director, Membership CAROLYN S. SMJTII, Membership Coordinator

TRACES OF INDIANA AND MIDWESTERN HISTORY RAY E. BOOMHOWER, Managing Editor GEORGE R. H.A.'\'LIN, Assiswnt Editor

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS M. TEI

PHOTOGRAPHY SUSAN L. S. SUTION, Coordinator DAVID TURK, Photographer

EDITORIAL BOARD EowARD E. BREEN, Marion HOWARD C. CALDWt:LI.JR., Indianapolis jAMES A. Cou-::.<;, Indianapolis THE SUMMER ISSUE OF Traces RICHARD D. FELDMAN, Indianapolis RAJ.PJI D. GRAY, Indianapolis features the lush landscapes painted by Indiana jAMJ::S H. MADISON, Bloomington DALE OGDEN, Indianapolis artist Frank V. Dudley. From 1921 to his death in LESTER M. PONDER, Indianapolis ROBERT L. R£10, Evansville a 1957, Dudley journeyed to cottage he built on the ErucT.SA'IlJ\\'l!JSS, Bloomington BERNARD VV. SHEFIIAN, Bloomington shores of Lake Michigan to capture on canvas the RIC!lARDS. SIMONS, �I arion \rVIGGINS R., beauty of the Indiana Dunes. In addition to his WJLIJA,\1 H. j Bloomington DESIGN painting, Dudley, with his wife, Maida, campaigned R. LLOYD BROOKS, Design DireCLor S�F.l-J), to preserve the dunes as a national park. The issue RY.AN Designer Thrive, Inc. will also examine the tragic career of Indiana PREPRESS AND PRINTING GRAPHIC ARTS CE)'.'TER/Indianapolis baseball great Chick Stahl and the often forgotten IHS WORLD WIDE WEB PAGE literature of Terre Haute writer and philosopher http:/ /www.indianahistory.org Max Ehrmann.

TraceJ of indiana aud MidweJll'm JlislfJI)' {TSSN 1040--?SSX) is published quar­ terly a11d disu·ibutcd as a bet1erit of JJlembership b) the Ittdiana Historical Society Press; editorial and executive offices, 450 \\'est Ohio Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202�3269. t'llcmher�hip catl.'goricsinclude Student $10,1ndividual 35, F'ami1y/0Ltal 0, and Sustaini11g $100. Single copie-sarc 5.25. Periodic.Lis poslage paid at lndianttpolis, Indiana; USPS .Numbe1 003-275./.itrrary rontti� butions: A brochure containing information lOr conl.I"ibutor� is available upon request. TrnresacccpL'�no rr:"ponsibility for un:.olicited 1nanL1scrip1s submiltcd _ wit.hOLllr eturn postage. lndmna newspaper publtshers may obtain permission to reprint ankles by written request to the Press. The Press will refer reque�LS _ from mher publishers tO the amhor. ©200l lnd1ana Historical Sociery Press. AJIrights reserved. Printed 011 acid-free 1�apcr in the U11itcd SL:.ttes ofAmerica. f-'Oltmasler:Please send addre� changes to lraa� oflndta11a _ mul Mulwestern Histmy, Indiana llistorical Socit:ty Ptess, 4.50 \\'est Ohio Su·ect, Indianapolis, Indiana l'�DIAN nHISTORICAL OUET� -tG202·3269. Tram i� a member ol the Confrrence of llistoricaljow·nals. TRACES OF INDIANA AND MIDWESTERN HISTORY SPRING 2004 VOLUME SIXTEEN, NUMBER TWO

( Editors' Page: A 36 Writer's Journey Opportunity on the Ray E. Boomhower Frontier: Workers at the Indiana Cotton Mills 4 Indiana and Tibet: Leigh Darbee A Century of Connection Douglas Wis ·ing 46 Destination Indiana: Aurora's Veraestau 16 Leroy E. Burney: A Ray E. Boomhower Hoosier Pioneer in Public Health Stephen J Jay 4 Images of Indiana

26 The Homemaker's Friend: The Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet Connie Swaim

ECEIV 2004 INDIANA HISTORICAl SOCIETY LIBRARY

FROI(T COlER: The lloosicr Kitchen Cabinet, built b1 New Castle's Hoo,ier �lanufacturing Compan), promoted cfficit'llC) in kitchens throughout the rounLry. Credil: IllS. OPPOSITE: A viC\\ of tile Indiana Dunes lakeshore from Mount Tom, painted b) lloo,icr anist FJ

Dorothy and Dorris Shelton (second and fourth from left), daughters of missionary Dr. Albert Shelton, pose in traditional Tibetan costumes with a group of friends. Although raised as proper midwestern girls, the two spoke Tibetan almost as their first language. '

FOR BIBLIOPHILES SUCH AS MYSELF, OPENING A NEW BOOK is always an exciting occa ion. There are portions of a book that hold higher interest fo r some people than others, particularly in nonfiction works. The arcane attraction of footnotes ha even spawned the writing of entire tomes on the subject, including Anthony Grafton's delightful l997 book The Footnote: A Curious History. In explaining why he chose to write on what some may see as a trivial matter, Grafton noted that the papers of Hoosier journalist and writer John "like the high whine of the dentist's drill, the low rum­ Bartlow Martin, and subsequent returns to that ble of Lhe footnote on the historian's page reassures: the national treasure for other projects. tedium it inflicts, like the pain inflicted by the drill, is My fascination for how a writer researches a book not random but directed, part of the cost that the ben­ has led me to ask various Indiana authors to write efits of modern science and technology exact." Other articles for this magazine detailing how they crafted seemingly minor parts of a book also grab people's their books. None of these authors have ever traveled attention. From personal experience, I can tell you that as far for their subjects as did Dougla Wissing of woe be to any publisher who decides to release a book Bloomington, Indiana. Wissing, assisted by a Clio without an index, as fans of that particular end matter Grant fr om the Indiana Historical Society, braved the will be sure to voice their complaints loudly and often. elements, possible attacks by bandits, and rich cups of Whenever I peruse a new book's pages, particularly yak-butter tea to research the life of Dr. Albert Shelton, biographies, I immediately turn to the preface or the renowned Disciples of Christ missionary and acknowledgment section. It is here that an author explorer who spent approximately twenty years in the thanks those who have contributed to the book's cre­ wilds of Tibet. During the early twentieth century, ation, both physically and mentally. What really inter­ Shelton won acclaim for his travels, becoming a well ests me, however, is an author's detailing of how he known in his time as the fa mous Dr. David Livingstone or she conducted the painstaking job of research-the did for his adventures in Africa. In researching his people interviewed, the archives visited, the reels of book, Wissing, whose work has appeared in national microfilm consulted to produce the book. I love to new papers and magazines, traveled throughout read about the various repositories an author visited the Himalayas fr om northern Yunnan across Tibet, to unearth the mysteries of his or her subject' life. epal, and India to the range's terminus on the It always reminds me of my first visit to the Library Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He also explored the of Congress in Washington, D.C., where I examined Kham region of eastern Tibet, which had been closed to foreign travelers for almost a century. In this issue of Traces Wissing outline his que t for Shelton's past and the fascinating connections between Tibet and the Hoosier State, especially the Oouri hing Tibetan community in Bloomington. His determined efforts to capture the es ence of his sub­ ject reminds me of a quote attributed to obel P1ize-winning author William Faulkner, who ob erved, "Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all to get the book written." Ray E. Boomhower

TRA CS Sp,,g 2oo• Dr. Albert Shelton treats a Tibetan boy. The Sheltons and other foreign missionaries were deeply aware of the power of Western medicine.

A land of soaring Himalayan mountains and deep river canyons, Kham is the fr actious borderland between the Chinese and Tibetan peoples, primarily populated by bellicose Tibetan Khampa tribesmen.

4 TRACES Spritog 2oo< ith Tibetan bandits prowling the ancient between Indiana and Tibet that has now endured fo r trade route through the wild frontier region a century-a link that joined both Kalsang and me. of Kham, there was no vehicle willing to A land of soaring Himalayan mountains and deep chance the southern trail to Batang. o I river canyons, Kham is the fractious borderland jounced west along the northern route on between the Chinese and Tibetan peoples, primarily a rattletrap bus that was stuffed with Tibetan tribes- populated by bellicose Tibetan Khampa tribesmen. In men wearing long Kham pa knives. My Khampa Shelton's day the region was the centuries-old battle­ guide, Kalsang Anyetsang, sugg sLed we stop at ground between the rulers of two ancient imperial cui­ his home village, Dahor, fo r information on the tures-the Manchu emperor in Beijing's Forbidden trails and a much-needed break. City and the Dalai Lama in his thou and-room Potola I was in easternTibet in thefa ll of 1999 on research Palace in Lha a. En cultured by unending conflict, trip ( upported by the Indiana Hi torical Society), the Khampa became the holy warriors of Tibetan attempting to reach the remote border town of Batang, A Buddhism. It made Kham an anarchic and danger- where a remarkable American family made ous land where brigandage and battle were its home early in the twentieth century. c en tu ry inextricably woven into a unique culture of Dr. Albert Shelton and his wife, Flora, were both warriors and monks. The Tibetans of the cap­ native Hoosiers. Through their medical mission to 0 f ita! in Lhasa say that Khampas make the greatest the Himalayas, the Sheltons helped begin saints and best killers. Kham continues the wholly counterintuitive connection Connect•lon to be the violent flashpoint between the

Douglas Wissing

Indiana nd

TRACES Spr11og >OO< 5 / \ I) I A .\ A -� .\ 1J T I H F I A stream of villagers passed in and out of the Anyetsangs' parlor, taking an opportunity to check out the itinerant Hoosier. Now and again Kalsang would translate a question or make a comment in basic English (which was far superior to my nearly nonexistent Tibetan), and I would respond as best I could. Mter a few momos, I drifted into a reverie, idly looking at the family photos pinned to the wall beside me-pictures of family groupings on the terrace just outside the door, relatives heading on a pilgrimage to Lhasa, and bright-eyed brides and red-faced grooms. Suddenly I sat bolt upright as my eyes fo cused on one snapshot. There, stuck to the wall of a remote Tibetan house halfway around the world, was a photo­ graph of fo rmer vice president Dan Quayle posing in Indiana with a Tibetan. "Small world," I initially thought. But as I began to think about this odd connection that has tied Tibet and Indiana together for a hundred years, the photo didn't seem so surprising after all. pen<;lent-minded Khampas and the Communist * * * * * Chine who began their occupation ofTibet in 1950. Shelton and his wife arrived in eastern Tibet in 1904 ore we reached Kalsang's home in Dahor, an after six months of hard travel by steamer, Chinese n ou overloaded bus snapped, stranding us fo r junk, sedan chair, and mule into the Himalayas. They and a night on a desolate mountainside with were accompanying the famous Disciples of Christ mis­ only raroen noodles fo r food. A few nigh ts later, in sionary Dr. Susie Rijnhart back to Tibet, where her year­ t e chaotic border town of Ganze, I overindulged in old son Charlie and her husband Petrus both died in too many cups ofyak- butter tea before discovering a a failed attempt to reach Lhasa, the great unattainable fe rocious Tibetan mastiff stood between the outhouse goal of Christian missionaries. Susie Rijnhart stumbled and me. Throughout the journey that began in the out of Tibet half dead, almost unrecognizable as either Chinese provincial capital of Chengdu, Sichuan, we a woman or a Westerner. Mter Perched on Japoding Hill endured a gauntlet of Chinese police-state proce­ a period of convalescence above Satang, the Sheltons' dures. By the time we dug a microbus out of deep, she returned to the United house also served as a deep mud and finally trudged into Dahor, I fe lt an States as a great hero. It was schoolhouse for Dorris and awfully long way from my Indiana home. a period when Americans Dorothy Shelton, with their Dahor sits perched on a mountain slope above the hailed fo reign missionaries mother, Flora, acting as rushing Zachu River. Picketing the valley, snow-capped such as Dr. David Livingstone teacher. mountains soared into an impossibly blue Himalayan sky. Maroon-robed Buddhist monks, known as lamas in Tibet, strode down the dirt trails. Young boys herded recalcitrant long-horned yaks back from the fields.The villagers were still gathering the last of the harvest, and the steady beat of flails hulling barley on the flat roofs of adobe houses was a soothing rhythm. The Anyetsangs greeted us with wide smiles. As the livestock in the first-floor stables watched my ungainly ascent, the family helped me up the ladder made from a notched log to their second-story home. Soon I was ensconced with a group of villagers on banquettes cov­ ered with Tibetan carpets as the Anyetsang daughters brought platters of momos (Tibetan stuffe d dumplings) and pot after pot of yak-butter tea.

