Category Archives: Catalog

PS Magazine

Posted on by

At their core, federal government publications seek to provide information and don’t exactly exist for entertainment purposes. They are not known to have aesthetically pleasing covers or particularly exciting content. Publications are often austere in appearance and the information contained within is both useful and concise. Illustrations exist only if absolutely necessary and when they do, the images are rarely in color.

Pages from an Army technical manual with text and drawing.

The cover and inside of a typical Army Technical Manual from 1958 (ISLM p.d. 355 Un58tma TM-11 no. 6665).

One publication that famously resisted the trend of dull and dry content was the magazine known as PS: The Preventative Maintenance Monthly, more commonly known as PS Magazine, or just PS. A publication of the Department of the Army “for the information of all soldiers assigned to combat and combat support units, and all soldiers with organizational maintenance and supply duties,” the magazine was essentially a supplement to the usual Army technical manuals. However, unlike the manuals, PS delivered information in a comic book format, complete with recurring characters, story arcs and full color illustrations.

cover of PS Magazine, resembling a comic book.

The eye-catching cover of this issue was drawn by Murphy Anderson and closely resembles that of a superhero comic. (ISLM D 101.87:323).

PS began in 1951 during the Korean War and featured the artwork of former Army Corporal Will Eisner. Prior to his military work in World War II, Eisner had created The Spirit, a popular comic series. Eisner later would write many influential long-form comic books and is credited with coining the term “graphic novel.” The comic book industry’s most prestigious annual awards are named after him.

Eisner helmed PS for many years. In the 1970s-1980s, another well-known artist named Murphy Anderson provided artwork. Like Eisner, Anderson had served during World War II and went on to have a successful comics career, creating artwork for many different titles published by DC Comics.

Back covers of PS Magazine in comic book style.

The back covers of each issue featured a full-color preventative maintenance reminder. (Left to right: ISLM D 301.87:341, ISLM D 301.87:545).

The main message conveyed in each issue of PS was to remind soldiers they had a duty to properly maintain military equipment. Readers were gently chastised on correct procedures by an attractive female civilian character named Connie. In the 1970s, an African American woman named Bonnie was added.

Two-page spread in comic book style.

“Joe’s Dope Sheet” was a two-page spread in the center of each issue often featuring one of the comic’s recurring characters. In this example, Connie reminds soldiers to take care of vehicle batteries in cold weather. (ISLM D 101.87:347).

Comic book style page featuring woman giving gun cleaning tips.

Issues contained short vignettes with illustrated instructions. Here Bonnie demonstrates how to correctly clean an M60 machine gun. (ISLM D 101.87:342).

The military equipment itself became another character in each issue. Military machinery such as tanks and machine guns were often depicted with human physical characteristics like arms and legs and even demonstrated human emotions, to underscore the importance of following proper preventative maintenance.

Anthropomorphic military equipment in comic book style.

Anthropomorphizing military equipment was a common component of each issue. In these examples, a bulldozer is sad because its operator doesn’t shift properly and causes unnecessary wear and tear on the transmission while in the accompanying image, an air filter suffers from freezing cold weather. (Left to right: ISLM D 101.87:471, ISLM D 101.87:576).

PS Magazine went completely digital in 2019, and officially ended in 2024 after 73 years of continuous publication. The Indiana State Library has scattered issues from the 1980s through 1999. Digitized versions of back issues are available from several sources, including the University of North Texas Digital Library, the Virginia Commonwealth University Digital Collections and the Internet Archive (1999-2013 only).

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

Food for thought: Recipes from the Indiana State Library’s federal documents collection – Part I

Posted on by

When you think of government documents, do hearings, laws, history and maps come to mind?

Cookbook cover featuring salmon dishes. Cookbook cover featuring a radio.Cookbook cover with text.

Did you know that government documents include cookbooks, recipes, meal plans and tips on growing fruits and vegetables in your own garden?

Cookbook cover featuring jars. Cookbook cover featuring pasta and salad. Shopper's Coat publication from the USDA.

Also, did you know that the federal government even had a cooking show broadcasted via radio in the 1930s?

