Category Archives: History

Sneaker Fans: Step Right Up!

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What in the world is a Sneakerhead?

I hadn’t heard of the term until I stumbled upon this NPR story about a new exhibit that traces the history of sneakers. What a cool way to get your kicks!

Shoes of all shapes and sizes are on display at the Brooklyn Museum (future stops include Toledo, Ohio and Louisville):

The show begins with some of the first rubber shoes ever made. They were manufactured in Brazil and exported to America in the 1830s.

In the same case, there’s a crusty, brown, old canvas kick with a familiar shape. It’s a Converse All Star from 1917, the year that shoe was first produced. …

Every step here is shoe history. There’s a bizarre high-heeled sneaker from around 1925 and a TV ad for Keds from 1958.

One of the industry’s most famous designers, Chuck Taylor, hails from Columbus, Indiana. Special-edition Converse All Star Chuck Taylor sneakers featured an exclusive Columbus design last fall.

Share your memories on the fads that paved the way for today’s fashion. What were your favorites?

Northern Indiana Company Enlists Hoosier Painter to Illustrate Its History

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Justin Vining, a popular professional artist in Indianapolis (originally from Etna Green), created a remarkable mural depicting the history of Urschel Laboratories at the company’s new global headquarters in Chesterton. This time lapse video shows the painstaking process that goes into working on such a comprehensive piece of art.

Vining relocated to the area for three months in order to complete the mural.

Hoosiers Invited to Submit Photos for Bicentennial Book

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book coverThere are many exciting plans in place to celebrate our beloved state’s 200th birthday. Among them is an upcoming book from the Bicentennial Commission, Indiana at 200: A Celebration of the Hoosier State. You can even place your pre-order now, in fact. The publisher, M.T. Publishing Company in Evansville, says to expect the book to be ready around Statehood Day on Dec. 11 of this year.

The state has also issued a call for photos to include in the book. See more information from the release below (but do note the deadline is May 15).

Governor Mike Pence is inviting amateur and professional photographers across Indiana to submit their favorite images of the state for possible inclusion in a coffee table book commemorating Indiana’s 200 years of statehood. The deadline to submit photos is May 15, 2015.

“As Hoosiers, we all know Indiana is a special place,” Governor Pence said. “We see the unique qualities of her cities and towns, her farms and forests. Most of all, we see the distinctive virtues of her people. This effort presents a unique opportunity for Hoosiers to take part in our state’s storied history and share their favorite photos around our state.”

Photos must be taken in Indiana and should reflect one or more of these categories: natural environment and landscape; buildings and architecture; cities and towns; farms and fields; the Hoosier people; schools and libraries; transportation; business and commerce; medicine and health; religion and philanthropy; government; media and communication; arts, culture and entertainment; and sports.

Images must be uploaded in .jpg/.jpeg format with quality resolution (300 dpi).

Use of photos will not be compensated, but photographers will receive a photo credit in the book. Photos will be reviewed and selected based on content, quality and space availability.

For more guidelines and information – and to upload photos – go to: https://mtpublishing.com/index.php/default/indiana200photos.

“Indiana at 200: A Celebration of the Hoosier State” will contain approximately 240 pages and will be published by M.T. Publishing Company, Inc., which is under contract with the Indiana Bicentennial Commission. In addition to photos, each of the book’s 14 chapters contains essays and vignettes from Hoosiers around the state.

“This commemorative book is a signature project for the Bicentennial Commission and a legacy for the State of Indiana,” said Perry Hammock, the commission’s executive director. “Four of our commission members—James Madison, Judge Sarah Evans Barker, Tony George and Mickey Maurer—have worked diligently to bring this project into being. We are proud to work with Indiana authors and an Indiana publisher.”

Glas-Col (Terre Haute) Celebrates 75 Years of Innovation

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glshisTerre Haute-based Glas-Col, LLC will celebrate 75 years of manufacturing laboratory products and industrial heating and mixing technology with an open house on October 21 (4:30 – 7 p.m.). A release from the company elaborates:

Glas-Col’s commitment to offering excellence in design and manufacturing for the laboratory product field allows us to provide a high level of service to our customers. We are not satisfied with second class, second rate or second best.

The goal of our company is now and has always been to be a world leader in the laboratory products market and to recognize and develop technology to continually evolve into new and expanding areas.