6 TRACES Spri"g 20o< / \ lJ I I \ t t \ 0 7 I Ill- I

Through his medical skills and gregarious midwestern nature . . . Shelton built strong relationships among the Tibetans. In the course of his career in central Asia, the American press lionized him as the successor to Livingstone, calling him "Shelton of Tibet. " in Africa as celebrities and exem- Albert Leroy Shelton learnforeign languages and culture, including Tibetan. plars of the expanding West. and Flora Flavia Beal Early in the twentieth century Indianapolis was one of Rijnhart was a member of the were married on April the few places in the Western world where Tibetan Incliana-centered Disciples of Christ. 27, 1899. could be learned. The CWBM and the Foreign Christian Indiana has been a bastion of the Disciples of Christ Mission Society, a Disciples society that supported since the denomination arose from great revival move­ Shelton's mission, dedicated a building on August 18, mentsthat ignited the Ohio valley early in the nineteenth 1910. Originally named the Sarah Davis Detarding century. With a large number of Disciples, the Di ciples' Mis ionary Training School, it was a taut four-story chool Butler University, and the Christian Woman's building, made of red brick and limestone and designed Board of Missions headquarters, Inclianapolis was a m�or in an unadorned neoclassical style. center of Disciples activity. The Sheltons heard Susie Located on the Butler University campus that was Rijnhart make a ringing call for a mission to Tibet at a then in the shady suburb of Irvington, the mission Disciples convention. Roused by her address, the denom­ college was in a culturally harmonious setting. ination funded a Christian medical mission in the Tibela.li Irvington was a conservative neighborhood, with nary borderland . The Sheltons volunteered to join her. a saloon or theater at the time of the mission's found­ Within a few years Rijnhart had to withdraw from Tibet, ing. An Indianapolis newspaper article stated the her health broken by her long flight through the terrain college would prepare missionaries "for the work and the rigors of the high altitude. The Sheltons remained they have to do, which will include contact not only until 1922, in time establishing a sprawling mis ion in with the simpler and humble heathen mind but the Batang that was centered on the only hospital for a region profound scholarship of Oriental peoples." the size of California. It was the most i olated and dan­ Renamed the College of Missions during the 1911-12 gerous mission on earth. Time and again Khampas ravaged school year, the college produced its first graduates the the Christian missions, murdering missionaries and same year. Over time, a number of people who were converts. Through his medical skill and gregarious veterans of the mission in Batang taught Tibetan at the midwestern nature, however, Shelton built strong rela­ college while home on furlough. The college also tion hips among the Tibetans. In the course of hi career became a repository for Tibetan art and artifacts that in central Asia, the American press lionized him as the Shelton and the missionaries acquired. succes or to Livingstone, calling him "Shelton of Tibet." Shelton wa a voracious collector. With the help of Inspired by the work of the Sheltons and other influential Khampa friends he began collecting Tibetan Disciples of Christ missionaries, the CWBM established Buddhist art and ethnologic artifacts early in his sojourn an institu tion in Indianapolis where students could in Kham. While on furlough in 1911 he sold his collec-

TRA E Spr�"g 2004 7 I \ n I:!. ,-.I !. .\ 11 [IllI I tion to the Newark Museum in New Jersey, which quickly Shelton escaped after more d1a11 two months, he was near trumpeted it as one of the best collections in the West. death-and an international celebrity. The world press Shelton's fa me continued to grow through the had covered his ordeal and in the process transformed years. He became an important figure in central him into a hero. Suffering from privation, exhaustion, Asia, alternately doctoring and arbitrating between and an excruciating tumor that grew on his neck during the warring Chine e and Tibetans. Recognizing the his kidnapping, Shelton returned to the United States extraordinary services that Shelton had performed, fo r a medical furlough. While still deeply rooted in his mid­ the Dalai Lama issued him a unique invitation to western values and ethos, he became one of the first travel to the fo rbidden capital of Lha a to establish important interpreters of Tibetan life to America. a hospital-Shelton's great dream. Shelton's furlough was a triumphant march. Crowds While Shelton was journeying through Warlord Era in Indiana and across the country fe ted him as he pro­ western China in 1920, escorting his fam ily to the coast claimed an admiration of Tibetans that evolved from fo r their return to America, a large band of brigands kid­ his long Himalayan experience. He spoke twice at the napped him. Chinese army units relentlessly pursued the National Geographic Society to enthusiastic audiences, band through the mountains, as Shelton's health rapidly and National Geographic magazine published his "Life declined with the constant fl ight and battles. When among the People of Eastern Tibet." Shelton's book LEFT: The northern route through Kham near Dahor village. RIGHT: A Pioneering in Tibet had strong sales. John D. Rockefeller yak grazes near a Tibetan chorten in a barley field in northern Jr. invited the missionary to his Manhattan mansion Kham near Dahor village . OPPOSITE, ToP: Shelton's years in the fo r a family dinner, and Shelton topped it by selling the Tibetan borderlands transformed him into a rugged pioneer doctor. industrialist a thousand dollars' worth of Tibetan jew­ OPPOSITE, BonoM: The Jo Lama picnics with Shelton and his two elry. Shelton also sold the Newark Museum another daughters. The Jo Lama, flanked by the Shelton girls, was trove of Tibetan artifacts and helped the museum considered a reincarnate manifestation of the Buddha by the catalog the then-obscure material. Tibetans and consequently became one of Shelton's most In early June 1921 the Sheltons traveled to important allies. Indianapolis to attend a conference and commence-

8 TRACES Spnug 200 ,, TRACES Spring 200" 9 I.\ 1J I .1 .\ 1 \ \ D fIB f-1 ment at the College of Mission . The event included a Moumain range mass meeting that climaxed in a Lhasa-themed pageant dedicated to Albert Shelton. Inspired by Shelton' adven­ ture and example, two missionary couples pledged to fo llow him back to Tibet. The Indianapolis Star reported that Shelton and the graduates were leaving fo r Tibet immediately after the event. 'The party will make a sec­ ond attempt to reach Lhasa, the capital ofTibet," the newspaper noted. "In a former attempt, Dr. Shelton nearly lost his life." At a post-commencement ceremony, Shelton thundered, "Every Christian fo rce in the last centur that has gone against the rock of Tibet has ble The Disciples of Christ are not going to en we go by the board, if you don't send somebody else, we will come back and ha'nt you." She n never did make it to Lhasa. After another run1.e duous t-ip across China into the Himalayas with • \ the n w mi sionaries, he prepared a caravan to make he onth -longjou rney to Lhasa, nearly a thousand Like most travel through Map of the Kham region in Tibet. miles wes across the bleak Tibetan plateau. On his way Kham over the centuries, the trip was punctuated ibetan border to make final arrangements, with medieval caravansaries, landslides, horrendous Shelton fe ll from his saddle, wounded by Tibetan ban­ roads, tetchy Chinese officials, breakdowns of a dozen dits hiding on a cliff- side trail. He died that night of stripes, and a constant threat of Tibetan bandits. February 17, 1922, in Batang. A week or so later we were on yet another rickety, * * * * * overcrowded bus. The Khampa passengers began get­ More than seventy-five years after that fa teful day, ting nervous as we approached an area notorious fo r Kalsang and I recuperated in Dahor with much­ ambushes. I was, too, as my research notes and film needed sleep and more home cooking. I became a big from the trip were in my grungy backpack. I was obsessed fan of the Anyetsang daughters' yak-meat momos and with getting to Batang to find outwhat the Tibetans my comfortable bed in the family altar room. After thought about Shelton and his Indiana-supported a short ride on a tiny Tibetan pony and a tense set­ mission and then back to the Hoosier State with my to with a rancorous yak, we con- Both Shelton daughters research material. With all of the travail that Kalsang tinued our journey aero s were born in the Tibetan and I faced, I was beginning to fe el as if my goal was as Kham, aiming for the places town of Ta chienlu. Dorris unattainable as Shelton's dream of Lhasa. that figured into Shelton's fif- arrived on August 25, I suddenly asked Kalsang if I could negotiate to teen thousand miles of mule- 1904, and Dorothy on keep my research material if robbers attacked. He back travel across the region. May 27, 1907. glanced at me and turned to speak in Tibetan to our bus mates. Soon they were all rollicking with laugh­ ter. "No!" Kalsang laughed. "We get robbed, bandits take everything-our bags, clothes, everything." At least my naivete broke the tension. In many ways Kalsang and I riding a Tibetan bus deep into the Himalayas bespoke the modern connection between Indiana and Tibet. There was a hiatus fo r a period, though. The College of Missions operated in Indianapolis until 1928, when it moved to Hartford, Connecticut. Though other Disciples mis­ sionaries made their way to Batang, including two from Indiana, �helton's Tibetan Christian Mission fe ll on hard times after his death. Internal conflict,ongoing Chinese­ Tibetan warfare, and the Great Depression finally I \ n I l \ I � \ 0 1· I 11 l f took their toll. On August 22, 1932, after twenty-eight (primarily Khampa) exiles that was based in year of evangelism on the Tibetan frontier, the the remote western epale e region of Mustang. In Disciples of Christ mis ionaries turned the mi ion time, the secret Tibetan army became one of the over to a tiny local congregation of sixt en. In the years CIA's longest-running clande tine field operations. following, independent missionaries with Indiana sup­ After stints in New York and Washington state dur­ porter continued to operate in Batang. ing the early 1960s, orbu was ready fo r a small-town The modern connection began in World War II, environment. "I could offer him Bloomington's peace when the Department of De fe n e fac d a critical need and quiet and a fixed income," Sinor aiel. orbu' fo r central-Asian language experts. The demand pre­ arrival in 1962 began a unique Hoosier-Tibetan cipitated the establishment of Indiana University's community as Tibetans began fo llowing him to now-famous Tibetan Studies proo-ram in the the small southern-Indiana town. Norbu calls Department of Central Eurasian Studies. Originally himself a "Hoosier-Tibetan." an Army language-training program, it expanded with The Hoosier-Ti betans included my guide, Kalsang fu rther U.S. governmentfundi ng. Anyetsang, and hi brother Thubten, who were part of As the Cold War increa eel the need fo r language the immense Khampa dia pora that Oed Tibet. Their specialists, the IU department grew in size and pre - father was a Khampa nobleman who joined the rebel­ tigc through the 1950s and 1960s. The invasion of lion and was later killed fighting with the exile army. Tibet by the Chinese Communists in 1950 especially The two brothers were refugees before eventually find­ accelerated the need fo r Tibetan-language specialists. ing a home in Indiana. Kalsang lived in Bloomington

Professor Denis Sinor, a highly Newly graduated fo r a number of years before Children line up for a respected central-Asian scholar missionaries pledged a returning to his family's tradi- foreign-missions pageant from Cambridge, arrived in 1962 life to the foreign tiona! home in Dahor. at the College of to head the department. He missions in the ivy­ Today Bloomington is a Little Missions. placed an empha i on fi nding chain ceremony Tibet. JU's world-renowned Tibetan Studies program native speaker to teach Tibetan. following the College of continues to thrive a part of the Department of Central Fortuitously, Thubten Jigme Missions Eurasian Studies, located in the leafy Well Quadrangle, Norbu was available. Norbu is the commencement. a redoubt of Gothic limestone-clad academia that also older brother of the fo urteenth Dalai Lama and was houses the Kin ey Institute. Associated with the depart­ himself the abbot ofKumbum monastery, the largest ment is the federally fu nded Inner Asian and Uralic in Tibet. He had fl ed the Chinese ommunist in National Resource Center, the only one in the country 1950, one of the fi rst to s ek exile in the We st. In fo cused on cenu·al Eurasia. Scholars and the general the same period, the Khampas had revolted against public have access to IU's enormou collection of the Chinese Communist , with thousands of refugees Tibetan books and manuscripts and the Antoinette K. eventually driven from their homeland by Communist Gordon Collection of Tibetan Art. soldiers armed with modernart illery and bombers. Founded by Professor Norbu in 1980, the Tibetan Prior to his arrival in Indiana, Norbu had served in Cultural Center sprawls over ninety acres at the east­ the initial organization and training of the Central ern edge of town, anchored by two enormous Buddhist Intelligence Agency's secret guerrilla army of Tibetan chortens (stu pas) . There are two Tibetan Buddhist TOP Row AND MIDDLE Row, LEFT: authentic Tibetan cuisine in

Scenes from the Dalai Lama's Bloomington. BonoM Row, RIGHT: visits to Bloomington in 1996 Author Douglas Wissing (lower and 1999. MIDDLE Row, RIGHT: right) with the Ba Lama (upper