Pamphlet featuring tomato. Pamphlet featuring money saving main dishes. Pamphlet featuring potatoes.

In addition, they even published a document about a shopping coat and where to order patterns to make one of your own!

This blog post was written by Michele Fenton, monographs and federal documents catalog librarian.

Indiana’s first cookbook: Part II

Posted on by

Last year, we covered Angelina Maria Lorraine Collins of New Albany, author of the first known cookbook published in the state of Indiana, “Mrs. Collins’ Table Receipts: Adapted to Western Housewifery” [Vault ISLI 641 C712t]. The book was released in 1851 and comes in at a respectable 144 pages. I would like to expand on the previous post by delving into some of the recipes and their ingredients.

Picture of recipe book title page.

Born on May 26, 1805 in Virginia and her name was sometimes shortened to Anna on documents. In May of 1830, she married James Collins in Clinton County, Ohio. James was also originally from Virginia. Shortly after their marriage, they relocated to New Albany where James was both a prominent lawyer and a politician who represented his community in both branches of the Indiana General Assembly. They had five children, although two died in childhood.

She wrote a follow-up book, a novel published in 1853 entitled “Mrs. Ben Darby, or, the Weal and Woe of Social Life.” As a lifelong advocate for the temperance movement in the United States, this fictional work was a polemic against the social problems of alcohol consumption.

Collins lived a long life and died Sept. 28, 1885.

Her cookbook is very different from modern iterations of the genre. There is no list of ingredients, no strict measurement standards to adhere to and no illustrations to indicate what the finished product should look like. The following are interesting examples from the book.

Picture of recipe.In French, the name for this creamy and jiggly dessert is simply “white dish.” This recipe calls for Russian isinglass, a thickening agent made from the dried swim bladders of fish which was used before gelatin became a pantry staple.

Picture of recipe.A homemaker in the mid-19th century such as Collins could not go to her local grocery store and easily pluck a box of crackers off a shelf. She had to make them from scratch using a recipe such as this. Based on the ingredients, these are likely comparable to modern saltines. Note, saleratus is what we now commonly call baking powder.

Picture of recipe.Corn has long been a principal crop in Indiana, so it’s no surprise that the state’s first cookbook would carry many recipes calling for its use. Corn pone is a dish similar to cornbread but somewhat more dense. Preparation of this dish varies from region to region and here Collins makes a reference to her native Virginia and is adamant that any deviations from her recipe will be a degraded monstrosity unworthy of the name “corn pone.” This seems to be in response to a gastronomic battle she has fought many times before with other cooks as a transplant to the Midwest.

Picture of recipe.The name for this dish is rather misleading, as it calls for no turtle parts. However, unlike most of the other recipes in the book which only call for seasoning with salt and paper, this uses more exotic flavors including Madeira wine, shallots and cayenne pepper.

To peruse more recipes, the entire delightful book has been digitized by the Indiana State Library and is available here. I hope you enjoyed this follow-up about one of the more interesting items in our digital collections.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

The Indiana Fever at the State Library

Posted on by

May in Indiana has always revolved around the Indianapolis 500 and car racing. However, it also marks the beginning of the Women’s National Basketball Association season, and with the Indiana Fever becoming one of the most popular sports teams in the nation, the drivers in Speedway are sharing the spotlight with the women playing in downtown Indianapolis at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

Founded in 1999, the Indiana Fever became the state’s first professional female basketball team. The team’s inaugural season was 2000, only three years after the founding of the WNBA. In the following 25 years, the Fever made the playoffs 14 times, winning three Eastern Conference championships and one WNBA championship in 2012.

Foldable pocket schedule from the inaugural 2000 season (ISLO 796.32 no. 12).

Indiana has always had a strong affiliation with the game of basketball and the name Fever is a reference to the perceived mania people in Indiana feel about the sport.

One of the first stand-out players on the team was Tamika Catchings. After an illustrious career at the University of Tennessee, Catchings was drafted by the Fever in 2001. During her tenure in Indiana, which lasted until 2016, she amassed a championship and multiple WBNA awards and is the only player to have her jersey number retired.

Children’s book written by Catchings (ISLI 927 C357d).