Our progress through the years can be attributed to our leadership, our dedication to our customer’s and one of our most important and valuable assets, our people. Without their dedication and work ethic our success would have been immeasurably less.

History
The term “brilliant mistake” might apply to Glas-Col’s earliest beginnings. The company’s web site regales us with the tale of how its founder discovered its earliest offering:

Fires ordinarily destroy businesses. But in the case of Glas-Col, fire sparked an idea that built one new company and brought great benefits to countless others. In 1939 Glas-Col’s future founder, Dr. Glen H. Morey, was a research chemist at Commercial Solvents Corporation in Terre Haute, IN. There as in most chemical laboratories, open flame gas burners and electric glow coils were commonly used to heat oil, sand, molten metal, and water baths. A sudden fire burst out in the Commercial Solvents lab when a gas burner heating an oil bath ignited vapors from a shattered flask of acetone dropped several feet away. Dr. Morey was injured in that fire, and it convinced him lab workers needed a new method for heating flasks–one that would eliminate the hazard of open flame burners and electric heaters with exposed coils.

Working in their spare time, Dr. Morey and his wife Ruth developed a heating device with electric resistance wires woven into a fiberglass cloth sheath. The Moreys called their new invention a “heating mantle” because it could completely envelope a laboratory flask, just as the earth’s mantle completely encloses the planet’s core.

Dr. Morey tested the heating mantle rigorously. He poured highly flammable solvents directly on hot mantles while they were being used to distill liquids from glass flasks. After he was unable to start a fire under any of his own test conditions, he submitted the heating mantle to other research chemists for their evaluation. Test after test proved the heating mantle dependable and non-flammable.

On October 24, 1939, the first purchase order for the heating mantle was sent from the Columbia Chemical Division, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company of Barberton, Ohio. Two months later, on December 13, the Morey’s formed Glas-Col Apparatus Company to manufacture their new product. At the time Dr. Morey believed demand for the heating mantle would be rather limited and estimated total market saturation at about 25 thousand units. Being a good glass blower, he decided to market glass fractionating columns to supplement the company product line. The name Glas-Col is short for glass columns.

But Glas-Col never manufactured a single glass column. Orders for heating mantles poured in. Not only did companies request mantles for spherical distillation flasks, but they also wanted mantles to accommodate glass beakers, steel beakers, funnels, evaporating dishes and many other common laboratory vessels. Some companies banished open flames entirely from their labs and bought heating mantles even for test tubes. Dr. Morey’s original heating mantle design was issued patent #2231506 on February 11, 1941.

The significance of the Moreys’ invention was nationally recognized in 1951 during the American Chemical Society’s Diamond Jubilee. On that occasion the United States government issued a commemorative stamp which pictured the distinctive Glas-Col heating mantle covering the bottom of a flask attached to a laboratory distilling apparatus. The smoke billowing from the towers of a chemical process plant pictured on the stamp was in that era considered a sign of prosperity and economic vitality.

Ball State’s Namesakes Subjects of New Documentary to Premiere Sept. 25

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Ball State University has become a state institution with quite a reputation for producing very skilled graduates. But you might not know much about its history. A group of students hope to remedy that with a new film project. Ball State reports:

A student-produced documentary will explore the impact the five Ball brothers have had on east central Indiana since the 1880s, when they moved their glass manufacturing business from Buffalo to Muncie — transforming the community into an industrial force in the Midwest. “A Legacy Etched in Glass: The Ball Brothers in Muncie” is an immersive learning project by Ball State University under the direction of Chris Flook, a telecommunications instructor. The film explores the lives of the five brothers, the family legacy in Muncie and the core values that propelled them to success: hard work, philanthropy, entrepreneurship and beneficence. The story weaves cinematography, motion graphic animation and archived material with interviews from historians. Building their factories on the south of side of Muncie, the Ball brothers expanded their operations enormously over several decades in the early 20th century. Even after the natural gas ran out, Ball Corp. continued to produce glass in Muncie well into the 20th century. Ball Corp. spun off two enterprises — today known as Jarden and the Ardagh Group — before moving fully to Colorado in the late 1990s. Ball Corp. currently focuses on avionics and beverage container manufacturing. “Legacy” not only explores the lives of all five brothers, their wives and other family members, but it also explores the wide-ranging philanthropic efforts of the family in Muncie over the past 120 years. The documentary will have its public premiere at 6 p.m. Sept. 25 at Minnetrista.