The Tibetan Buddhist right), believed by Tibetans to

Monastery in Bloomington's be the reincarnation of

Cascade Park. BonoM Row, LEFT: Shelton's old friend. To the

The Anyetsang family's Little left of Wissing is Danduna,

Tibet Restaurant offers secretary of the Ba Lama. INDIANA AN/J T!ll/<,1' It was my friendJim Canary, a fellow Tibet aficionado into the Batang valley, where I hoped to learn more and the rare-book conservator at IU's Lilly Library. about Shelton's Tibetan legacy. It was pitch-black Unbeknownst to me, he was in Lhasa to work on an night when we fi nally arrived in the town of Batang. international aid project. Aswe walked down the moun­ A kindly Khampa father and son named Lobsang tain from the Potola Palace, Jim caught me up to date befriended us on the bus and invited us to stay at on Bloomington politics and a little bit of basketball. their home in Batang. Kalsang had told them of my Later that trip I saw a Tibetan in a porkpie hat loung­ quest. I had heard there was little left of the Batang ing near the Jokhang Temple, Tibetan Buddhism's holi­ mission and that even Shelton's gravestone had dis­ est site. As I looked closer I realized he was wearing a appeared in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. crimson-red IU T-shirt celebrating one of the school's They promised to try to findso meone to help. NCAA basketball championships. The morning after we arrived I came down to the Jim continues to return to Lhasa as part of an inter­ cheerful Lobsang kitchen for breakfast. The kitchen national consortium of conservators to train Tibetans to bustled with the extended family churning yak-butter preserve the country's ancient national archives. Others tea and making morning momos. Ethnologic work, such as from Indiana fan out across tl1e Tibetan world withdiverse Unidentified locals arrived to his photography at a goals, from religious and historical scholarship to aid have a gape at us new fo lks. A Tibetan Buddhist temple projects for Himalayan antiquities collections. From tl1e burly man with a finely woven dance, became Shelton's other side of the globe, Tibetans continue to make their straw fedora and a pale purple passion. Influential way to Indiana fo r religious and educational reasons and windbreaker sat across from Khampa trader Gezong sometimes just to finda nice place to settle down. me, drinking tea and quietly Ongdu, to the left of * * * * * talking to Kalsang. After what Shelton, served as the Kalsang and I never did get robbed in Kham, and seemed to be an eternity of yak- missionary's informant eventually we rolled down the mountain switchbacks butter tea-drinking, I asked and major domo. I_\ /J I-� \ I i \ 0 (I IJ I I Kalsang if we might get on with finding that person Buddhist robes. Considered the reincarnation of a who could show us the mi sion site. Kalsang pointed great Buddhist teacher, a rirnpoche, he sat in a lotus to the man across from me. po iLion on a platfo rm above us, the very picture He was a local historian who had rescued Shelton's of ancient concentrated wisdom. A small Lhasa gravestone after Red Guards attacked it during the Apse dog lay tucked be ide him. anarchy of the 1980s. "You are lucky man. Gravestone Danduna told us that the Ba Lama had gone with is at my home," Kalsang translated fo r him. It was lean­ the guerrillas into the mountains when the Kharnpas ing t th of his house. "I thought people had revolted against the Chinese Communist rule in the wot ld co e om day," he said. In fe ar of political 1950s. The Chinese eventually wounded and captured e efu ed to give his name, but he agreed him, and he spent many years in labor camps and elL n 's old mission.

small mountain river. The hi Lorian pointed to a corn­ fieldwher e the hospital once stood. One earthen wall in the front yard of a Communist worker compound was all that remained of the Shelton ' house. I noticed the orchards of old apple trees that covered the hillside and a ked the historian if the missionaries planted them. Yeshu Qesus) apples, he called them. Thanks in part to the missionaries' midwestern trees, on penal road crews. Through The College of Missions Batang was Tibet's fr uit center. the intermediaries of Danduna in the prim, leafy We were standing in Batang's du ty main intersection and Kalsang, the Ba Lama Indianapolis suburb of when it struck me that I could interview one of Shelton's recounted the terror of Chinese Irvington was one of the old friends, the Ba Lama, a revered Buddhist leader of east­ invasions. "Many monks killed," few places in the West ernTibet . Given that Shelton died in 1922, it would make he said with chopping motion to where Tibetan language the Ba Lama about 117 years old. Shangri-la fa ntasies neck. "Many soldiers come. and culture was taught aside, I figured I couldn't talk to that Ba Lama about Monasteries burned. Monk no early in the twentieth Shelton, but perhaps I could interview his reincarnation. head. Monasteries all de troyed." century. When I asked if there was a Ba Lama in town, the hi to­ Then I asked the question I had come around rian walked over to a young moon-faced lama who was on the world to ask: What did he think about Shelton the opposite corner. It was Danduna, the secretary to the and his work? The que tion passed from Kal ang Ba Lama. The historian explained my quest to him, point­ to Danduna and on to the Ba Lama. I waited. ing to the mi ion hill. As the historian talked I heard the Then Kalsang translated the answer: "Rimpoche word "Yeshu." Danduna looked at me and smiled. "Oh," thinks he was a good man. Helped poor people, he said, "Dok-tor Shel-tan. Ba Lama and Dok-tor h lped children. Feed, clothes, teach English. Shel-tan," and he linked a finger of each hand. Helped. He was good man." The Ba Lama was an old, old man, with a thick under­ Douglas Wissing is a writer living in Bloomington. His book lung lower lip and large ears that lay close to his grizzled Pioneer in Tibet: The Life and Perils of Dr. Albert Shelton shaved head. He was big-boned with thick hands. His was recently published by Pa lgrave Macmillan. For more info r­ shoulders were still muscular above his saffron-and-red mation visit www. douglaswissing. com.

FoR FURTIII,R READII'\G Diebold, Paul, and Julia Fangmeier. Mission Accomplished: The Missions Building, Its His/Or)' and It Peop le. lndianapoli : Irvington

Historical Society, 1995. I Shelton, Albert L. Pionming in Tibet: A Pmonal Record of Life and Expe1ience in Mission Fields. New Yo rk: F. H. Revell Company,

1921. I Shelton, Flora Seal. ShPiton of Tibet. New Yo rk: George Doran, 1923. I Still, Dorris Shelton. Beyond the Devils in the Wind. Te mpe, Ariz.: Synergy

Books, 1989. I Wissing, Douglas. Pio neer in Tibet: The Life and Perils of D1: Alba/ ShPlton. New Yo rk: Pal grave Macmillan, 2004.

TRA ES 5�""<1 20o4 15 A young Leroy Burney as an intern with the U.S. Public Health Service .

.. Leroy E. Burney

In sou thea tP r tVJr1 · near the western boundary of Decatur County in Clay Township, sits an unincorporated village named Burney, population 254. The community borders the northern reach of the Bluegrass Region, an area with distinctive natural fe atures, climate, flora, and fa una. American beech, red maple, sweetgum, and tulip trees dominate the woodlands. Stephen J. Jay

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TRACES Spn .. g 2oo< 17 PI O,\'F/•_ /( /.\' Pt /JJ /C HF \1 1'11

Throughout his di tinguished career, Leroy Burney reflected the traditions of his pioneer fo rebears-their strong belief in religion, the importance of freedom in a democratic society, discipline, and hard work. He valued the place of his origins and its influence on his life. Burney's career, however, suggests that while his life 's work was rooted in his sense of being and place, it was neither lim­ ited by tradition nor constrained by history. Instead, his sense of time and place projected Burney into the twenti­ eth century as one of America's visionaries in public health. Still, Burney saw himself as a conservative administrator, a collaborator, and a political pragmatist-not a reformer. History suggests that because Burney saw himself as a con­ vener, not an activist, he was able to accomplish what few public-health leaders have achieved in moving controver­ sial social issues to public consciousn ess. When Leroy Burney wa a child the community of Burney was only a five-mile walk from the geographic cen­ ter of the United States. The village flourished with a school, two churches, and thriving businesses, including a bank, a doctor, a dentist, two ice-cream parlors, and a liv­ ery. The Columbus, Hope and Greensburg railway oper­ J+m+no.n.In the 1880s Samuel M. Burney, by then a ated several trains daily, offering respite from travel along wealthy fa rmer, donated land to build a depot for the Big rutted, muddied lanes from "Mudsock"-the natives' sobri­ Four Railroad, whose tracks connected Columbus and quet fo r Burney-to nearby Hope, Ewington, and Rugby. Greensburg. The stop was called Burney's Station. James C. The music fe stival under the big top fe atured john Philip Pulse platted the village-named Burney-in 1882. Sousa. The Burney Band even played at the Indianapolis One of Samuel M. Burney's five sons, William Edgar, Motor Speedway. The town 's newfound culture belied its became a prosperous farmer and was elected trustee of early history as a place "noted more fo r the fighting qual­ Clay Township in 1880. He and his wife, Charlotte Critser, ities of her citizen than anything el e." had one son, Robert E. (Ned) Burney. Ned and his wife, Yo ung Leroy Burney stayed only a fe w years in this land Mabel Howell, in turn had one child, Leroy Edgar, who of his ancestors-attending grammar school in Burney and was born on December 31, 1906, in Burney, the village nearby We stport. His parents moved to Indianapolis, per­ named for his great-grandfather. From these humble haps fo r better work (Burney's fa ther was a millwright and beginnings in an inconspicuous corner of a rural county, mechanic) or perhaps fo r the possibilities of a better edu­ and barely one hundred years after pioneers discovered cation fo r their son, already a bright student who showed this howling wildernes , Leroy Burney began a life's jour­ potential. Burney graduated from Arsenal Technical High ney that would lead him to the pinnacles of government School in Indianapolis in 1924. His Views of main street and service as U.S. surgeon general and to prominence on Aunt Mary had married the Burney the Big Four Railroad the world stage of international health. town phy ician, Cecil Gardner Depot in Burney, Indiana. . 7 . I

18 TRA E Spro11g 200 1 PI 0 .\ f. f ll I\ IJ l ll f I l /I t \ t I II

Yo ung Leroy Burney stayed only a fe w years in this land of his ancestors­ attending grammar school in Burney and nearby We stport. His parents moved to Indianapolis, perhaps fo r better work ... or perhaps fo r the possibilities of a better education fo r their son, already a bright student who showed potential.

Harrod, in June 1917. Harrod LEFT: A young, somber­ Indiana, Burney joined the PHS, whose origin in 1798 took his nephew on hou e calls looking Burney models a was to serve the medical needs of merchan t seamen. in a horse and buggy. By the time new overcoat. RIGHT: Burney interned at the Merchant Marine Hospital in Burney graduated from high Students and teachers Chicago. Ad,�sers encouraged him to sit fo r the exam fo r the chool, he had chosen medicine gather outside the Burney ommissioned corps of the PHS, but he fa iled the test. as his life' ambition. In an inter- school. Burneylater believed h was the only surgeon general in his­ view in 1988, Burney said he greatly admired Harrod. "It tory who had fa iled the first exam. His mentor, McLaughlin, just eemed natural ...fo r me to fo llow in his profes­ though troubled by his setback, remained confident in him sion," he said. "I had no other interest." and helped him secure a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship After two years at Butler niversity, Burney trans­ at the johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. fe rred to Indiana University, where he received a bach­ Fresh from graduating witha master of public health degree elor of science degree and a medical degree. In Burney's in 1931, Burney again sat fo r the PHS examination and senior year, A.J. McLaughlin, as i tant urgeon general, passed a grueling five-day t t that included que tion about vi ited the school-in uniform-to talk with student characters in Charles Di kens's works and ative American about career in the U.S. Public Health Service. Burney tribe of lndiana. In September 1932 he was commissioned described McLaughlin as "a highly intelligent and engag­ as an assistant surgeon at the Ma1ine Hospital in Cleveland. ing Irishman," while McLaughlin recalled that Burney That same year Burney married Mildred I-l ewin of "had an idealism, vision, and courage which made Boonville, Indiana, whom he met on a blind date. A remark­ me think that he had a terrific potential fo r public ably resourceful woman, Mildred created a home fo r their health work." The eed fo r a career in public health two children despite the fr equent moves the fa mily endured had been planted. From landlocked southeastern as Burneywas called to new duty stations.

TRACES Spr�11g >oo< 19 The U.S. Public Health

Service's mobile venereal-disease clinic, dubbed the "bad-blood wagon," offered treatment for African

Americans in the South who were often denied service at segregated medical facilities.

.. pI 0 \ Jo f H I\ j.J l 8 I If 1/ 1 \I I If

hard and tedious, but there were interesting respites. In 1941 he assisted Wa lter Wagner of Twentieth Century-Fox in creating a movie about venereal disease titled Know fo r Sure. Burney considered it a marvelous fi lm, but before it was released U.S. Surgeon General Thomas Parranjr. called Burney and asked that he meet with the director of the Catholic Legion of D c ncy, who protested about showing the movie in theaters, stat­ ing that health education on venereal disease rnu t be done in the horne. Burney lost the argument, and Parran scrapped showing the movie nationwide. In 1944 the War Shipping Administration detai led Burney to the navy, where he traveled in convoys to Italy, Africa, and France, investigating measures to combat malaria, typhus, and venereal disease in Mediterranean ports. On his return to the nited States, Bw-ney' appoint­ ment as a captain at the age of Burney married Mildred thirty-eight indicated that hi star Hewins of Boonville, a a career officer in the PHS was Indiana, in 1932. The indeed rising. PHS officers were couple, who met on a often lent to state health depart- blind date, had two ments. In 1945 Indiana needed a children. A natural leader, Burney proved Burney checks a patient his potential early, and in February at a clinic in Georgia 1935 he and fifteen promising offi- during his service with cers were called to Washington, the mobile venereai­ D.C., fo r a year of intensive educa- disease clinic in the late Lion and grooming fo r leadership 1930s. roles in the PHS. Followi ng this, Burneyjoi ned a fledgling venereal-disease program at a time when national norms prohibited the use of the word "syphilis" in the news. One of hi fir t as ignrnents wa in Brunswick, Georgia, in 1937, where he had the novel responsibility of establishing the first mobile venereal-di ease clinic in the U.S.-the "bad­ blood wagon "-i n three counties in rural Georgia. Burney organized the effort to car fo r African Americans denied treatment in the segregated South, designed the u-ailer, and had it outfitted in Richmond, Indiana. urney recalled the operation of the rural venereal­ Bdisease clinic with fo ndness. "We held our clinics ... in the [ron t yard of a church out in the piney woods or next to a turpentine camp," he recalled. "We'd go in, lis­ ten to the preacher preach. At the end of his preaching and singing and the collection, he would lead them all ...out the front door into the u-ailer where th y'd all get blood tests." As an incentive, those who offered to be tested could participate in a raffle fo r a pig. Within eighteen months 80 perc n t of the African-Ametican population had been te ted, and those infected with the disease had begun to be treated. Burney's next duty station was Kansas City, where he directed PHS activi tie fo r nine states. The work was

