Hoosiers On The Home Front

Wars are fought on the home front as well as the battlefront. Spouses, family, friends, and communities are called upon to sacrifice and persevere in the face of a changed reality. Hoosiers on the Home Front explores the lives and experiences of ordinary Hoosiers from around Indiana who were left to fight at home during wartimes. Drawn from the rich holdings of the Indiana Magazine of History, a journal of state and midwestern history published since 1905, this collection includes original diaries, letters and memoirs, and research essays—all focused on Hoosiers on the home front of the Civil War through the Vietnam War. Readers will meet, among others, Joshua Jones of the 19th Indiana Volunteer Regiment and his wife, Celia; Attia Porter, a young resident of Corydon, Indiana, writing to her cousin about Morgan's Raid; Civil War and World War I veterans who came into conflict over the Indianapolis 500 and Memorial Day observances; Virginia Mayberry, a wife and mother on the World War II home front; and university students and professors—including antiwar activist Howard Zinn and conservative writer R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.—clashing over the Vietnam War. Hoosiers on the Home Front offers a compelling glimpse of how war impacts everyone, even those who never saw the front line.

Fighting Hoosiers: Indiana in Two World Wars tells the compelling, heartbreaking, and breathtaking stories of some of the hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers who served their country during the First and Second World Wars. Drawn from the rich holdings of the Indiana Magazine of History, a journal of state and midwestern history published since 1905, the collection includes original diaries, letters and memoirs, as well as research essays—all of them focused on Hoosiers in the two world wars. Readers will meet Alex Arch, a Hungarian-born immigrant who was the first American to fire a shot in World War I; Maude Essig, a nurse serving with the American Red Cross in wartime France; Kenneth Baker, a soldier in the Army Signal Corps, who crawled across French fields (sometimes over and around dead bodies) to lay phone lines for military communications; and Bernard Rice, a combat medic who witnessed the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in 1945. Indiana's brave men and women like these have served with distinction in the armed forces since the earliest days of the Indiana Territory. Fighting Hoosiers offers a compelling glimpse at some of their remarkable stories.

A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past.

The story of this Midwestern state and its people, past and present: “An entertaining and fast read.” ―Indianapolis Star Who are the people called Hoosiers? What are their stories? Two centuries ago, on the Indiana frontier, they were settlers who created a way of life they passed to later generations. They came to value individual freedom and distrusted government, even as they demanded that government remove Indians, sell them land, and bring democracy. Down to the present, Hoosiers have remained wary of government power and have taken care to guard their tax dollars and their personal independence. Yet the people of Indiana have always accommodated change, exchanging log cabins and spinning wheels for railroads, cities, and factories in the nineteenth century, automobiles, suburbs, and foreign investment in the twentieth. The present has brought new issues and challenges, as Indiana’s citizens respond to a rapidly changing world. James H. Madison’s sparkling new history tells the stories of these Hoosiers, offering an invigorating view of one of America’s distinctive states and the long and fascinating journey of its people.

Since Indiana joined the Union in 1816, residents and visitors alike have pondered the essential question: "What is a Hoosier?" The final answer may never be determined, but there are, at least, ways to understand the Hoosier character. It was African American pilots taking a stand for equal rights. It was a speech by a presidential candidate that helped keep peace on a tragic night. It was the triumph and near tragedy involving a Mercury Seven astronaut. And it was a sacrifice that ensured a crucial American victory in the Pacific during World War II. As Kurt Vonnegut once said, "I don't know what it is about Hoosiers, but wherever you go there is always a Hoosier doing something very important there." Award-winning biographer Ray E. Boomhower tells us why.

A collection of personal letters from overseas that reveal in day-to-day detail what it was like to serve in World War II. Recounting victory and defeat, love and loss, this is a remarkable and frank collection of World War II letters penned by American men and women serving overseas. Here, the hopes and dreams of the greatest generation fill each page, and their voices ring loud and clear. “It’s all part of the game but it’s bloody and rough,” writes one soldier to his wife. “Wearing two stripes now and as proud as an old cat with five kittens,” remarks another. Yet, as many countries rejoiced on V-E Day, this book reveals that soldiers were “too tired and sad to celebrate.” Filled with the everyday thoughts of these fighters, the letters are by turns heartbreaking and amusing, revealing and frightening. While visiting a German concentration camp, one man wrote, “I don’t like Army life but I’m glad we are here to stop these atrocities.” Meanwhile, in another letter a soldier quips, “I know lice don’t crawl so I figured they were fleas.” A fitting tribute to all veterans, this book brings the experience of war—its dramatic horrors, its dreary hardships, its desperate hope for a better future—to vivid life. “An intimate portrait of the mundane and remarkable, of heroism and terror, of friendship and loss . . . Timely, compelling, and important reading.”—Matthew L. Basso, author of Men at Work

Is everyone in Indiana afflicted with an incurable disease? Thats what author, Alden Studebaker, would have you believe in his book Hoosieritis: The Contagious Condition that is Indiana. A native son of Indiana, Studebaker takes the reader on an anecdotal, farcical journey through the Hoosier State pointing out the distinctive ways the enigmatic disease of Hoosieritis impacts the lives of Indiana residents. The book is often irreverent, poking fun at Hoosier institutions, traditions, and peculiarities by presenting selected nonsensical facts about Indianas culture, history, people, and values. Its intent is to provoke robust conversations among Hoosiers about their home state, and spawn fresh, new observations of the concocted contagion. The book features twenty-four photos depicting Hoosieritis.

These readings provide an overview of Indiana history based upon primary and secondary acounts of significant events and personalities. This treasure trove includes work by George Rogers Clark, Emma Lou Thornbrough, George Ade, Dan Wakefield, and many more.