Watch a preview of the documentary, and learn more about the project online.

Chris Flook, who also serves as executive producer, may be reached at caflook@bsu.edu or 765-730-0841.

Will the Real ‘Rosie the Riveter’ Please Stand Up?

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pGrowing up, I loved visiting my grandmother Dorothy’s house (we affectionately called her Dot – not grandma! She said it made her feel old).

Not long before she passed away, I noticed a picture of Rosie the Riveter in her living room. I don’t know why I hadn’t observed it before. It was so fitting.

She was one of the six million women Rosie represents who joined the workforce during World War II to replace American men who had enlisted. She was tough. She was patriotic. And she exemplified Rosie’s mantra that “We Can Do It.”

If Rosie had been a real person, the two would have undoubtedly shared a kinship.

Wait! Rosie the Riveter was a fictional character?

Well, yes and no … but mainly yes.

This fascinating History Channel video tells Rosie’s story.

A few fun facts:

  • Between 1940 and 1945, the female demographic in the United States workforce jumped from 27% to 37%. Half of those women held jobs in the defense industry.
  • The original depiction of Rosie was painted by Norman Rockwell and appeared in the 1943 Memorial Day issue of the Saturday Evening Post. His inspiration? A dental hygienist named Mary Keefe.

A Day at the Farm: Planting Memories, Exploring a Legacy

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Pictures will speak a thousand words in the upcoming issue of BizVoice® in my feature story on twins Ted and Tom McKinney. For me, images of my day at the family farm in Tipton where they grew up are etched in my mind. The experience was among my most enjoyable memories – professionally and personally.

I visited the farm to interview them for an article that will appear as part of our agriculture series in the July-August issue. Why the McKinneys? That’s the question Ted humbly asked as we met and shook hands.

First, the family history is deeply rooted in farming. There’s the strong Purdue University connection (they’re third generation graduates of the College of Agriculture). And like their parents and grandparents before, both Ted and Tom are dedicated to making a difference in their community.

Tom is a seventh-generation Indiana farmer (he guides operations at the Tipton farm and another family farm in neighboring Clinton County). Ted is director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture.

Touring the farm, which spans a few thousand acres, brought the McKinney legacy to life. Their passion for agriculture was contagious. Their childhood memories were rich. I could almost see the old yellow barn that served as a clubhouse of sorts in their youth before it was destroyed by straight line winds and made way for a modern shop.

I could picture them working alongside teens in the 1970s detasseling seed corn (the McKinneys were just 16 years old when they started managing their own crews) as they cultivated a strong work ethic and spirit of camaraderie. Tom operated the business for more than three decades.

“It was more than a money-making business. It was about transforming people’s lives,” declares his brother Ted.

Both have spent their lives trying to do just that.

Ted, among other causes, has been heavily involved in FFA and was instrumental in bringing both the organization’s national center and its convention to Indianapolis. Tom is president of the Indiana 4-H Foundation and has donated his time to a variety of other state and local initiatives. Each has brought his leadership to a variety of roles at Purdue.

Check out our memorable afternoon with one of Indiana’s first farming families in BizVoice when the July-August issue debuts on June 30.

Throwback Thursday: Purdue’s Long History of Agricultural Contributions

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While digging into the fertile soil of our archive room, staff has discovered an Indiana Chamber report from August 1945 titled, “Aids Behind the Farm: A Directory of Functional Analysis of Governmental and Civic Organizations in the Field of Farming.” (Yes, the title is certainly a mouthful – potentially equaling a bushel of vegetables from a Hoosier farm.)

The booklet includes features on major farm-related organizations in Indiana – and the nation – like the Indiana Farm Bureau, The Grange, the National Farmers Union and the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. One such prominent organization highlighted is Purdue University. The 1945 entry about the school reveals its history and mission, and why it’s such a benefit to the agricultural industry:

In 1869 the Indiana General Assembly took steps to establish an institution of learning and it received $340,000 from the Federal government which sum is held in trust by the state at interest. In 1869 the General Assembly accepted from John Purdue, a philanthropic businessman of Lafayette, and other public spirited citizens of Tippecanoe County, the sum of $200,000 and a tract of 100 acres of land. It also voted to name the institution ‘Purdue University.’