TRA ES Spr1 119 200' 21 P!OI\/'_ /• U /.V Pt.IJff(.' 1-1 1•.\lff/ talented public-health leader, and GovernorRalph F. Gates requested Burney's transfer to the Hoosier State. Parran approved the transfer, and Burneybecame Indiana's ninth state health commissioner. Additional duties at the Indiana University School of Medicine included teaching in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health. IU pre ident Herman B We lls approved Burney's fa culty appointment at an annual starting salary of $3,000, paid by a gift from Eli Lilly and Company. From 1945 to 1954 Burney worked closely with three governors-Gates, Henry F. Schricker, and George N. Craig. Appropriations fo r the state board of health quadrupled. Most of the legislation Burney drafted was passed, includ­ ing a monumental codification of all Indiana public-health laws since 1881. Of nine bills Burney drafted, only one failed-a cigarette tax to support local health departments. magazine. With broad public sup- Burney (second from port, Burney met Indiana's daunt- right, front row) gathered ing public-health challenges: with other surgeons chronic diseases, pasteurization of general in April 1998. milk, dental health, water pollu- Included in the gathering tion, venereal disease, industrial were such famous hygiene, fl uoridation of water, names as C. Everett licensing of hospitals, and immu- Koop (second from right, nization fo r the dreaded polio virus. top row) and M. Joycelyn Indiana lacked sufficient staff and Elders (second from left, fa cilities to serve post-World War II front row). public-health needs, but Burney secured $2 million to con­ struct a new home fo r the board of health at the IU Medical Center in Indianapolis, making Indiana the first state to accomplish a physical and working relationship between a medical center and a state health agency. Inju st nine years Burney had brought national attention to the Hoosier State, transforming it fr om the backwaters of public health to a position of prominence in the United States. In August 1954 Dr. Leonard A Scheele, U.S. surgeon gen­ This was an ironic fo otnote to his- Burney talks on the eral and a Fort Wayne native, recalled Burney to Washington, tory in light of the national telephone in his office D.C, and appointed hin1 as assistant surgeon general. When reforms in tobacco control Burney after President Dwight D. Scheele retired fo r health reasons two years later, Secretary of initiated later in his career. Eisenhower selected him Health,Education and We lf-are Marion B. Folsom, to whom the In the tradition ofjohn N. Hurty, in August 1956 to surgeon general reported, called Burney in and told him he the legendary Indiana public-health succeed Dr. Leonard A. wan ted a surgeon general who had experience in state gov­ pioneer of the early 1900s, Burney Scheele as surgeon ernmentand putting research into practice. Burney next heard brought to life the importance of general. Burney had been from the White House, which confirmed his appointment as public health fo r politicians, prac- assistant surgeon surgeon general. Hoosiers rallied behind Burney's nomina­ titioners, the public, and the press. general since 1954. tion, with We lls writing Folsom: ''His [Burney's] appointment He fired their imagination and gained their support. Burney to this position would be greeted with hearty and enthusiastic befriended Maurice Early, whose Indianapolis Star column, apprc:wal in the State of Indiana." President Dwight D. 'The Day in Indiana," often highlighted public-health issues. Eisenhower named Burney surgeon general in a recess appoint­ Burneyreached kitchen tables of farm fa milies through a ment; on January 30, 1957, the U.S. Senate unanimously popular series of articles that appeared in the Hoosier Fa rmer confirmedhim as the cow1try's eighth surgeon general.

22 TRACES Spr�ng 2oo• I, f 0 \ 1- I U I\ I, ( HI I l II f \I 1 II At age fif ty Burney assumed the position that his mentor Parran called "the most important public health position in the world. " The press responded fa vorably to Burney, who commented that his three great loves in life werepu blic health, his fa mily, and Indiana. At age Gfty Burneyassumed the position that his mentor was flown to Panama that day. Burney met several times dur­ Parran called "the most important public health position in ing his tenure with Eisenhower regarding public-healtJ1 issues, the world." The press responded favo rably to Burney, who and he also delighted in social interaction witJ1 the president commented that his three gT eat love in life were public health, and the first lady. Burney recalled that he and his wife were his fa mily, and Indiana. "Burney surprised Washington by his fr equently imrited to White House parties. On one occasion appointment (ahead of other leading contenders) to boss the Eisenhower proposed a toast to Mildred Burney, who then Government's vast health organization (annual budget: 400 urged her husband to ask the president if theycould take the million)," not d a story in Time magazine. One reporter glass home as a ouvenir. 'Well, I didn't have the nerve to do described Burney'sappearance as "on the lim side ...5 fe et that," said the urgeon general. 10 inches tall ...dark brown hair with a sprinkle of gray. He With the polio and flu epidemics under control, Burney wears glasses only fo r close work." An Indianapolis Star reporter focu eel on environmental health, biomedical research, edu- added that Burney possessed "an easy, graceful manner. He appears easy going, but nobody pushes him around." he first challenge fo r Burney was an outbreak of the T Asian fl u. Upon receiving word fr om the army's medical-research laboratory in Tokyo about an influenza epidemic in China, Burney convened a group of experts who concluded that a pandemic was likely and vac­ cine was needed immediately. Burney called Gene Beasley, president of Eli Lilly and Company, plu the presidents of fo ur other pharmaceutical companies, and told them, 'We'd like you to make the vaccine, but with the definite under­ standing that the .S. Governmentmay not buy the vaccine through their pharmaceutical oullets." All of them responded affirmatively to the surgeon general's reg uest. Six months later the vaccine was being administered in the nited State before the outbreak reached these shores. Burney's next challenge was polio. His pred cessor, Scheele, and Health, Education and We lfare secretary Oveta C. Hobby had made the historic announcement to the public of the availability of Dr. Jonas Salk' polio vaccine on April 12, 1955. Scheele fa ced m

TRACES Sp ,,g >oo• 23 PIONI'- I' H IV }� CBL.IC fii,AI 1" 11

anticipated the hazards of what he called "atomic garbage" Bmney developed a passion fo r Dr. John R. Heller (left) head and created the nation' first education programs for man­ collaboration among nations to of the U.S. Public Health agement of atomic radiation. The programs came amid inter­ improve health in developing Service's National Cancer national concern about nuclear fallout from atomic-bomb countries. Eisen bower named Institute, and Burney testing and radioactive waste from medical use and nuclear Burney chairman of the U.S. del- (center) talk over their power plants. Burney was also among the first to warnof the egation to the tenth Wo rld Health testimony before a House dangers of lung cancer in uranium miners. Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland; subcommittee studying the During his tenure as surgeon general, Burney also paid his election as president of the effectiveness of cigarette attention to education, as the burgeoning post-World a sembly provided him with an filters. Ta lking with them at War II health-science establishment of the 1950s was out­ international stage fo r addressing right is the chairman of the stripping the means to translate research into practice. He global health challenges- subcommittee, became one of the firstpublic -health leaders during that malaria, tuberculosis, typhus, and Representative John A. time to address the role of universities in the health of cholera, as well as health dispari- Blatnik, a Democrat from communities and the adequacy of qualified health pro­ ties among nations. "Doctor Minnesota. fessionals. Burney heeded Folsom's advice to bring Burney,"Eisenho wer said in july 1958, "added new luster not research into practice and gathered legislative support only to himself, but to the cause of public health in America fo r the emerging National Institu tes of Health. When he and throughout the world in guiding the Wo rld Health came to office in 1956 the IH budget was $80 million; Assembly. Doctor Burney works-and works well-in the when he left office it was almost $1 billion. Burney also noblest cause of all: the relief of human suffering." left two remarkable education and research legacies: the Burney's many achievements in environmental health, National Library of Medicine and the Center fo r Heal th educa.j:ion, research, and international health are often Statistics, both world-class resources fo r today's scientists, ignored when historians examine his career. Instead, his educators, policy makers, and clinicians. public announcement in 1957 of the causal link between

24 TRACES Sprurg 200 t pI() \ f I' H IV p /' IJ I I(.' /-/ J- .\ I I II Richmond cited Burney as an examplethat leadership did not need "to be loud and brassy " and added that his "combination of high intelligence, sound knowledge, quiet courage, generosity, and strategic thinking helped shape the nation 's health agendafo r many decades. " smoking and lung cancer is usually cited as his legacy. At a thirty-one-year career of service to the country. But he looked nationally televised press conference on July 12, 1957, to the fu ture, not the past. Burney received numerous job Burneysa id: "The Public Health Service fe els the weight of offers, including one at IU. Instead of returning to Indiana, the evidence is increasingly pointing in one direction; that however, he chose Te mple University and from 1961 to 1970 excessive smoking is one of the causative fa ctors in lung served asvice pre ident of the university'snewly created HealtJ1 cancer." The next day the New Yo rk Times ran a lengthy Science Center. Upon his retirement in 1970 Bw"ney becan1e fro nt-page article by reporter Bess Furman titJed "U.S. Links president of the Milbank Mem01ial Fund, a national fo un­ Cancer with Cigarettes. Health Service Cites Data-I ndustry dation located in New Yo rk City engaged in nonpartisan Group Contends Proof is Still Lacking." analysis, research, and communication on health-policy issues. ight days after Burney's announcement, Representative He retired from the MMF in December 1977. EJohn A. Blatnik, a Minnesota Democrat, held one of tJ1e On July 15, 1999, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School most remarkable public-health beatings in U.S. history. of Public Health held the first annual Leroy Burney Lecture. Blatnik chaired the House committee examining fa lse and mis­ Two fo rmer surgeon general reflected on an earlier gath­ leading advertising regarding filter-tip cigarettes. Burney said ering of all living urgeons general in April 1998,just month there was no scientificevidence that filtered cigarettes decreased before Burney's death on July 31, 1998. Antonia C. ovello the ri k oflung cancer. Blatnik raised questionsregat"d ing the described the ninety-one-year-old Burneyas "the oldest yet role of govern ment in preventing fa lse at1d misleading adver­ sprightliest of the Surgeon General in attendance."Julius tisingthat encouraged the use of unproven filter-tip cigarettes. Richmond also reflected on Burney's life, calling him a man Burney and Blau1ik were subjected to much obloquy from with "consummate diplomatic skills whose Lime and influ­ tobacco companies, the press, and even ome in the cientific ence extended over the period of the scientific revolution community. The hearings electrified a public that had been and the establishment of academic health institutions." worrying about tJ1e link between smoking and cancer. Richmond cited Burneyas an example that leadership did Although Burney had moved tobacco to ilie national not need "to be loud and bra sy" and added that his "com­ stage, it would be his successor, LutherL. Te rry, who would bination of high intelligence, sound knowledge, quiet issue the now fa mous 387-page surgeon general's repon courage, generosity, and SU"ategic thinking helped shape on smoking and health. Te rry relea eel the report to two the nation's health agenda fo r many decades." thousand members of the pre scrammed into the audi­ Burney's grave in Indianapoli ' Crown Hill Cemetery torium of the .S. Department of State on January 11, lies near those of other prominent Hoosiers, including 1964. The public and Congress were stunned. Burney had U.S. enator Homer Capehart, who helped Burney's star started one of the most contentiou and protracted argu­ ascend and who called the surgeon general "a true son of ments in the country' history. Ye t while most scholars Hoosier soil." And, in a remarkable twist of fa te, Burney, define Burney's legacy in terms of the tobacco issue, he who launched the campaign fo r tobacco control world­ humbly minimized the importance of his role in it. wide, came to rest near fo rmer vice president Thomas R. When Kennedy assumed the pre idency on January 20, Marshall, who, during a Senate debate in 1917, blurted 1961, Burneylef t his job as surgeon general wiili satisfaction out one of the most fa mous quotes in history: "What thi and regret He rationalized his leaving as being "the best thing country need i a really good five-cent cigar." in ilie world fo r me, because I would have had difficulty with Stephen ]. Jay is a practicing physician and chair of lhe [Abraham] Ribicoff [the new secretary of HEW] , becau e Department of Public Health al lhe Indiana Un iversity School of admittedly, I'm a moderate and not a social activist." As Burney Medicine. His research interests are in the histor_-yof Jmblic-health left his po the could look back with pride on a remarkable poliC)'. This is his first m·ticlefor Traces.

FoR FL R 1mR RI�\1))"\;G Absher, Ruby R. "The llistory of the Indiana Stale Board of T lealth from 1922 to 195-l."' Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1978. I

Ben nell, Jeff, and Richard D. Feldman. "'The Most Useful Citizen or Indiana': John N. Hurty and the Public Health Movement." TmcP of f11dimw and

Midwesit'rn History 12 (Summer 2000): 34-43. I Burney, Leroy. Burn!')'· Greensburg, Ind.: Decawr Coumy Historical Society, 1984. I Burner, Leroy. lmen�ew by Fi uhugh Mullan. Transcript. October 17, 1988. Commissioned Corps Cemennial Archive. National Library of Medicine, History of

Medicine Division, Bethesda, �lei. I History• oJ Deratur Cou nt_)', Indiana: lt.1 Peop le, Indll5tries , and Institutions. Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen, 1915.

