History

Latest Posts for Local History

• World War II didn’t dull the shine of Hoosier Hospitality
  Although railroad travel decreased during The Great Depression, it increased once again during World War II with the transport of military service men. Inside Union Station, both the United Service Organization (USO) and Travelers Aid Society helped [Read More…]
• Protests: Part II / As Vietnam War drug on, opposition began to increase
  A poster from a rally against the draft. Irving Fink, a founder of the ICLU, represented Vietnam War protestors, including Jehovah’s Witnesses and the “Marian 8,” a group of students arrested on criminal charges for protesting. The ICLU took on many [Read More…]
• Vietnam anti-war protests were slow to materialize here
  This anti-draft flyer announces several demonstrations around Indianapolis during Anti-Draft Week, March 16-19, 1970. Photo courtesy Indiana Historical Society First of two parts By CONNIE ZEIGLER / Contributing editor For the decade from 1965, when [Read More…]
• The mostly forgotten life of a monumental sculptor
  Austrian-born Rudolph Schwarz sculpted several elements of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. By CONNIE ZEIGLER / Contributing editor Rudolph Schwarz, the sculptor of the stone figures of the city’s most famous landmark, the Soldiers and Sailors [Read More…]
• A smallpox outbreak and the battle for vaccines
  This flyer advertised a public meeting in 1900 to protest the order of mandatory smallpox vaccinations. *Indiana Historical Society image By CONNIE ZEIGLER Contributing editor ON APRIL 6, 1848, George A. Chapman, co-owner of the Indiana State [Read More…]
• History 301: Illegal abortions made several headlines in the 1950s
  Travis Rawlings confessed to having performed 16 abortions when he was arrested for assault and rape. Only the assault resulted in charges. This photo appeared in the July 17, 1951, edition of The Indianapolis Star. By CONNIE ZEIGLER, Contributing [Read More…]
• History 301: How our historian’s columns became a Historical Society book
  This story appeared in the October 2024 print edition of Urban Times. By CONNIE ZEIGLER, Contributing editor I’ve been writing this monthly history column in Urban Times since 2007. Nine years later, in 2016, after a few people had encouraged me to [Read More…]
• History 301: Kurt Vonnegut’s journey to create ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’
  By CONNIE ZEIGLER, Contributing editor On March 26, 1945, not for the first time, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. – the youngest son of a well-known architect from a well-known Indianapolis family – was in the newspaper. But this was not the usual social tidbit [Read More…]
• History 301: Suffragists had an impact here
  Former Indiana first lady Eliza Hendricks wrote A Popular History of Indiana in 1891. By CONNIE ZEIGLER, Contributing editor In November 1878 – 146 years before the United States will hold a second election in which one of the presidential [Read More…]
• Pro wrestlers body-slammed their way to huge popularity
  By CONNIE ZEIGLER, Contributing editor What about professional wrestling? Let’s look back at the era that wrestling mavens call the “First Golden Age” of professional wrestling. Spawned from carnival acts, pro-wrestling first became popular as [Read More…]
• History 301: ‘Snakescapade’ may top tales of refuge in Downtown Canal
  By CONNIE ZEIGLER / Contributing editor Once in a rare while a person might ask what sort of amusing things have been found in the Downtown canal over the years before it became an attractive enhancement to the cityscape. The answer to the question [Read More…]
• ‘Arky and Ave’ were one of city’s best-known couples
  ABOVE: “Avalon,” one of Avriel Shull’s houses from the 1950s. This feature first appeared in the August 2011 edition of Urban Times. By Connie Zeigler / Contributing editor Few couples had more impact on Indianapolis in the 1950s and 1960s than [Read More…]
• When a love triangle made big headlines
  By CONNIE ZEIGLER Contributing editor With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, love may be in the air – but as every Taylor Swift fan knows it might not last. And when it doesn’t, someone might write a song – or a novel – about it. When he wasn’t [Read More…]
• An ‘Industrial Building’ which was way ahead of its time
  By CONNIE ZEIGLER, Contributing editor Indianapolis seems to be at the apex of new practices with the opening of several business incubators in the last few years. The city has at least a handful of locations that meet the needs of small businesses [Read More…]
• History 301: High-profile kidnapping landed in Indianapolis
  By CONNIE ZEIGLER, Contributing editor In May 1932, The Indianapolis Star published an Extra edition when the kidnapped child of Ann and Charles Lindbergh was found dead less than five miles from their New Jersey home. The kidnapper remained at [Read More…]
• History 301:Margaret Anderson was an anti-establishment heroine
  This feature originally appeared in the June 2017 edition of Urban Times. By CONNIE ZEIGLER Contributing editor ‘We are on trial for revealing the unavoidable natural thoughts of a 16-year-old girl,” Margaret Carolyn Anderson said at her court [Read More…]
• History 301: City’s measured response to 1929’s ‘Black Tuesday’
  ABOVE: The Direct Credits Society, a group that wanted to bypass the banking system during the Great Depression, in a photo at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the 1930s. INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY By CONNIE ZEIGLER Contributing editor An epic [Read More…]
• History 301: When the beatniks invaded Indianapolis
  By CONNIE ZEIGLER, Contributing editor Indianapolis experienced a zeitgeist moment in the fall of 1959. It came in the form of the city’s first expresso café. In the 2020s we might think that an espresso cafe heralded a wholesome early appreciation [Read More…]
• History 301: Fashion designer famous everywhere but hometown
  This essay originally appeared in the February 2020 edition of Urban Times. By Connie Zeigler, Contributing editor When you think of famous fashion designers, your mind likely wanders to Paris, New York, Milan. Does it wander back to Indianapolis? [Read More…]
• Indy boasts a decades-old flirtation with Hollywood
  By CONNIE ZEIGLER, Contributing editor As we approach the Academy Awards again, did you ever wonder if any movies filmed in Indianapolis have won an Oscar? Well, if you have, the answer to that question, probably not surprisingly, is no. It’s not [Read More…]