The WNBA’s popularity slowly increased and by 2023, attendance and viewership were up. In that year, the Fever drafted Aliyah Boston from the University of South Carolina and she would go on to win the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year award.

Aliyah Boston and Damris Dantas on the cover of the Fever’s game program (ISLO 796.32 no. 16).

The following year, in 2024, the Fever drafted Caitlin Clark from the University of Iowa. An extremely popular player in college, Clark’s addition to the team caused its growing fanbase to explode. After a slow start, the Fever finished the season 20-20 but still managed to make the playoffs after an eight year post-season drought. Like her teammate Boston the year before, Clark won the Rookie of the Year Award.

Children’s book about Caitlin Clark. ([IYRC] ISLI 927 C592d).

Going into the 2025 season, the Fever have completely revamped their roster around their young stars and have taken on a new coach, Indiana native and Purdue alum Stephanie White. Expectations for the team are high and opposing teams are moving their home games against the Fever to larger venues to accommodate the increased interest in watching the Fever play.

Fortunately, there is no scheduling conflict between the Fever and the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 25.

The Indiana State Library strives to collect materials on all Indiana sports teams, both current and from the far past. To discover more, please visit our catalog.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

‘If you weren’t there, you missed it:’ Jazz at Tomlinson Hall

Posted on by

While the 1920s are colloquially known as the “jazz age” due to its emergence in that decade as a shockingly new and unique form of music, jazz did not truly enter the popular culture mainstream until the 1930s. The days of small bands comprising around five musicians were gone and replaced with massive orchestras of over a dozen performers, often fronted by a charismatic bandleader. Jazz performers moved out of the small clubs and speakeasies they had occupied throughout the 1920s and into massive music halls to both accommodate a growing fanbase and to better showcase the loud music created by the multiple saxophones, trumpets and trombones of the large orchestras. The Big Band Era was in full swing.

If you were in Indianapolis and wanted to see the biggest names in jazz in the 1930s, you were probably going to make a pilgrimage to Tomlinson Hall. Located at the corner of Market and Delaware streets, right next to the City Market, Tomlinson Hall opened its doors in 1886. A massive building, it served many purposes for the people of Indianapolis and hosted everything from conventions and political rallies to boxing matches and music performances.

Postcards showing Tomlinson Hall. The image on the left shows its proximity to the City Market building. From the Postcard Collection (P071) Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection.

Tomlinson Hall was open to all and the African American community of Indianapolis frequently held events in the venue as it had a capacity of 4,000 which was significantly larger than the recently constructed Walker Theater on Indiana Avenue. While all were welcome at Tomlinson Hall, segregation still existed within its confines. Below are two ads for the same 1935 Duke Ellington performance. The ad on the left is from the Indianapolis Recorder, the city’s preeminent Black newspaper. The smaller ad on the right is from the Indianapolis News and includes the text “Dance for colored patrons only. Balcony reserved for white spectators.”

Indianapolis Recorder, July 20, 1935. Indianapolis News, July 26, 1935.

Other major acts to make appearances at Tomlinson Hall in this time period include Claude Hopkins (1936), Louis Armstrong (1937), Count Basie (1939), Fats Waller (1938) and Blanche Calloway (1936). Calloway was the older sister of popular singer and bandleader Cab Calloway. She was the first woman to lead an all-male orchestra.

Collection of ads from the Indianapolis Recorder, 1936-39.

Band leader and drum virtuoso Chick Webb and singer Ella Fitzgerald performed at the Hall in August of 1938. The Indianapolis Recorder published photos from the show and noted that Fitzgerald “literally made the mike dance” during her performance.

Indianapolis Recorder, Aug. 13, 1938.

Tomlinson Hall continued to serve as one of Indianapolis’s main entertainment venues until it was destroyed by a fire in 1958. An arch from the original structure was found during City Market renovations in the 1970s and has been erected in a plaza near where the Great Hall once stood.