TRACES Sprotog 200 ' 25 The Homemaker's Friend e

was a time of great OPPOSITE: These images from The early twentieth century Hoosier Manufacturing change fo r American women. Company advertising Their work during Wo rld Wa r I pamphlets show the many conveniences the Hoosier

proved they could do more than Kitchen Cabinet offered serve as homemakers. In addition, housewives. The pictures on the left come from a 1911

woman suffrage was building pamphlet, and the one at momentum, culminating in the the lower right dates to passage of the Nineteenth 1914. The image at the upper right shows a later Amendment, giving women the cabinet model, featured in a right to vote in 1920. 1925 brochure. Connie Swaim ..

26 TRACES Spriug >oo ; The Hoosier Special "Saves Miles of Steps fo r Tired Feet"

1111 1/ no�IF.R Kt7 t:llf.\ C.-t Bt.\J-1

It was also a time of scientific advances in the workplace, clown tl1e street," said McQuinn, "loaded witl1 brightly painted with men such as Frederick Winslow Taylor proving efficiency and decorated seed separators [,] the horses resplendent in to be an important component in the work environment. In new harness with gorgeous brass buckles and trappings-it his efforts to improve worker productivity, Taylor relied on looked like Dame Fortune was ju t around tl1e corner and time-and-motion studies, which helped determine the best all we had to do was to go around and take her in." method for performing a task in the lea t amount of time. Unfortunately, the seed separators turned out to be a One of his methods involved using a stopwatch and breaking hard sell, and the McQuinns had numerous meetings to try down the elements of time needed to perform a task. While to decide what to do. J. S. McQuinn finally suggested send­ Taylor focused his scientific-management techniques pri­ ing each wagon out with two seed separators and one marily on industry, other researchers were taking an increased kitchen cabinet. When the drivers returned at night, they intere tin the field of home economics and began applying reported that they had sold the kitchen cabinet to "prac­ similar principles to domestic work. In to this mix of science tically the first prospect, but they brought nearly all of the and woman's rights was born a simple piece of furniture that seed separators back unsold. " The second clay, the drivers promised to free women from the drudgery of the kitchen took two kitchen cabinets with them and again had no using scientifically proven methods of efficiency. It was the trouble selling them. The same thing happened on the Hoosier Ki tchen Cabinet, built by the Hoosier Manufacturing third clay, with each driver selling three of the cabinets. Company of New Castle, Indiana. hroughoul its more tl1an forty years in business, the Hoosier Manufacturing Company touted tl1e labor-saving advantages of the Hoosier cabinet and produced advertising that showed women being freed from never-ending kitchen tasks. While nothing in the company's hi tory actually mentions Taylor and his studies on efficiency, it seems likely the firm's owners were aware of his work. Over and over the word "sci­ entific" appears in the company's advertising, and a December 1921 advertisement in Good Housekeeping shows a woman who is called an "efficiency expert" using a stopwatch and a pedome­ ter to show how many steps are needed to prepare tl1 ree sim­ 'That settled the question definitely This illustration from a ple meals. According to tl1e expert, tl1 e three meals took 2,113 as to what line of furniture we 1914 advertising steps, of which 1,592 could be saved by using the kitchen cab­ should make," noted]. S. McQuinn. pamphlet shows a inet. WitJ1 advertising like this, it's no wonder that by 1920 tl1e In its early years the fi rm homemaker slicing bread Hoosier Manufactwing Company had produced more tl1an two employed between twelve and fif- on the Hoosier cabinet's million cabinets, making the Indiana firm one of the largest teen men who could make anywhere built-in cutting board. makers of stand-alone kitchen cabinets .in tl1e United States. from fifty to sixty cabinets a week. With such conveniences, The Hoosier Manufacturing Company came into exis­ The cabinetmakers were skilled car- the pamphlet promised tence in 1899 whenjan1es S. McQuinn and his son, Emmett, penters who did all of the fittings of customers, "you can founded the business with two other partners in Albany, doors and drawers tl1emselves. This prepare your whole meal Indiana. A fire destroyed the plant on january 27, 1900, rather inefficient way of making cab- quickly." however, and the McQuinns relocated the company to New inets changed in 1903 when the company hired Harry Hall Castle, finding a perfect home for the operation in tl1e old a general manager. According to Philip D. Kennedy in his OPPOSITE: Employees of Speeder bicycle plant. At first the 1989 book Hoosier Cabinets, one of tl1e first things Hall did the Hoosier firm made both kitchen cabinets was to standardize the line of cabinets so that doors and Manufacturing Company and seed separators. According to drawers were interchangeable. Hall next brought tl1e con­ gather in the early an early company history written by cept of an assembly line to tl1e firm so each cabinet no longer 1900s. The men in the .J. S. McQuinn and quoted in a 1941 was made by a single person. "The parts were accurately top photo were probably New Castle Courier-Times article, the machined and then the cabinets were progressively assem­ managers or salesmen. fi rm used four specially built wag- bled with each workman performing a single operation," Those in the bottom ons to sell the seed separators. noted Kennedy. At the height of production in the micl- photo worked in the ''When at last those four new wag- 1920s the company employed more than seven hundred factory's veneer room. on with their fancy stripes came men, with forty to fifty traveling salesmen and an office staff

TRACES Sprr"g 200 1 29 "11-lt. II 00.\1/-.R K!TCJ/1-\ C-1./J/.\J- T

140 Steps to Scramble Eggs! What fatigue needless steps produce­ Yet how unnoticed they mount up!

Kit�hen

• • , . 1 ', .UJ Cabmets lLE"The But Servnnt inR Your Hou11eCJ" ff

The Hoosier Manufacturing Company of THE UNOFFICIAL HOOSIERS New Castle was the leading producer of stand-alone kitchen cabinets in Indiana, but other companies across the state also produced similar pieces. To day many people refe r to any of these cabinets by the ge neric word "Hoosier. " In his book Hoosier Cabinets, author Philip D. Kennedy provides background on fo ur of the Indiana firms that built them.

G. I. SELLERS AND SONS COMPANY stand-alone cabinets into the 1930s then duced the Napanee Dutch Kitchenet (the George lra Sellers began manufacturing fo cused on producing built-in . It ceased company spelled Napanee with just one p tables, chiffa robes, and kitchen cupboards operations in 1950. to allow for copyrighting) , and soon in Kokomo in 1888. After a fire in 1905 he prominent department stores such as moved his firm to Elwood and brought hi COPPES BROTHERS AND ZOOK Macy's and Gimbel's began carrying it. sons into the busine s. Sellers and Sons The beginning of Coppes Brothers and Coppes Brothers and Zook began making became known fo r its kitchen cabinets, Zook dates to the early 1870s, with the built-in cabinets in the late 1920s and with their roll-up doors, metal bread draw­ fo unding of a sawmill in Nappanee. In phased out production of the Napanee ers, and Oour bins that pulled down to 1876 brothers Frank and john Coppes Dutch Kitchenet by the early 1940s. To day waist level fo r easy filling. nder the lead­ became partners in tl1e mill, and shortly the firm i known as the Coppes Tapanee ership or George's sons Wilfred and thereafter they also began producing Company and continues to build all-wood

George L., the company developed a boxes. Around the time Daniel Zook custom kitchen cabinets in its Elkhart strong dealer network and prominent joined tl1e Coppes brothers in 1890, the County factory. national ad\'erlising and became the firm purchased the Nappanee Furniture state's second-largest producer of kitchen Company and started making �ome fur­ MCDOUGALL COMPANY cabinets, after the Hoosier Manufacturing nishings, including kitchen cabinets. In Indianapolis resident George McDougall

Company. The firm continued to make 1914 Coppe Brothers and Zook intro- made a living in the late 1800 by build-

30 TRACES Spr�ng 20o< ·1 Il l 1-/ 0 0 \II /l K I-, C. Il l .\ C I Ill.\ I 7

CJ"'e n7

OPPOSITE AND AsovE: Promotional materials for the Sellers, Napanee, McDougall, and Boone cabinets. The McDougall image comes from the

cover of a 1926 brochure. The others are ads that appeared in the Ladies ' Home Journal in the late 1910s and early 1920s.

ing tables and pie safes. His son Charles with financial troubles, Charles commit­ inets-named Boone, after their county of joined him in his trade, and together the) ted suicide in 1933, and within a year or origin. Boone cabinets offe red options not

established a fa ctory on South Meridian two the fi rm went om of business. fo und on other manufacturers' models.

Street around 1895. Their firm produced Among the unique features were a disap­

a variety or kitchen fu rniture, including CAMPBELL-SMITH-RITCHIE COMPANY pearing ironing board, an alarm clock, a

baker's cabinets. Charles took over the George Campbell and james mith estal:r mirror, an eleCLric light, and a desk sec­

company upon his fa ther's death in lished the Campbell and Smith Company, Lion. \'\'ith a national advertising cam­

1901 and moved operation to Frankfort a planing mill, in Lebanon in 1892. Eight paign, the Boone cabinet fo und popularity

in 1910 after the Indianapolis plant years later, with the arrival of partner in the mid-1 920s, but sales suffe red during

burned. The McDougall Company pro­ Morris Ritchie, the firm became known as the depres ion. The Campbell-Sm ith­

duced a popular stand-alone kitchen the Campbell-Smith-Ritchie Company. Ritchie Company began to make built-in

cabinet that closely resembled those The busines pecialized in lumber and cabinets and breakfast sets in the 1930s

of other firms. One notable distinction, millwork, but around the turn of tJ1e cen­ with little success. An Indianapolis busi­

though, was the cabinet's roll door, which tury it began making kitchen cabinets as nessman bought the firm in 1940 and

until the late 1920s dropped down well. The partners rebuilt operations after tried to turn it around, but eighteen

instead of raised up. The company did a fire in 1905, and by 1910 they were fo cus­ months later the fa ctory, once Lebanon's

not un·ive the Great Depression: fa ced ing exclusively on the manufacture of cab- large t employer, closed for good.

PhilijJ D. Kenn!'d)''s booil Hoosier Cabinets i; at�ailable ji"Om Ph)'llis Km nrrly lfrmlware, lnr., a frnnily-owned wholesale busines; jnoviding mtomlion hardware and

mpplit' S jm· 1/oosier wbinets and oilzPr antique fu rniture. To ordrt; send 14. 95 (Indiana midmt; add 6 percml sales lax) jJ ius '-1.50sh ijJjJing and handling to 10655

Andrade Jh, Zionsville, !:\' 46077. \'i1a and Mastt•rCard order> can be placed b)' calling ( 31 i) 873-1316 or slwppwg online al ri!W!o. lm wed)'iwrdware.rom.

TRA [ Spr ,- 11 9 200 1 31 T II I· J/ 0 () .\ If. R 1\" I 1· r II f \' C I B I S f_ I

of sixty to seventy people. The average production fo r put in othercabinets or over the old-fashioned flour barrel, both the firm stood at seven hundred cabinets a day. with their unclean residue of moldy flour. " In addition to the According to Kennedy, the roots of the Hoosier Kitchen flour bin, the cabinet had a sugar bin designed to hold the Cabinet can be traced back to the baker's cabinets of the sweetener in a dust- and mouse-proof container. Other fe a­ late 1800s. As the baker's cabinet evolved, its lower section tures included tea and coffee canisters; a spice cabinet; a bread was replaced with a cabinet base "that had a door on one side and cake box; a want list attached to the front of the flour bin, fo r storing cooking utensils and drawers on the other side. arranged alphabetically and printed on heavy cardboard; and The upper section was divided into storage areas with wood a recipe cabinet holding a hundred recipe cards. or glass doors ....Later refinements included built-in Dour ne of the cabinet's best fe atures was its sifters, ugar containers, and spice jars," wrote Kennedy. aluminum tops. The work surface could be The Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet took the place of both the pulled out of the cabinet more than eleven pantry and the kitchen table. The cupboards, bins, and inches and then slid back in place when drawer held everything the pantry did. It was said to be not in use. Wh ile aluminum was more costly than zinc, which was being used on some cupboards and tables at this time, the Hoosier Manufacturi ng Company pointed out that some fo ods corroded zinc, fo rming an acid "that is dangerous even in small quantities." Sliding shelves al o made the cabinet easier to use. "Anyone who has ever used an ordinary kitchen cabinet knows how difficult and annoying it is to try to get articles out of the back part of the lower cupboard," the com­ pany noted in its advertisements. "The Hoosier Sliding Shelves overcome this trouble entirely." All of these time-saving fe atures came housed in a solid­ oak cabinet. The firm made the cabinets with adjustable leg mouse- and dust-proof, and casters AsovE: James S. and lengths, noting that not all women were the same height allowed it to be easily moved for Emmett McQuinn, father­ so why should all cabinets be the same height? cleaning. The cabinet took up no and-son founders of the Advertisements showed women seated comfortably on high more space than the kitchen table, Hoosier Manufacturing tools rather than standing at the work space. and because everything in the cab- Company. OPPOSITE: This Through the years the company made changes to the fe a­ inet had its proper place, one need Christmas advertisement tures it offered. For example, it introduced glass spice jars in not look fo r utensils when it came appeared in the 1919 and added electric lights to some models after 1930. time to prepare a meal. December 1919 Ladies ' Some cabinets also fe atured enamel instead of aluminum The company pointed out that by Home Journal. While the tabletops, and later models were made of materials other combining the fu nctions of the ad locates the Hoosier than solid oak. Through the fo ur decades the firm was in pantry and the table, it saved women Manufacturing business, however, the basic concept of the cabinet remained steps. Homemakers no longer had to Company's main office the same. Everything had its place, and it was all convenient make trips to the pantry or the base- on Jackson Street in New to the woman who was sitting at the cabinet preparing a meal. ment to retrieve nonperishable items, Castle, the address was While the Hoosier Manufacturing Company was the nor did they have to climb up and fictional. The company largest of the midwestern fu rniture companies making down ladders to retrieve things stored used a variety of fake this type of cabinet, the term "Hoosier" today is often used on shelves along the wall. To under- addresses in its generically to refer to any type of cabinet that has storage stand how helpful the cabinet was, promotional materials to in the top, a pull-o ut work surface, a fl our sifter, and a one needs only to glance at a list of help track the success of place fo r pots, pans, and utensils in the base. Many of the the standard fe atures. A cabinet its ad placements and fi rms making this style of cabinet were also located in offered fo r sale by the Hoosier better shape its Indiana, which also leads to the generic use of the word Manufacturing Company in 1908 marketing efforts. "Hoosier" in describing these cabinets. included a fifty-potmd flour bin said to be self-cleaning and with With jhillionsof Hoosier cabinets in American homes and a sifter on the end. 'With this bin there is no stooping, no dig­ even fo reign countries prior to 1942, the question arises: ging up a scoop full as with the ordinary bin," the company pro­ exactly what made the Hoosi r so special? Why was the claimed. "Think what an improvement this is over the bins Hoosier Manufacturing Company able to sell more cabinets

