Ray E. Boomhower's Books

Programs in Rockville, Indiana

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:46:00 +0000

I will be in Rockville, Indiana, on Thursday, May 17, for two programs on the life and times of journalist and writer Juliet V. Strauss. Known as the "Country Contributor," Strauss wrote a regular column for her hometown Rockville Tribune newspaper, as well as a weekly column in the Indianapolis News and a monthly column in the Ladies' Home Journal. In addition to her writing career, Strauss played a key role in saving the Turkey Run area from destruction by timber interests and seeing it developed into Indiana's second state park.

At 2 p.m. I will lead a discussion about my biography of Strauss, The Country Contributor: The Life and Times of Juliet V. Strauss, at the Old Jail Coffee House, 123 South Jefferson Street. At 6 p.m. I will be at the Rockville Public Library, 106 North Market Street, for a program on Strauss's life and influence. Both programs are free and open to the public.

Edward Bok, longtime Journal editor, said that Strauss's contributions were “more widely read and . . . are more popular than the writings of any single contributor to the magazine.” Strauss’s writing found—in addition to its frequent hardships and struggles—joy, beauty, and art in a homemaker’s daily life. Her efforts at glorifying homemaking struck a chord with her female readers across the country who grew, through long association, to consider the Rockville housewife “as friend and counselor,” the Indianapolis News commented upon Strauss’s death on May 22, 1918. She offered through her essays,the newspaper noted, a sound philosophy: “a love of simplicity and genuineness,an earnest and honest faith, a hatred of sham and pretense, and a belief in the home and family as the great educators.”

During her career Strauss came to be considered as one of the most widely read female writers in America. Indiana historian Jacob Piatt Dunn, Jr., who noted that Strauss’s writing possessed the Hoosier characteristic of “optimism and wholesomeness,” claimed that the Rockville writer was “more widely read than any American essayist has ever been.” In the history of the world, Dunn went onto say of Strauss, “nobody ever wrote so much about the common things of everyday life, and held their readers.”

A Gathering of Posey

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:32:00 +0000

On June 30, 1886,approximately sixty men and women interested in the writing profession gathered in the auditorium of Indianapolis’s Plymouth Church. Reporting on the meeting,the Indianapolis Journal noted that “instead of being food for laughter,” the gathering of these would-be poets and novelists turned out to be “a very practical and business-like body.” The Western Association of Writers had been born.

In its approximately twenty-year existence, the W.A.W.—variously referred to as the “Literary Gravel Pit Association,” “The Writer's Singing Bee,” “a literary house party,” “an effort to get up a corner in Spring poetry and fix the price of manuscript stories at so much per year,”and other less than flattering terms by its critics—attracted to its colors such literary stars as Maurice Thompson (who was elected the group’s first president), James Whitcomb Riley, Sarah Bolton, John Clark Ridpath, William Dudley Foulke, Meredith Nicholson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Booth Tarkington, Will Cumback, Mary H. Catherwood, and Benjamin Parker.

The association’s annual week-long conventions at Spring Fountain Park on the shores of Eagle Lake near Warsaw, Indiana, brought together in one spot poets,novelists, short story writers, historians, and others interested in belles lettres. “In the writer’s view, the point of interest lay not so much in the actual literary standards of the organization as in the fact that all kinds of authors who were moved by the literary impulse, flocked together so insistently year after year,” noted Indiana historian George S. Cottman, a longtime W.A.W.member. “It was the gravitating to each other of kindred spirits who in their daily environments, found scant appreciation of the fugitive fancies that haunted them.”

Inspired by the success enjoyed by such Indiana authors as Riley and Thompson, Hoosiers of all types following the Civil War were trying their hand at writing, especially poetry. “There was a time in Indiana when it was difficult to forecast who would next turn poet,” observed Meredith Nicholson in his book, The Hoosiers. One Indianapolis journalist declared that “there had appeared in the community a peculiar crooking of the right elbow and a furtive sliding of the hand into the left inside pocket,which was an unfailing preliminary to the reading of a poem.” Various literary organizations sprang up to minister to those afflicted with the writing bug:the Indianapolis Literary Club in 1877, the Terre Haute Literary Club in 1881,and the Ouiatenon Club (Crawfordsville) in 1883. It was the W. A. W., however,that became, as one historian put it, “intimately connected with the spirit which produced the Golden Age of Indiana literature.”