The Indianapolis Recorder contains a wealth of information on the history of jazz in the city. A digitized archive of the newspaper from 1899-2005 is available through Hoosier State Chronicles here.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

Indiana’s forgotten bowl game: The Refrigerator Bowl

Posted on by

The United States in the late 1940s was hungry for college football. With many schools completely dropping their programs for the duration of World War II, the American public was ready to resume its collegiate sports traditions. The postwar era saw a rush of newly created bowl games throughout the country as cities sought to cash-in on the trend and market themselves as popular sports destinations. Most of these bowl series are now defunct but included the Raison Bowl in Fresno, California; the Salad Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona; and the Cigar Bowl in Tampa, Florida. Never to be left out of a trend, Indiana also had a bowl entry dubbed the Refrigerator Bowl, held annually in Evansville from 1948 to 1956.

Souvenir program for the first game.

By 1948, the city of Evansville was home to multiple companies that manufactured refrigerators or refrigerator components. Servel, Inc., the Seeger Refrigerator Corporation and International Harvester were producing over a million units each year, a figure which gave Evansville boasting rights to the title “refrigerator capital of the world.”

Evansville’s “Big Three” refrigerator manufacturers.

Members of the Evansville Junior Chamber of Commerce – commonly known as the Jaycees – developed the idea of hosting a college bowl game, partly to highlight the city’s importance in the refrigerator industry and also to raise money for the local YMCA children’s facility known as Camp Carson.

While most college bowl games have historically been held on the first day of January, the Refrigerator Bowl was always held in early December, a concession to Indiana’s fickle winter weather. The game was scheduled to be played in the Reitz Bowl, a “natural amphitheater” stadium attached to Reitz High School.

Built in 1921, the Reitz Bowl continues to be used for local high school football games.

The teams selected to participate in the inaugural game were Missouri Valley and Evansville College. The Missouri Valley Vikings were a Midwestern powerhouse and had not lost a game since 1941. Going into the bowl game, the team had only allowed a mere three touchdowns the entire 1948 season. The Evansville Purple Aces had lost three games and were considered obvious underdogs.

Much to the surprise of all involved, the Evansville Purple Aces managed to end Missouri Valley’s long winning streak by scoring two touchdowns and defeating them 13 to 7. Approximately 7,500 spectators attended the event and Evansville’s head coach was carried off the field on the shoulders of his ecstatic players.

Newspaper coverage from the Evansville Courier Press, Dec. 5, 1948. From Newspapers.com.

The first bowl game was enough of a success that it continued for the next eight years. However, by the mid 1950s, attendance was very low and one of the major refrigerator companies, Servel, went out of business. Despite no longer having its own bowl game, Evansville continued to be a hub of refrigerator manufacturing for the next couple of decades.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

Lucy Way Sistare Say

Posted on by

On Thursday, Dec. 8, 1825, a keelboat titled The Philanthropist pushed away from a dock in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and began its long voyage west along the Ohio River. The ships passengers were among some of Pennsylvania’s most prominent intellectuals. Comprised of scientists, educators, social reformers and artists, the ship was dubbed the Boatload of Knowledge by Robert Owen, whose utopian ideals formed the basis of the endeavor. The passengers were en route to settle in New Harmony, Indiana and were the initial participants in Owen’s experiment in cooperative and socialistic communal living.

Among the many talented individuals on the Boatload of Knowledge was a young woman named Lucy Way Sistare, who had been educated in Philadelphia under the tutelage of a progressive educator named Madame Marie Fretageot. While a student, Sistare studied scientific illustration and even received instruction from famous American naturalist, John James Audubon.

Lucy Say towards the end of her life. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Among the other passengers was the entomologist Thomas Say. By 1825, Say had been on numerous scientific expeditions into the American frontier and was one of the first scientists to officially document many specimens of North America. He helped found the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia and was made captain of the Boatload of Knowledge.

Portrait of Thomas Say by Rembrandt Peale from Wikimedia Commons.

The boat reached Mount Vernon, Indiana on Jan. 23, 1826 and the travelers continued by land to the settlement in New Harmony.

Sistare had likely met Say in Philadelphia prior to the voyage to Indiana, but the long journey combined with the arduous task of living in a frontier community must have caused a bond to develop between the two as they were married less than a year later on Jan. 4, 1827. Lucy spent her time in New Harmony teaching illustration techniques while Thomas continued to explore the natural world.