32 TRACES Spri"g 2oo< Tht LaditJ' llomt Journal

"My best ChristiTlas gift- ITlore leisure all year"

VERY home should have its Hoosier, housewife sits at her work instead of walking E for every housewife deserves the many to and fro. Thus she saves miles of steps. benefits it brings. And there's no more fit­ Because utensils and supplies are cen­ ting time to get it than at the Christmas tralized in the Hoosier, much work is saved. season. By preventing waste in measuring and The gift of a labor-saving Hoosier ex­ mixing, foods are saved. presses the intimate thoughtfulness every Hoosiers are sold almost everywhere. If home-maker appreciates. It makes her your kitchen still lacks this greatest con­ work easier and more enjoyable all year. It venience when Christmas has passed, be makes her workshop more attractive and sure to visit the home of the Hoosier in your adds to the pride of home. town and see an actual demonstration. If Surrounded by many patented conve­ you don't know this merchant's name, niences found only in the Hoosier, the please write us.

The Hoosier Manufacturing Company, Main Office, 1219 Jackson Street, New Castle, Ind.

BRANCHES fH£ HOOSIER STORE. M�uanine floor. P

for a copy and learn how work can be suv�?:d.

This Advertisemen/ 7.-ill appear in the Derember Iss ue ..------� �

TRACES Sprrng 200 1 33 IIOOSJt;R CABINETS

ToP: Employees of the Hoosier

' .. s Manufacturing Company outside the .. . . shop. MIDDLE: The company's plant on -�:� ...... South Fourteenth Street in New .-----,·"''"� Drtun

Castle. RIGHT: Diagrams from a 1914 !---'-----.L.___I'' ' ' ' . ----L-� brochure showing the steps needed .::e·:: A to prepare a meal before owning a .(8'./A Hoosier cabinet and after.

fl,,., J'ltHI (of .l p11/(('ru.(1 /.1/lt''l"'t'll/ J..:rtr-1.1',._ prtiJ>Hf¥ ltrfl'"l/(d 011d l'qiHPJI"l. ,\ ,lion urron11 ..J lf<'/11 and t''"" b"IA .,, l'''llll fllll/ nnd r:ltor· IIIII IIVIIN !I 1111'!1/ U, /'rqour"I!J, /1, ( /;IJfllll/ olri'U•. I /I f // (}()\//u KIT! /I I ' C-tIf / \I I than its competitors? Simply put, the firm under tood the fe atured an image ofjames Whitcomb Riley in an effort, it power of advertising and marketing. Emmett McQuinn said seems, to show tllat using tl1e Hoo ier would b.-ing poetry into the company was the first fu rniture manufacturer to adver­ the house. "Most women aspire to domestic attainments and tise in national magazines. The firm's advertising budget eas­ are only happy when achieving excellence," the firm wrote. ily ran 200,000 to · 250,000 some years, with a two-page color "Their best thoughts are in pleasing. By simplifYing her ad appearing in the Saturday Evening Post setting the com­ duties you curtail them correspondingly, leavi ng more hour pany back 25,000. In addition to the Post, the company also fo r such recreation a music and flowers." Who could say ran fu ll-page ads in the Ladies ' Homejourna4 Cood Housel!eeping, no to something like that? Evidently, fe w people did. and other national magazines. The firm's advertising pushed In 191 1 the Hoosier Manufacturing Company estimated the time-saving devices offered by the Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet that one million women in the United States were using and provided women with countle examples of exactly how kitchen cabinets and that fo ur hundred thousand of iliose much time tl1e cabinet could save them. cabinets were Hoosier Ki tchen Cabinets. A 1936 company

bile touting tl1e cabinet's time-saving advan­ booklet asserted that three million meals a day were pre­

tage , tl1e ads also played to the scientific pared on Hoosier cabinets. A times changed, however,

aspects of tl1e "Hoosier System," with the so did the kitchen. In the 1930s built-in kitchen cabinets

company clainling in a 1908 booklet: 'The became more popular, and demand fo r the mighty Hoosier

Hoo ier Kitchen Cabinet is practically a began to wane. In the 1930s and early 1940s the fi rm kitchen filing cabinet. Every article needed in tl1e preparation turned to making built-in cabi nets and other kitchen items of a meal is filed---or stored away-according to tl1e frequency such as tables, chairs, and stepstools, but it fi nally closed of its u e---or in oilier words, the articles mat are used tl1e most in 1942 and new owners liquidated the plant. are put in the most convenient places to reach. All articles are Hoosier Kitchen Cabinets can still be fo und in homes also classified to a certain extent. For instance, flour, sugar, spices, acros the nation. Those who enjoy the country look find tea and coiTee, all spoons and little articles, package fo od , etc., tllem to be useful storage places and workstations. When tl1ey tllat are used several times in preparing a meal are grouped come up fo r auction they can easily top $1,000, and those tight around tile table space, so tllat each article needed can be in oak with all of the accessories in place have gone fo r reached without bending or taking a single step." more than $2,000. Later examples, or those lacking some

The ads fo r the cabinets did more than jusl use words of the accessories such as flour sifters or spice racks, can to paim a picture. They also gave examples, complete with till be fo und in more affordable price ranges. Even origi­ illustrations, showing common kitchen traffic pattern and nal Hoosier hardware, flour sifters, and the glass spice jars how the Hoosier Kitch n Cabinet saved trips to the pantry, sell quickly. Those looking fo r authenticity, however, should shelves, and so on. A 1927 advertising pamphlet showed a note that new Hoosier nameplates are available and that woman seated at the cabinet baking a cake. The only steps some people have been known to put these new nameplates she needed to take were to the refrigerator to get butter, on old cabinets that are not genuine Hoosier . milk, and egg , and then when done to take the finished For those wishing to learn more about the Hoosier cake to the ove n. "Everything else you need-pans, bowl, Ki tchen Cabinet, the Henry County Historical Society has spoons, cup, sugar, flour, baking powder, spices and a wealth of information. The Society's museum, located

Oavoring-i right at hand within easy reach," noted the at 606 outh Fourteenth Street in ew Castle, has two

Hoosier Manufacturing Company. "By actual test, domes­ Hoosier cabinets and many other related artifacts on dis­ tic science authorities have fo und that the time pent play. The museum is open from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in making a cake at your Hoosier is 40 percent less than Monday through aturday. In july the Society will host a it takes to make it without a Hoosier." celebration of the Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet in cw Ca tic,

While mo L of the fi rm' advertising was geared toward with exhibitions at the Henry County Art Association women, the company understood that men were usually throughout the momh and a home tour and antique show bringing home the paycheck and making many of the pur­ tentatively planned fo r July 24-25. For more info rmation, chasing deci ions. The advertising department took tl1is into call the Society at (765 ) 529-4028, e-mail [email protected], account in what it called the "Bread and Butter Battle." The or visit www.kiva.net/-hchisoc/mu eum.htm. firm claimed in one pamphlet that "if the bread earneri alert Connie Swaim is the managing editor of AntiqueWe ek news­ and happy, the bread maker must not be dreading her part, pajJel: She lives in New Castle, just a Jew blochs from the site of the fe eling that her lot is one of drudgery." This same pamphlet fo rmer Hoosier ManufartwingCompany.

FOR FLIR'J IIf R READ!'/(. Indiana Ca binets: 1\'ith Prices. Gas Cit\, Ind.: L-\\' Book Sales, 1997. I Ke nnedy, Philip D. 1/oosier Cabinets. Indianapolis: P. D. Kennedy, 1989.

TRACES Spr111 9 >OO·J 35 • ortun1 the

IN THE JVIINU7ES OF THE INDIA NA COTTON MiLLS

STOCKHOLDA'RS ' MEETING OF SEP TEMBER 25, 1860,

appears a commendation of the mill's workers: "Resolved

• that Mr E. Wi lber, Supt., be requested to convey to the Employees of the In diana

Cotton Mills our 1 an a gratification to find that Cleanliness, order & Sy stem

is held in high Esteem by them. " In

addition, as a more tangible reward

fo r the employees ' diligence,

on Superintendent Wi lber was

"requested to appropriate one

hundred dollars ... to Aid the Employees of this Mill to

Celebrate, in an appropriate manner the Ensuing fo urth s of Ju ly . " The cotton mill had operated at Cannelton, Indiana, fo r a decade and was in solid financial

condition. It had not been an easy process, however, to

start this enterp rise on the industrialfr ontier. Leigh Darbee

36 TRACES Spriug 2oo• OJ•I•ontt .\lrl o.\ 1111 Fno\lltu

ccording to the Cincinnati Price Current of April The two factory systems differed, however, in the 10, 1850 (about eight months before the mill makeup of the workforce each employed. Under the A opened), there were twenty cotton mills at that Waltham System, young women were recruited from time in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and the surrounding countryside, which could be done one in Indiana: that of]. Woods at Brookville, which without seriously disrupting the family-farm economy. had 1,200 spindles and employed thirty hands. The textile work for which these young women had Hamilton Smith, the founder of what was originally been responsible at home had mostly been absorbed by known as the Cannelton Cotton Mill, was thus not the factories, reducing the traditional importance of breaking entirely new ground west of the Alleghenies, girls in tl1e family economy. The girls who took these new but he clearly intended to produce cotton textiles on mill jobs lived in boarding houses and were subject to strict supervision, with the company serving in loco parentis. The Lowell mills in Massachusetts were the most famous example of the Waltham System. The policy under the Rhode Island System was to recruit entire families, since the system depended pri­ marily on the labor of women and children. Some men worked in the most physically demanding jobs in the textile mills, but most found work of other kinds in the towns that grew up around the mills. Women and children performed the less- skilled and less-demanding jobs in the mills. Under this system the proprietors had lit- tle interest in regulating tl1e _ftt, a new scale. He planned to have A map of Cannelton lives of their employees out­ CAN 10,800 spindles and 372 looms (right) and a drawing of side of working hours. in operation. Smith hoped that the mill from Hamilton The mill at Cannelton was P...ERR his manufactory would "be to Smith's 1850 pamphlet established about forty years 3urueyed a ., titled Cannelton ... Its the Mississippi Valley what after many of the New CHAS. A., Lowell [Massachusetts] has been Natural Advantages as a England mills had opened. llS.� to New England." In fact, pro- Site for Manufacturing. The proprietors drew heavily moters quickly dubbed Cannelton the "Lowell of the upon patterns that had West." In the development of its labor force, as in been set by the eastern mills other ways, however, Cannelton was a product of its in attracting workers. They time and place, rather than a replication of an east­ hoped to attract both single ern enterprise. Although the company was ultimately workers and families and were profitable, this was achieved on terms very different willing to offer substantial from those envisioned by its founders. inducements to reach their The origins of the Cannelton factory can be found goal. The challenge was to in the eastern mills. The Indiana mill blended the two make contact with eastern most common systems of factory organization in early workers and attract them west. nineteenth-century New England, the Waltham System Emigrants' guides were a and the Rhode Island System. The main characteris­ common form of propaganda tics shared by these eastern systems were large capital­ by the middle of the nine­ ization and centralization of production, from raw teenth century. They were material to finished cloth, under one roof. This cen­ published as part of a loosely tralization required workers to adjust to new work organized campaign to rhythms. As historian Thomas Cochran observed, "Men, attract settlers to sparsely pop­ women, and children coming from farm life to large, ulated western lands. Until impersonal factories with several hundred workers had midcentury a majority of to learn to report for work on time and regularly." these pamphlets and books