A Hoosier-dominated institution from its inception, the association’s guiding spirit was Marie L. Andrews of Connersville, who first discussed the idea with J. C. Ochiltree, Indianapolis Herald editor, in the summer of 1885. Ochiltree offered Andrews a list of Herald contributors and also prepared for her a prospectus for a literary organization. That winter, three regular writers for the Herald—Dr. J.N. Matthews, Richard Lew Dawson, and Dr. H. W. Taylor—exchanged correspondence discussing the possibility of calling a “gathering of the poets of the Wabash Valley in some convenient city, or resort, for the purpose of enjoying whatever pleasure might result from a meeting so novel and unique,” remembered Matthews.

Working together, Andrews and Dawson produced a notice, addressed to “The Literary Profession,” which was published on April 3, 1886, in the Chicago Current. The notice called upon “all writers of verse and general literature” to band together to form a new literary association that aimed at discussing “methods of composition, and all topics pertaining to the advancement of literature in America.”

The association’s sponsors received more than one hundred positive responses to their call for action and the first meeting was held in Indianapolis in late June 1886. “In the assembled audience,” wrote a Journal reporter, “was a score or more of persons with enviable reputations as writers, and whose outpourings have graced the pages of volume and magazine, as well as the brighter, but perhaps more evanescent column of the newspaper.”

At the meeting, Thompson was elected as the group’s first president, Andrews as secretary, and Ochiltree as treasurer. A subsequent gathering in October saw the organization adopt both a constitution and a name for itself: the American Association of Writers. Members agreed that the organization’s main mission was to “promote acquaintance and friendship among the literary fraternity, and impart encouragement and enthusiasm to one another.” The association also would work to protect writers against “piratical publishers” and would meet to hear literary work produced by its members.

Speaking at the fall gathering, Thompson warned those in attendance that a meeting involving “literary folk for the purpose of forming a close corporation is, in fact, a pretty good joke, and we ought to be thankful that so little has been said about the fine frenzy of our eyes and the cerulean tinge of our hose. When we come to think about it, we do occupy a doubtful ground, and we must be careful what airs we put on.” Members took their president’s words to heart and, in June 1887, decreased their horizons a bit by changing the organization’s name to the Western Association of Writers, “an appellation,” noted Cottman, “not so inept, since not a few who shared in membership came drifting in from beyond the borders of our state.”

Looking for friendlier surroundings to hold its assemblies, the group found the perfect spot for its artistic endeavors in northern Indiana, at a resort near Warsaw known as Spring Fountain Park Assembly on Eagle Lake (now Winona Lake). “Than this spot with its shady groves of forest trees, it profusion of gushing crystal waters, its limpid lake, and withal, its ample hotel and auditorium accommodations, nothing could be more inviting as an Arcadian setting where poets and birds alike might sing their melodious lays,” said Cottman.

From the first, the new surroundings for its annual gathering proved to be a boon for the W.A.W.Taking advantage of special rates offered by the Big Four Railroad Company,members competed for available spaces in the Eagle Lake Hotel (with room rates at $1.25 to $1.50 per day) and in nearby towns. During the morning and evening,those attending the convention listened to poems, stories, and addresses by fellow members while the afternoon, as the convention program stated, “will be given to recreation and social enjoyments,” which included boating, fishing,and swimming.

Cottman had found memories of the association’s conventions, recalling “long sunny June afternoons when earth and sky and sparkling waters were at their best, and our genial fraternity surrendered itself to sweet-do-nothing.” Usually, the W.A.W. had the hotel mainly to itself and its members could explore the “nooks and byways of the shady grounds” tot heir hearts content, Cottman remembered.

The association’s most successful conventions were those that featured its most celebrated member: Riley. “When word got around he[Riley] would be up for the annual jam session,” said James Weygand in his history of the association, “its success was almost assured. Everyone knew he’d be on the program for a poem or two, and that he could be coaxed into a couple more.

Riley’s patronage helped keep interest high at the association’s early conventions, but, with his increasing popularity keeping Riley away, attendance dropped considerably as the organization moved into the new century. The aging of the W.A.W.’s founders and low annual dues ($2 per year) were also factors that helped to speed the association’s downfall. In 1904 an attempt was made to revive the moribund organization by Opie Reed, a leading figure in the Chicago Press Club. On December 16, 1904, the club sponsored a reception honoring “that great organization of writers which has taken so prominent a place in the literature of the west.” Although the Chicago group brought new blood into the W. A. W., it could not breathe new life into the once flourishing organization and it quietly disbanded.