The couple’s distinct talents came together to produce the book “American Conchology, or Descriptions of the Shells of North America.” Thomas’s descriptive text was accompanied by Lucy’s meticulous illustrations, many of which were hand-colored either by her or two of her New Harmony students. Printed by the New Harmony School Press in 1830, it is one of the earliest books published in the state of Indiana.

Title page for “American Conchology.”

Two examples of Lucy Say’s work from “American Conchology.”

Thomas would die in 1834. Lucy left New Harmony soon afterwards. She would become the first female member of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia, the scientific society her husband helped to create. She continued to be involved in scientific endeavors until her death in 1886.

The book Thomas and Lucy created in the frontier community of New Harmony continues to be highly sought after by book collectors. Among early American scientific books, it stands out primarily due to Lucy’s meticulous and delicately rendered illustrations.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

Sources
Pitzer, Donald E. (1989). “The original Boatload of Knowledge down the Ohio River: William Maclure’s and Robert Owen’s transfer of science and education to the Midwest,” 1825-1826. Ohio Journal of Science, 89(5), 128-142.

Say, Thomas. (1830). “American Conchology, or Descriptions of the Shells of North America.” New Harmony School Press.

“Say’s creative process.” American Philosophical Society. Retrieved Aug. 13, 2024 from https://www.amphilsoc.org/museum/exhibitions/lucy-says-shells/says-creative-process

The longest, shortest, darkest race: The 1973 Indianapolis 500

Posted on by

Since the inaugural race in 1911, the Indianapolis 500 has provided racing fans with fast thrills in the month of May. Some years have provided more drama than others and 1973 was certainly such a year.

Poster advertising the 1973 time trials. Medium Broadsides Collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts Division.

1973 was the 57th running of the race and going into it, fans were excited to see cars possibly reach 200 mph speeds for the first time ever. Qualifications began on Saturday, but before they could even start, driver Art Pollard crashed on a practice run and would eventually die from his injuries. The time trials continued with Johnny Rutherford posting the fastest time at 199.071 mph, tantalizingly close to the coveted 200 mph, but still short.

The race was scheduled for Monday, May 28. After an initial four-hour rain delay, the race officially started but things went horribly wrong on the very first lap. Caused in part by a car moving extremely slow due to a mechanical failure, a 12-car crash put an immediate halt to the race. A massive fireball from the wreckage of driver Salt Walther’s car reached spectators in the stands and several were rushed to local hospitals with serious burns. While he survived the wreck, Walther would have to undergo a very lengthy recovery and, in the process, became addicted to pain medication, a condition he struggled with for the rest of his life until dying from an overdose in 2012. Perhaps fortuitously, another torrential rainstorm began shortly after the wreck and the race needed to be postponed to the next day.

Front page of The Indianapolis Star, May 29, 1973.

Racing conditions did not improve the following day. Despite over 200,000 fans showing up for the second attempt at the race, another postponement was announced. This was the first time in the race’s history that a race had to be postponed two days in a row. Spirits were low among drivers, crews and fans with some hoping the race would be completely cancelled.

Sheltering from the rain on Pit Row. Picture from the official yearbook for the 1973 Indianapolis 500 (ISLI 796.7 I388i 1973).

The third and final attempt at running the race occurred on Wednesday, May 30. The weather continued to threaten rain but the sun came out briefly and dried the track enough to start the race. Racing resumed and was a typical Indianapolis 500 for over 50 laps until a wreck on the 57th lap trapped driver “Swede” Savage in yet another huge fireball. Pit crew members from various teams ran on foot towards the accident and one of them, Armando Teran, was accidentally killed by an emergency vehicle which was also speeding towards the wreck. While initially surviving the inferno, Savage would ultimately succumb to his injuries several weeks later.

Spectators near the wreck were understandably traumatized. They had to watch both Savage moving around in the remains of his car, desperately trying to get out while completely engulfed in flames, followed by witnessing the violent death of Armando Teran. Several fans, including women from the 500 Festival court, fainted.

From The Indianapolis Star, May 31, 1973, page 19.