38 TRACES Spr�ng >oo< 011/'(}Jll/ \/f! (}.\ ,,,. FR0.\1 /IU

was aimed at farmers, and the West was pictured as which claimed that the community would become the proverbial land of milk and honey, where rops "the great manufacturing city of the world." practically grew themselves. In the 1830s and 1840s, Largely as a result of Smith's lobbying from afar, the however, new publications began extolling the man­ Indiana legislature in 1848 chartered eight manufac­ ufacturing potential of the region. Several were writ­ tori -five cotton mills, a glass company, a paper mill, ten by Hamilton Smith, an ea terner who had himself and a foundry-to be built in the Cannelton area. Smith been lured west, first to practice law in Loui ville and joined forces with other easterners to make his vision then to pursue what he saw as the potential for factory a reality. His partner included General Charles T.James development in the Mississippi valley as a whole, and of Rhode Island, who had been involved in the con­ in the Cannelton region in particular. struction of many cotton mills in New England; Salmon While Smith's interest was certainly financial, he P. Chase, .S. senator from Ohio, later to become chief also had dreams of founding a model indu trial com­ justice of the .S. Supreme Court; and Judge Elisha M. munity on the frontier. He began a virtual bom­ Huntington, then of Cannelton, U.S. district judge for bardment of chauvinistic writings that appeared not Indiana. The partnersestablished the Cannelton Cotton only in various American newspapers-especially the Mill Company, and GovernorJames Whitcomb signed Louisvillej ournal-but also in DeBow's Review and the the act incorporating it on February 15, 1848. Economist, both publi bed in London. In addition, he The cornerstone for the mill was laid on May 29, published a pamphlet in 1850 titled CanneLton ... Its 1849. The plans for the tructure were as ambitious Natural Advantages as a Site .for Manufacturing, as Smith's plans for the business to be carried on

9f LTON

TRACES Spr11og >oo< 39

OPPOU il\'IT) (}\ 1111 FR0\'/1/.U

The new mill rising on the banks of the Ohio River must have been quite a sight fo r passing trafficon the waterway. A New Albany newspaper praised its sy mbolic importance, calling it "an edifice which is an honor to Indiana. "

within it. The building was five stories high, 280 fe et to promote the safety and comfort A turn-of-the-twentieth- long and 60 fe et wide, with twin towers approximately of workers. The large windows let century view of the 100 fe et tall. It was built of sandstone, with stone gut­ in light and air. One tower con- Indiana Cotton Mills ters and a tin roof. The new mill rising on the banks tained stairways connecting to all offers a good view of the of the Ohio River must have been quite a sight fo r floors while the other housed water building's twin towers. passing traffic on the waterway. A New Albany news­ closets. A ventilation system was also built into this latter paper praised its symbolic importance, calling it "an tower; a draft was created down through the tower to the edifice which is an honor to Indiana." base of the chimney, and then up the chimney. This air There was more to the building, however, than just an current.C: arried away the floating cotton particles that impressive exterior. It also incorporated fe atures devised were an unavoidable byproduct of textile production. In

40 TRA ES Spri"g 2oo< OPI'OilI l' \ITt 0.\ I Iff FR O\ 1 II- U addition, lhe towers had five fire ho es fo r each floor. In Preferred."Jame used his contacts in ew England, built the event offire the hoses could be quickly connected to up over his long association with cotton mills iliere, to an engine and huge cisterns in back of the building. locate potential workers; he wrote to Smitl1 tl1at all "pos­ 'Thus," as Smith pointed out, "the ornamental parts oftl1e sible pains will be taken by me, to select none but good building have been made subservient to the useful." and respectable fa milies." Early in the life of the mill, Because of the idealized vision of the fo unders of the however, the proprietors fo und it necessary to recruit Cannelton mill-represented in concrete fo rm by the local workers to supplement the New Englanders. In 1852 mill building-it is not surprising that they had defi­ tl1ey p1inted a broadside in German to attract fa mily labor nite ideas about the kind of workers from lhe dominan t ethnic group in souiliern Indiana. they wished to em ploy. From the ecause workers from New England would be beginning they intended to import coming to the frontier from well- ettled areas, the majority of their employees from B the mill company made an extra effort to offer New England. They evidently fe lt cer­ tl1em as many enticements as possible. The most tain that, while some workers could basic of these was a high wage. The mill advertised probably be attracted from the widely that it would match or exceed wage paid at Cannelton area, the numbers would Lowell. According to Smith's estimates, those wages not be nearly great enough to fi ll were "80 cents per day fo r men & $2.00 per week fo r their needs. In addition, by bringing women on the average & ex lusive of board." Wages in eastern workers they would reap evidently did not rise substantially over the first few the collateral benefi t of beginning years, or else they varied, becau e a circular printed in operation not only with a ready-made 1857 to attract German workers lists the average weekly workforce, but also an experienced wages as "men, $6; women, $4.50; and children, $2.25." one, fa miliar with the machinery and There was a hierarchy ofjob s in the mill, subdivided conditioned to the rhythms and by both gender and ability. This was common to virtu­ demands of textile work. ally all textile mills in the early and mid-nineteenth The proprietors were also concerned ce11Lury. Women were generally paid less lhan men, but wi d1 the moral character of the workers some women could make more than others if lhey were to be recruited. In a letter from his able to operate more machines. The lowest-paid work­ home in Providence, Rhode Island, ers were concentrated in the spinning and weaving James outlined to Smith his view of an rooms, while other jobs that paid better were open to acceptable labor fo rce. James wrote: men only, so advancement was subject to trictures.

"My mind was made up to send out fam­ The intent wa fo r a majority of the operatives to be ilies of various descriptions; some of hou ed in tenements and boarding houses built and which would be Scotch, some English, owned by the company. These buildings were planned and some, though verv few, Irish; but to as part of the mill complex, to be arranged in an send none what ever, which should not esplanade on the river side of the mill and offering an come highly recommended, with the attractive vista to passing boats. Unlike the mill owners very best of references. All the impor­ in Lowell, however, those in Cannelton never intended tant departments will be filled with to regulate their workers' lives outside of mill hours. native New Englanders." Since they were attempting to attract a mixture of The ways in which ilie company actu­ employees different from those in the fa mous eastern ally went about attracting workers in New England must mill, and since they were trying to build an entire town be inferred from the scanty written evidence. One of rather than just a mill complex, they wanted families as Smiili's crapbooks includes an article from the Portsmouth well a single workers. From tl1e beginning iliey planned journal, dating from 1850 and pre umably written by fo r rental houses that would accommodate up to four Smith, encouraging ew Englanders to move to fa milie . They were also willing to sell lots on which Cannelton. In 1852 the company distributed a broadside individual familie might build. The company offered evidently directed at experienced workers, fo r it began: the e on what it con idered generous terms and also "Notice to cotton mill operatives. Permanent employ­ helped workers arrange to have houses built. ment will be given to 40 or 50 Operatives at the highest A furlher inducement, insisted upon by James, was reim­ Prices paid by tl1e Lowell Cotton Mill . Family Help is bur ement of u-aveling expense fo r workers moving from

TRACES pr�>•9 >OO< 41 OPr•nnJI.\'f/1 0\ 11/J. F'ROYTIIR

New England. "As to what you say about lhe cost of send­ by boat via Cincinnati, early in the morning on ing out help," he wrote to Smith, ''I can see no way of doing December 5, 1850. It was a less than auspicious arrival, so, if sent in proper force, wilhout paying the expenses. however, a the Cannelton Economist reported: "It was True, we can get some to go at their own expense; but not dark and raining at the time, and of course remarkable a fourth part of what we require to set up the mill. That [sic] muddy." To make matters worse, the boarding and being the case, we must pay some-If we pay some we rental houses had not been completed, so there was a must pay all---or, at least, we must serve all alike .... The scramble for the first several months to find accom­ true question is, which will be most expensive in the end; modations for all the new arrivals. to have our help go out in sufficient force to start up the The same newspaper account reported that 138 of mill at once, and have it to move properly, or to be a long the e new arrivals, primarily girls, were destined for work time in getting the help out, and then starting slowly?" as operatives in lhe mill. This number seems to be some­ The Cannelton Cotton Mill owners emulated those thing of an exaggeration, for a newspaper story early in in the East by investing money in various ways to help 1851 stated that "from seventy to a hundred hands daily" build up the town as well as the mill itself. They not were employed, and there is evidence that there were only offered both housing for rent and lots for sale, but already some operatives in town before the boatload of also encouraged business by offering lots for commer­ new workers arrived. Nevertheless, it is clear that the cial use. Besides the fire-extinguishing system at the workforce grew quickly once the mill began operating mill, they also had a firehouse built for the town and late in December, for in February 1851 the Economist purchased a fire engine for it. reported that nearly "two hundred hands are now con­ aturally, the company expected certain things stantly employed. Over one hundred and fifty looms of the workers in exchange for the advantages and about seven thousand spindles [of 372 and 10,800 and amenities it offered them. The workers' planned, respectively] are in successful operation." N . comntitments to the company, J ames hoped, It took several months for the finances of the mill would begin before they ever left New England, for he to be put on a stable footing, which caused some planned to "have rules, regulations, &c. &c.to be signed restiveness among the operatives and must have here by all persons to be sent out." One of james's made many wonder whether they had made a wise etceteras was certainly the two-year contract that all the move. The mill owners were plagued by a lack of prospective Cannelton employees were required to sign. ready cash, and they had difficulty in deciding upon Such contracts were fairly standard practice in eastern a final wage scale and a method for reimbursing mills, but in Cannelton they had the added benefit, all workers for their travel expenses. According to com­ things being equal, of guaranteeing the company a pany records, some expressed sentiments that "if fairly stable workforce until it got on its feet financially. the Con>pany pay the Operatives full wages from Of course, if workers decided to break their contracts, the time they reached here, we should charge them the mill owners probably could do little about it. with rents for the whole time.... But Mr. Boyd The company also expected the workers, once in claims that Gen'Ljames told him otherwise." Cannelton and at the mill, to do their share in main­ Nevertheless, work did go forward at the mill. The taining the safety and efficiency of the factory. A broad­ payroll soon reached an average of$45,000 to $50,000 side, which was probably posted in each room of the per month, and output of cloth rose steadily. The fac­ mill, outlined what the company expected in terms tory produced a coarse cloth called Hoosier Sheeting. of punctuality, tidiness of the work areas, and obedi­ Seven thousand yards were woven during the first month ence to the rules laid down by the overseer of each of operation. The reports for 1854 show that the mill room. The rules even went so far as to specifY "that manufactured 3,720,343 yards of cloth that year, for an all persons in the employ of the Company who have average of about 310,000 yards per month. The rate of not had the Kine Pox [cowpox], should be vaccinated, increase evidently slowed during the latter half of the which will be done at the expense of the Company for first decade, but production did continue to rise; the all who wish it." The workers were also expected to total yardage woven in 1859 was 4,133,053. put in a twelve-hour day, with forty-five minutes for Flaws in Smith's vision for Cannelton, however, breakfast and lunch; this was fairly standard for the had begun to appear even before the inauspicious textile industry as a whole at the time. arrival of the first large group of workers on that Two hundred and fifty workers who had made agree­ rainy day in 1850. Financial problems quickly led the ments with the company arrived from New England, mill owners to abandon the idea of stone boarding

42 TRACES Sp,ng 200' OP/'ON IC \1/"J (} \ /Ill I· R0.\111 /l There was a hierarchy of jobs in the mill, subdivided by both gender and ability. This was common to virtually all textile mills in the early and mid-nineteenth century. Wo men were generally paid less than men, but some women could make more than others if they were able to operate more machines. hou e lining an esplanade in front of the mill. The believed, has a decided tendency to neutralize malaria." houses were built in tead of wood, on lots behind De pite Smith's assurance , hot weather did cause the fa ctory. Smith was quick to deny that plans slowdowns o[ work, and many operatives became ill had been changed and claimed that th wooden in the summer months. There were inevitable prob­ buildings were merely a temporary expedient. In lems with the machinery, at fi r t because of lime fa ct, the stone boarding houses were never built, and deposits in the boilers and then on a regular basis housing shortages were to be a chronic problem in because of parts breaking. Shortages of upplies, Cannelton fo r at least the next five years. including cotton, caused numerous work stoppages. The company' records indicate various problems By fa r the mo t serious problems of the mill's first within the mill as well. Some were common to facto­ decade, however, came to a head very early in the life ries in general, uch as complaints by the manage- of the company. In sum, the plans of the company

ment of employees taking too much work time to were too ambitious for the Workers stand next to their celebrate occasions such as the Fourth ofjuly (ironi­ amount of capital it had avail- equipment in the mill's cally, the same holiday the workers earnedas a reward able. The directors also had machine shop in 1908. in 1860) . There were also a number of problems the not taken into account the slowdowns that would owners had not foreseen, some related to Cannelton's occur from unreliable supply sources, worker sick­ climate. In his pamphlet on the town, Smith had ness, labor shortage , and so on. The result was that claimed that coal districts were "proverbially healthy" in 1851 the directors leased the mill to H. D. and tated that the "free use of bituminous coal, as is Newcomb and Brother of Louisville. That fi rm was