Discerning the association’s effect on the state’s literary history is a difficult task. In its two decades of existence, it did produce a few volumes containing the work presented at the group’s annual convention. Its greatest contribution, however, came through the association’s ability to provide a needed spark to the creative process for hundreds of writers in Indiana and the Midwest. There was, as Cottman noted, “nothing else in existence quite like it.” Even if the organization rested not on “solid accomplishments as on the little vanities of would-be writers,” the fact remains, he continued, that the association stood as “an integral part of our literary history.”

The Historian as Adventurer

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:43:00 +0000

On this day in 1855, Indiana historian, journalist, author, and political reformer Jacob Piatt Dunn Jr. was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. A "political man of letters," Dunn wide-ranging interests included campaigning to establish free public libraries across the state, revitalizing a moribund Indiana Historical Society during the 1880s, reforming the state's constitution, and preserving the language of the Miami Indians. Well into his sixties, Dunn left his home in Indianapolis for adventures in a foreign land.

In 1879 a twenty-five-year-old Indianapolis attorney decided to give up the rigors of the law for a potentially more lucrative career—that of a prospector in the Colrado silver fields. That young man, Jacob Piatt Dunn Jr., never did strike it rich through prospecting, but he did discover something far more important, trades other than law that sustained him for the rest of his life: journalism and history.

Forty-two years later, Dunn, now a respected Indiana historian and political reformer, left the Hoosier state on another adventure. This time Dunn, well into his sixties, journeyed to the island of Hispaniola, which includes the present-day countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with the announced intention of attempting to find the lost gold mine of Christopher Columbus. According to a page-one account of Dunn’s trip in the Indianapolis Star, the mine that the historian sought was that from which the gold was taken that was presented to the Spanish court by Columbus on his return from several of his voyages.

In this, as in many other instances during his life, Dunn was exercising his well-known wit by spreading such a story. Actually, the main purpose of his journey to the tropics was to prospect for another rich mineral—manganese. For his trip to Hispaniola, the second largest island in the Caribbean, Dunn, the author of classic histories of Indiana and Indianapolis, was acting as field agent for the Hispaniola Mining Company, a group that included as officers such prominent Indianapolis men as Samuel Ralston, former Indiana governor; Solomon S. Kiser of the Meyer-Kiser Bank; and Elmer W. Stout of the Fletcher American National Bank.

The company charged Dunn with journeying to Hispaniola and, if possible, obtaining a concession for mining manganese under the local laws. Richard Lieber, head of the Indiana Department of Conservation, helped strengthen Dunn’s position with U.S. officials in Haiti (American military forces occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934) by appointing him as a special deputy geologist for the collection of exhibits for the Indiana State Museum.

As he had many years before as a prospector in Colorado, Dunn threw himself wholeheartedly into his newest enterprise, frequently writing his family back home in Indianapolis and keeping detailed journals of his experiences. Leaving the United States on December 23, 1921, Dunn journeyed south aboard the Panama Railroad Steamship Line's S. S. General Gorgas, in which he occupied a cabin approximately two feet by six feet in size. The room’s small size, and its unfortunate location over some steam pipes, failed to dislodge Dunn’s good humor. He noted that his quarters were no “worse than a Pullman on the Chesapeake & Ohio [railroad].”

Onboard the ship Dunn displayed the same affability he was known for back home. To help the passengers become better acquainted, Dunn organized a Christmas Day celebration for the small number of children on the ship. “There was some difficulty about [obtaining] a Santa Claus costume,” he noted, “but I made some whiskers out of mop furnished by the steward, and with the aid of bath robe, a canvas hat, and some rouge, I got up a fair imitation, or burlesque, of Santa, which satisfied the youngsters.”

Arriving in Port-au-Prince on December 29, 1921, Dunn settled into lodgings provided by the Haytian American Sugar Company (known in Haiti as Hasco), a firm for which his wife’s cousin worked. Over the next few days, Dunn prepared himself for his mineral exploration of Haiti. Before journeying into the countryside he consulted with Professor Edward Roumain, who was in charge of Haiti’s exhibit at the 1904 Saint Louis Exposition. Roumain welcomed the Hoosier explorer “with open arms” and helped to arrange a guide for his trip.

After conferring with Roumain, Dunn next busied himself with purchasing his supplies. He bought a horse, complete with saddle and bridle, for thirty-six dollars and also furnished himself with a pickax, frying pan, small stew pan, two teaspoons, two tin cups, two small cans of Armour pork and beans, and three cans of sardines. Also, on the advice of American officials worried that Dunn might be set upon by thieves during his journey, he received permission from Haiti’s chief of police to carry a 44-caliber Colt revolver and twenty rounds of ammunition.