Once the accident had been cleared away, the race trudged on but when rain began to fall yet again, a final red flag was flown at lap 133, 67 laps short of the normal 200. The leader, Gordon Johncock, was named the winner and the 57th running of the Indy 500 mercifully came to end. Only 11 of the original lineup of 33 cars managed to finish the race.

The Indianapolis Star, May 31, 1973.

The troubles of the 1973 race and the collective anger of drivers and teams resulted in the creation of several safety measures. Due to the numerous large fires caused by crashes, cars were no longer allowed to carry so much fuel and it was recommended that fuel tanks be on the left side of the car, to avoid damage and explosions when hitting walls. Another change required pit crew members to remain at their posts in order to keep out of the way of safety crews.

Cover of the 1973 yearbook featuring winner Gordon Johncock.

Ultimately, it took the 1973 Indy 500 three whole days to complete a mere 332 miles making it both the longest and shortest race at the time. Even though Rutherford came very close to reaching 200mph during qualifications, race fans would have to wait four more years to witness a driver achieve that particular feat, which Tom Sneva did in 1977.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

How to be hep to the jive with Cab Calloway

Posted on by

Cabell “Cab” Calloway III was indisputably one of the most popular and iconic jazz performers of the 1930s. He possessed a distinct entertaining style which combined catchy swing music with cheeky vaudevillian skits. He sang, he danced, he sported exaggerated “zoot suits” and he helped popularize jive talk, a particular form of African American Vernacular English that is believed to have started in the jazz clubs of Harlem – where Calloway got his start – and was prevalent throughout the country in the 1930s and 1940s.

From The Indianapolis Recorder, Aug. 12, 1933.

Calloway was the unofficial Ambassador of Jive. In 1938, he self-published a small booklet entitled “Cab Calloway’s Cat-ologue: a “Hepster’s” Dictionary.” Several revisions followed, all published by Calloway himself. The Indiana State Library has the 1944 edition, which was titled “The New Cab Calloway’s Hepsters Dictionary.” In the dictionary’s foreword, Calloway proudly proclaims it to be “the official jive language reference book of the New York Public Library.” It is considered by some to be the first dictionary written and published by an African American.

Cover of the Indiana State Library’s Hepsters Dictionary ([p.f.] ISLM 427 no. 1). Unfortunately, some “square” (un-hep) librarian in the past was a little overly enthusiastic with the labelling and barcoding of this item!

Entries from the dictionary.

By the 1940s, jive was prevalent in American popular culture and was particularly popular among white teenagers and young adults. Expressions such as “blow the top” (to be overcome with emotion), “gimme some skin” (shake hands) and “salty” (angry, ill-tempered) became commonplace and are still used to this day.

An article describing a “jive” dance program held at Culver High School. From The Culver Citizen, Feb. 3, 1943.

Jive expressions became so mainstream that a youngster in 1940s Indiana could go to the L.S. Ayres department store and be “togged to the bricks” (dressed to kill) in a pair of blue jeans featuring jive talk.

L.S. Ayres advertisement from The Indianapolis Star, May 16, 1947.

The jive fad was not isolated only to large cities. Even folks in smaller places did not want to come across as “corny” (old fashioned, stale) or “icky” (one who is not hip, a stupid person, can’t collar the jive).

Music column from The Call Leader (Elwood, Ind.), Sept. 13, 1944.

Cab Calloway continued to keep “joints jumping” (club is leaping with fun) for delighted “jitter bugs” (swing fans) for decades after his heyday in the 1930s. He experienced a resurgence of interest in his career after making a cameo appearance in the 1980 film “Blues Brothers,” where he performed his most famous song, “Minnie the Moocher.” Calloway died in 1994 at age 86. He was truly one of the “hepest cats” in American history.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”

Butler vs. Purdue: A Thanksgiving story

Posted on by

Football is as integral a part of American Thanksgiving as turkey and pumpkin pie. Indeed, both Thanksgiving as a national holiday and the game of football originated around the same time. President Ulysses S. Grant established the official holiday in 1870, a mere year after Rutgers University defeated Princeton 6-4 on Nov. 6, 1869 in what is widely considered the first match of American football ever played. The game quickly grew in popularity, particularly among American universities, and as popular trends usually do, it eventually found its way to Indiana.

