U.S. Civil War Resources for East Central Indiana

The purpose of the project is to build a digital repository of unique U.S. Civil War materials from East Central Indiana for teaching, learning, and research by elementary, high school, college/university students and faculty, and the public. Users will be able to remotely access, examine, and study letters, diaries, photographs, videotaped readings, and other Civil War documentation that have been previously available only onsite.

The Ball State University Libraries acts as the host institution and fiscal agent, providing access to partner institutions' collections through a single Web site using CONTENTdm, a digital content management system. The project allows for cooperation and collaboration between Ball State University Libraries, Muncie Public Library - Local History & Genealogy Center, Henry County Historical Society, Dan Quayle Center and United States Vice Presidential Museum(Huntington, Indiana), Ball State University Teleplex, and the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities.

The Middletown Digital Oral History Collection

This collection consists of audio and accompanying transcriptions for oral history interviews conducted with African American, Jewish and Catholic communities of Muncie, Indiana and local labor union leaders. This original project was funded by a Library Services and Technology Act grant for 2006-2007. The grant project included collaboration between Ball State University Libraries, the Center for Middletown Studies, St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, St. Lawrence Catholic Church, and St. Mary Catholic Church.

In addition to the value of these "personal narratives" illuminating lives of Indiana citizens, the oral history collections selected for this digital collection provide research material on populations that were neglected in the seminal studies published by sociologists Robert and Helen Lynd in the 1920s using Muncie as Middletown, a representative American community.

Muncie Post-Democrat Newspaper Collection

This collection contains only a sampling of the issues of the Muncie Post Democrat newspaper. The entire collection will be available by the end of June 2008. The newspaper was published by George Dale from 1921 through 1936, and continued after his death until the 1950s.

During Dale's tenure, the newspaper was a strong voice against the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. Dale was nationally prominent for his battle against the Klan. He was beaten, shot and even spent time in prison because of his strong anti-Klan position. He used the newspaper as a weapon against the Klan and its many prominent local members. After Dale's death, the newspaper continued although the battle with the Klan was basically over. The later issues provide a pro-Democratic Party, pro-labor viewpoint. The newspaper is a unique historical artifact that is extremely valuable for researchers of the Klan in Indiana during the 1920s and 1930s.