TRACES pr1119 2oo; 43 .. Qpp()fttC\If) OS THf FHO\'T/1-.R supplying the mill's cotton at that time, and Horatio was to make Cannelton into one of the premiere cities D. Newcomb himself was serving as treasurer of the in the country never occurred. Investors were not mill. Newcomb and Brother leased the Cannelton attracted in sufficient numbers, despite Smith's pro­ Cotton Mill for a second year then bought it out­ paganda. Even today Cannelton is still a small town fac­ right in 1853. At this point the much smaller Indiana ing many challenges related to economic development. Cotton Mill in Cannelton was merged with the As a result, the mill building, which was once one of Cannelton Cotton Mill, and the whole operation the wonders oflndiana, stood empty and decaying fo r became known as the Indiana Cotton Mills. many years. It has recently undergone rehabilitation The lease of the mill to ewcomb and Brother cre­ and reuse as housing fo r senior citizens. ated the occasion for the only real strike it experienced In addition, even though the Cannelton mill on during its first decade. The Newcomb firm lowered the whole did not have problems attracting workers the wages of the operatives as a cost-cutting measure, in the very early years, the labor fo rce never really fit reasoning that the wages paid up to that time had actu­ the vision laid out by James. Though it originally ally been higher than eastern ratesand that they should consisted of a core of New England operatives, it be brought more in line with what other textile work­ was quickly diluted, and by 1860 the makeup of the ers were earning.The workers balked at the reduction workforce was consistent with what was to be fo und in wages and struck fo r three days. The Cannelton elsewhere in the textile industry. Economist, which was essentially an organ of manage­ The New England mills, long before the Cannelton ment, termed the incident a "tempest in a tea-pot." mill was fo unded, had already done the job of cre­ The operatives, however, had good reason fo r concern, ating a factory class. Caroline Ware has said in her since the eastern wages to which theirs were being classic study of the New England textile industry that adjusted were considerably lower than the "Lowell "American mill fa milies had no roots, or at most very rates" advertised when the Cannelton Cotton Mill was short ones, and their assembling in new [manufac­ first trying to attract workers. turing] centers was not the radical change that it he takeover by the Newcomb firm did not end was to the immobile European peasant." Americans the company's financial problems immediately. have always had the reputation of being on the move. T In addition, occasional labor problems continued The stream ofworkers to Cannelton, therefore, was to flare up. The dressing room, which was staffe d part of a larger westward migration of the population by men, seemed to be a particularly fe rtile spot. In mid- in general, seeking land, jobs, and wealth. The mill 1854 Dwight Newcomb wrote to the family firm in owners at Cannelton appreciated the advantages Louisville that there was "trouble with our Dressing they gained from this situation. Room. Eight of our Dresser tend[e]rs struck fo r an The Newcomb firm made the mill a success because advance." On that occasion the workers returned the it realized what Smith had not. The original propri­ next day at their current wages, but a confrontation etors persisted in thinking that the workers would see reemerged in the same room a few years later. The Cannelton as they themselves did-as something Newcomb firm wrote to Superintendent Wilbur, advis­ extraordinary among cotton mills. To the workers, how­ ing that he get replacement hands from Cincinnati or ever, it was simply a new mill that was advertising Pittsburgh, or better yet train girls-cheaper labor, and better wages than those they were already making. When presumed more docile-for the job. By the end of the the ewcomb firm took over, the new managers were decade, however, the efforts of the Newcomb firmwere evidently able to accept the workers' way of thinking paying off. One estimate shows the value of the mill qua­ and do what they had to in order to snag employees drupling between 1853 and 1858, and by 1860 gross from that massive westward flow of people. They offered OPPOSITE: A stock income had reached about $200,000. competitive wages and steady work, rather than visions certificate for the Cannelton was a failure, at least in of a Lowell that would never exist again.

Indiana Cotton Mills terms of its founders' original ideas. Leigh Darbee is executive assistant at the Indiana Rail in Cannelton. The influxof diversified industry that Road Company and a contributing editorfo r Traces.

FOR FURTIIER READING Ashendel, Anita. "Fab1·icating Independence: lndustdal Labor in Antebellum Indiana." Michiga n Historiml Rroiew 23 (Fall l997): l-24.

I Indiana Colton Mills Records (Ml56). William Henry Smith Memorial Library, Indiana Historical Society, Indianapolis. I Torrey, Kale Douglas. 'Visions of a

Western Lowell: Cannelton, Indiana, 1847-1851 ." Indiana Magazine of History 73 (December 1977) : 276-304. I Win penny, Thomas R. "Perils in Tr,msferring

Te chnology to the Frontier: A Case Study."journal of the Early Republic 5 (Winter 1985 ): 503-2 1.

TRACES Spro11g 20o < 45 DEST I NATION I DIANA

AURORA' S VERAESTAU

Ray E. Boomhower

igh on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River near the present-day community of Aurora, Indiana, a Kentucky lawyer and author, Jesse Lynch Holman, built in 1810 a two-story log house with a brick addition fo r his family. Bringing his wife and child to Through an arrangement with Ve raestau served as the their new home during the dead of winter the next the O'Brien Foundation, the home for generations of year, Holman, according to tradition, had to walk Historic Landmarks Foundation two notable Indiana two miles to the Eagle Hotel, located at the mouth of of Indiana opens the home families-the Hogan Creek, to obtain a shovelful of hot coals in fo r tours by appointment, over- Holman/Hamilton clan order to start a fire at his home to warm his shiver­ sees its use fo r special events, and the O'Brien/Gibson ing fa mily. Those early frigid days in his new dwelling and offe rs it as a resource fo r family. may have influenced Holman's choice of a name for preservation services to residents of Dearborn, the property: Veraestau, which combines the Latin Ohio, Ripley, and Switzerland Counties. words for spring ( ver) , summer ( aestas) , and fall Veraestau's original owner Holman was born on (autumnus) . Winter is notably absent. October 24, 1784, near Danville, Kentucky. He was one For nearly 125 years the property remained in the of fo urteen children born to a father who died in 1789 Holman family and grew, after an 1837 fireand a 1913 while attempting to rescue his family from an attack by addition, into a fine Greek Revival structure. Sold to ative Americans. Mter receiving a common-school Lawrenceburg businessman and historic-preservation education, Holman taught fo r a time before leaving the advocate Cornelius O'Brien in 1933 as a country field of education to study law, supposedly in the retreat fo r his family, Ve raestau, listed on the National Lexington, Kentucky, officeof d1e great lawyer and politi­ Register of Historic Places, is today owned by the cian :{1enryCla y. Admitted to the bar in 1805, Holman Cornelius and Anna Cook O'Brien Foundation. practiced his trade in such Kentucky communities as

46 TRACES Spri11g 2001 New Castle, Port William (Carrollton today), and Frankfort. It wa in Port William that he met his wife, Elizabeth Masterson, the daughter of a prominent local judge. The couple married in 1810. The same year of his marriage, Holman published In 1835 President Andrew Jackson appointed a novel titled The Prisoner of Niagara, or, Errors of Holman as judge of the U.S. District CoLII·tfo r Indiana, Education, which detailed the adventures of a Virginia which was located in Indianapolis. Holman remained youth during the Revolutionary War. Later in life in this post until his death at Ve raestau on March Holman had econd thoughts about his book, believ­ 28, 1842. Five years before ing it might play a role in harming the morals of young Holman's death a fire had people. H even attempted to buy the entire edition of gutted the old log home. his work, and legend states he burned all but two copies. Allen Hamilton, the In 1811 Holman, his wife, and Lhe couple's infant son judge's son-in-law, bought moved to the Indiana Territory, settling in the present­ the home in 1838, sal­ day community of Aurora, where, on the summit of a vaged its brick addition, hill overlooking the Ohio River, he had built the two­ and built a one-story story log home with the brick addition. Greek revival structu re. In Holman quickly became a man of importance in 1913 Hamilton' daughter, Dearborn County, receiving an appointment in May Margaret Vance Hamilton, 1811 fr om Governor William Henry Harrison to erve add d a two-story Greek Revival edi- After Jessie Lynch as the county's prosecuting attorneyand al o serving in fice tl1at included fo ur bedrooms, two Holman's death in the territorial legi lature. Upon Indiana's admission to sleeping porches, a dining room, a 1842, one of the the Union in 1816, Holman became one of the first bathroom, a kitchen, and a breakfast judge's admirers three Supreme Court justices fo r the nineteenth state, room. Ve raestau remained in the wrote that Holman appointed to the po t by GovernorJonathanJennings. Holman/Hamilton family until l933, "passed through life Holman, who served in the Supreme Court until 1830, when O'Brien bought the property without an enemy won acclaim from fe llow attorneys as a thoughtful and as a home fo r his wife, Anna ook, and without ever meticulous judge. "Hi decisions," aid his ftiend Horace and daughters, Mary and Anna Belle. shirking a duty. " Basset, "will compare with the most eminent jurists of Three years after he bought Ve rae tau, O'Brien hired the country; showing the full exercise of a clear and architectJohn Henri Deekcn of Cincinnati to design a decerning [sic] mind, and that sternin tegrity which three-room brick addition to the house, which was constitutes one of the highest ofJu dicial ornaments." attached to Lhe1913 wing. O'Brien also worked to revi­ When GovernorJames Brown Ray refused to reap­ talize the property's grounds, re toring woodlands, plant­ point him to the state's highest court, Holman tried ing orchards, and clearing grazing pastures for his but fa iled to win election as a U.S. senator. He accepted Percheron horses and Hereford cattle. After O'Brien's his political defeat stoically, writing afterward that "a death in 1953, his daughter Mary O'Brien Gib on and man acts \>visely in knowing the proper time when he her fa mily continued to use and preserve Ve raestau, should cease to struggle fo r public office." The fo rmer successfully nominating the home to the ational judge turnedin stead to other activities, serving on the Register of Historic Places in 1973. In 1997 Gibson committee to write a constitution fo r the fl edgling reached an agreement \>'lith the HLFI, the nation's largest Indiana Historical Society, receiving ordination a a statewide preservation group, to open the home fo r Baptist minister, and helping to fo und two institutions public tours by appointment and to host special events of higher learning, Franklin College and Indiana and offe r preservation ervices fo r the area. College (Indiana University today) . Holman also spent Located at 4696 Ve raestau Lane in Auroa, Ve raestau more time with his fa mily at Ve raestau, writing a friend is open fo r tours by appointment only from 10 a.m. that he fe lt "far better on my fa rm & at my fi reside than to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday from April in canvassing fo r office." Aurora also benefited from through December. The one-hour tour includes most his departure from the political wars, as Holman cam­ of the hou e and grounds (only the (i rst floor is acces­ paigned fo r the establishment of a library and public sible to people with disabilities). Donations are schools in the com munity, becoming uperinten­ requested. For more information call (812) 926-0983 den t of the D arborn County schools. or e-mail [email protected].

TRA ES Spr,.,g >OO< 47 !�!AGES OF INDIANA

Until 1920 most people in Indiana lived in rural areas or small towns. A late as 1990 the population of both Stilesville (top, left) and Larwill (top, right) was under three hun­ dred. Selma's population stood at eight hundred. Images of these and other small towns in the Hoosier State are available in the Indiana Historical Society's Jay Small Postcard Collection. Researchers may view the images by visiting the Society's William Henry Smith Memorial Library or by logging on to the IRS's Web site (www.indianahistory.org) and choosing Digital Images Collection from the Quicklinks pull-down menu. Image submitted by Susan L. S. Sutton, IHS coordinator, visualref erence services .. New from the Indiana Historical Society Press HOOSIERS atWAR The triumphs and tragedies of that most intense of human endeavors­ combat-are captured in two new publications from the Indiana Historical Society Press, available in spring 2004.

A Soldier in World War 1: The Diary of Elmer W. Sherwood "One Shot": The World War II Photography of John A. Bushemi captures the words of Hoosier soldier Sherwood as he features the work of Gary photographer Bushemi, who wrote them on the front lines. Corporal Sherwood tells specialized in "photography from a rifle's length van­ of hard life in the trenches, including the endless mud tage point" for Ya nk magazine. Before his death in that sometimes trapped unwary soldiers fo r hours at a 1944, Bushemi participated in the invasions of such far­ time and the wretched food he had to eat. The book also flung Pacific Ocean locations as New Georgia, Makin, includes a shipboard diary Sherwood sent home from Tarawa, Kwajalein, and Eniwetok, winning fo r himself France shortly after his arrival, which appeared in his the distinction of being the "outstanding combat hometown newspaper, and his tale of his unauthorized photographer" for the magazine. trip to Paris at the war's end, prompted by a challenge from a pretty Red Cross canteen worker.

To order your copies, call the IHS History Market at (800) 447-1830. Online orders can be made at http:/ /shop.indi­ anahistory.org. A Soldier in Wo rld Wa r I costs $24.95 ($19.96 fo r IHS members) and "One Shot" costs $29.95 ($26.95 fo r IHS members). Indiana residents should include 6 percent sales tax with all orders.