From the Indiana Pamphlet Collection. ISLO 813 no. 26.

A fictionalized account of an early Indiana football game can be found in the short story “Butler vs. Purdue: A Thanksgiving story,” written and published by George S. Cottman, a prolific historian and author who ran a printing press out of his home in Irvington. The story opens in Indianapolis on Thanksgiving morning 1890 with a young woman named Esther pleading with her father to take her to a local football match between Butler University (whose campus was located in the Irvington neighborhood at the time) and Purdue University. Her father, a stern military man dubbed Colonel Cannon, initially refuses and chides his daughter’s interest in the sport. Like many other older adults at the time, he holds the notion that football is an unusually violent sport and unworthy of being associated with institutions of higher learning. With little self-awareness he declares “If I’d a boy in college… who spent his time tussling about in the mud when I was paying for the cultivation of his brains I’d cudgel him till he took to his bed. Is that what they go to college for – to break bones and mash each other flat?”

After further cajoling and some overly dramatic tears from Esther, he relents and they make their way to the YMCA athletic park, located at the time in the Arsenal Heights neighborhood, just east of downtown. The game has already started and Butler is losing to Purdue 10-0. Esther, who incidentally is also being courted by a football player from Butler, is in despair at how dominant the Purdue team seems. “What great big ugly things they are! It’s too much to expect our boys to stand against a lot of elephants!”

She is equally disgruntled with the Purdue fans who have made the long trip to Indianapolis to cheer on their team. “Hear those horrid people. I hate to see country jakes come in and try to take the town. If they love to bellow so why don’t they go out in the woods around Lafayette and do it to their hearts content.” The snub “country jakes” is a jab at Purdue’s notoriety as an agricultural school and belies a distinct snobbery at the rural-urban cultural divide which was likely a common sentiment for city-dwellers such as Esther.

In what today would seem a bit of a gendered role reversal, Esther spends much of the game explaining the sport to her befuddled but increasingly interested father. The game she describes is quite different but still recognizable to the sport in its modern form. The match consists of two 45 minute innings. Touchdowns are worth four points and conversion kicks add another two. Teams have three downs to advance the ball five yards. Colonel Cannon’s martial sensibilities are particularly delighted by offensive plays employing the flying wedge formation, which is unsurprising considering the early football tactic was based on a centuries-old military maneuver (and then quickly banned in 1894 because it caused so many injuries).

As this is a story written by an Irvington resident, it predictably ends happily for Butler. The Butlers (the nickname Bulldogs was not adopted until 1921) rally in the second inning and ultimately win the match 12-10. The Purdues (the term Boilermaker wouldn’t make an appearance until the following year in 1891) fail to get any more points on the board. Colonel Cannon has been converted to football fandom and Esther can now safely invite her beau to dinner without dooming him to her father’s archaic notions on collegiate sports.

While Esther and Colonel Cannon are fictional characters, this game really did happen and was held Nov. 27, 1890. It was the state championship game for Indiana football and extensive coverage of the match appeared in multiple Indianapolis newspapers.

Indianapolis Journal, Nov. 28, 1890. From Newspapers.com.

While 1890 was a bit too early for photographs of the event to be printed in local papers, it was deemed an important enough event by the Indianapolis News to dispatch an artist to draw illustrations for the story.

Indianapolis News Nov. 28, 1890. Images from the game-day coverage. From Hoosier State Chronicles.

Adding to the day’s drama was the fact that a rowdy post-match victory drive through the streets of Indianapolis resulted in a large wagon referred to as a “tally-ho” being overturned and seriously injuring several football revelers, though all seem to have survived the ordeal.

Football continues to be an important part of Thanksgiving in Indiana, especially for Purdue. While the school no longer plays Butler in football, their annual Oaken Bucket game against in-state rival Indiana University is usually played near Thanksgiving. The weekend following Thanksgiving is also when high schools from throughout the state converge on Indianapolis to battle for various football championships. And of course, millions of Hoosiers will tune in to watch professional football from the National Football League, a holiday tradition that dates back to the NFL’s first Thanksgiving game held in 1934.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalog Division supervisor, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at 317-232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian.”