In 1879 the College of Agriculture was founded. Prior to 1900, few students attended the college and intensive efforts had to be made to acquaint farmers with the value of agricultural training. The first short course in agriculture was held in the winter of 1887-1888. These intensive winter short courses are still permitting hundreds of farmers to attain further knowledge of profitable agricultural practices.

Even then, Purdue’s county extensions played a major role in building the state’s agricultural climate. (The school has an extension in all 92 Indiana counties.):

An integral part of the work of the Extension Department is carried on through the efforts of more than 30,000 volunteer local and neighborhood leaders. County Extension Committees, organized in each county, are composed of local people who know the immediate needs of the county and who help to plan the extension program of their counties to meet the local problems. These people help to bring to Indiana farmers the information and facts which they need to meet their particular problems speedily and proficiently, and to advise returning veterans interested in farming.

In 4-H Club work, more than 3,600 young men and women serve as junior leaders and 2,200 parents and other adults serve as volunteer local leaders.

Summer, Sharks and Spielberg

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“After seeing Jaws for the first time, I was scared to even get in the bath tub.”
That’s the story a family friend has told me over the years. He’s exaggerating, of course, but there is a grain of truth in what he says. When Steven Spielberg’s Jaws hit theaters in 1975, it freaked people out.

One of my summer highlights is watching Discovery Channel’s Shark Week (I’m counting down the days until it airs in August), which got me thinking about two stories that always have fascinated me and pulled at my heartstrings. Both have a connection to Jaws.

In 1916, four people were killed and one injured after being attacked by a shark along the New Jersey shore. There have been several books written about the events, including one called Twelve Days of Terror: A Definitive Investigation of the 1916 New Jersey Shark Attacks. It’s on my summer reading list.

Two victims were killed while swimming near popular resorts. Two more died in Matawan Creek – yes, a creek! Lester Stillwell, just 11 years old, was enjoying an afternoon of fishing when he was attacked. When 24 year-old tailor Stanley Fischer rushed to his aid after hearing cries for help, he heroically lost his life. Not long after and further upstream, teenager Joseph Dunn was bitten, but survived. These events are said to have inspired Jaws.

Another story hits close to home.

One of the most powerful scenes in Jaws is a monologue by Captain Quint about the USS Indianapolis, which sank on July 30, 1945 in shark-infested waters after it was hit by Japanese torpedoes. The crew was returning from a mission in the South Pacific where they delivered components of the Hiroshima bomb.

There were 1,196 men on board. Only 317 survived. Every time I read about this horrific event, I get goose bumps. The History Channel recounts the story.

Throwback Thursday: It Was 50 Years Ago Today…

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The title of this blog isn’t a clever attempt to rewrite “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” even though it has been 50 years since the Beatles craze swept America. I’m taking us back to another moment in that landmark year: the 1964 World’s Fair.

Picture approximately 51 million visitors. Children squeal with delight on rides. Fairgoers devour sweet treats. Scientists predict (and showcase) revolutionary advances in technology.

Want to know which predictions came through and which didn’t quite pan out? Here’s an excerpt (read full story from NPR):

What they had right:

  • Picturephone: Bell System introduced this innovation, which allowed people to see whom they were calling. It didn’t go over well at the time, but it’s a concept that’s an everyday part of our lives now in apps such as Skype and Facetime.
  • Robotics: Walt Disney’s “It’s a Small World” exhibit introduced robotic animation in which characters sing, speak and make lifelike gestures such as smiles and blinks. It’s still in use in theme parks and movies today.
  • Ford Mustang: The two-seater sports car with its long hood and short rear deck was officially unveiled at the World’s Fair and immediately became popular. It has remained in production ever since.

What they had wrong:

  • Colonies on the moon, underwater and in Antarctica: The “Futurama 2” ride from General Motors featured images of people living in places where they clearly, uh, don’t.
  • Jet packs: There were demonstrations of jet pack power at the fair, with men wearing them and zooming around the grounds. Sadly, they remain a mode of transport found mainly in science fiction.

Experience this exciting event through the eyes of spectators in photos they submitted to NBC News.

I can’t imagine what’s in store for the next 50 years, but I can say one thing: I am not moving to the moon or Antarctica to join a colony.