For his ambitious trip into the Haitian interior, Dunn hired a guide named Oceart Noël, a bespectacled black man he described as being only four feet, six inches tall. Noël agreed to be Dunn’s guide for five days, to furnish his own horse, a pack animal, and an interpreter, all for twenty-nine dollars. The interpreter, named Salomon Télamour, “proved to have command of about thirty words of English, but is quite proud of them,” Dunn said.

The elderly Dunn managed to make his excursions into the mountainous countryside without too much difficulty. The local food did upset his “internal workings,” which he later calmed with liberal doses of milk of magnesia, and when arising in the morning after trying to sleep on a hammock (the cold night air kept him awake), he had to “do gymnastics for several minutes” in order to relieve his cramped muscles. Although his companions claimed he spoke the native French “like a French oyster,” Dunn was able to build good relations with the Haitians he encountered on his travels due to tendering a “substantial reward for any service rendered.”

Dunn may have had good luck in charming the native Haitians with his largesse, but he failed in his quest to discover sufficient quantities of manganese to risk large-scale mining operations in the country. Returning with his specimens to Port-au-Prince on January 17, 1922, Dunn had his first bath and shave in almost a week. His adventure, it seems, had taken a toll. “Appearance somewhat improved,” he noted in his log, “but a trifle gaunt. The trip had evidently been some strain.”

A refreshed Dunn took the specimens he collected to be analyzed at the sugar company’s laboratory by a Dr. Joy, a Haitian chemist employed by the firm. “We satisfied ourselves,” Dunn noted, “that there was not a particle of manganese in any of them. He later wrote his wife, Charlotte, the following about his unfortunate news: “I am including the log herewith, and there is little else to say. The manganese scheme is gone glimmering, and I expect to know pretty soon whether there is anything in the gold proposition.”

Coming up empty in Haiti, Dunn hoped for better luck in the neighboring Santo Domingo, which since 1916 had been occupied by the U.S. Marine Corps. While in Santo Domingo, Dunn conferred with American officials in charge of public works for the country and was able to obtain motor transportation into the countryside where he could investigate reports of large manganese and gold deposits. He found neither. Charlotte sympathized with her husband's misfortune, writing: “Too bad about the manganese. I hope other things will look more promising—but you know I was never very optimistic. Still, success would be most welcome! At any rate, you are getting this out of your system, and having a complete change and a good time. Perhaps something good will ‘turn up’ when you return.”

A disappointed Dunn returned to the United States the same way he had gone: by boat. The Hoosier historian arrived in New York Harbor on March 2, 1922, and made his way overland to his Indianapolis home. His bold adventure in the West Indies may have failed to provide Dunn with riches from precious metals, but it did offer him the opportunity to investigate and write about Haitian dialects and the island’s voodoo cult for Indianapolis newspapers.

Unfortunately, during his travels in Haiti Dunn had contracted some form of tropical disease that left him susceptible to jaundice. He died on June 6, 1924. Dunn’s death received front-page coverage in both the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis News. Commenting on his fellow Democrat's death, former governor Ralston expressed his “great admiration” for Dunn. Ralston noted that the first time he heard Dunn make a speech its subject was the value of circulating libraries to citizens. “It was characteristic of him to be most interested in those things that most benefited the people,” said Ralston. Dunn was not only loyal to the truth, at whatever the cost, Ralston added, but also loyal to his friends. “And trustworthy—absolutely so,” said Ralston. “I shall miss him.”

Happy Birthday Janet Flanner

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 12:05:00 +0000

The New Yorker writer Janet Flanner was born on this day in Indianapolis in 1892. In honor of her birthday, the following is a piece I wrote on her life upon her induction into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame in 2009.

As a young girl growing up as part of one of Indianapolis’s leading families, Janet Flanner had a path in life already set for her by her mother, Mary, who wanted her daughter to be what she strived to be—an actress. Janet balked at her mother’s plans, pointing to her prominent nose as a barrier to any career on the stage. “I pointed out that with this nose I’d be playing Juliet’s nurse or Juliet’s nurse’s nurse, and never Juliet,” she later told a reporter from the International Herald Tribune. Instead of a life in the theater, Janet aspired to a different artistic endeavor, that of a writer.

Flanner achieved her ambition, becoming one of the stalwarts of one of America’s finest magazines, The New Yorker. From 1925 until her retirement in 1975, she produced—under the pen name Genêt—hundreds of thousands of words as the magazine’s Paris correspondent. In her “Letter from Paris” she sketched profiles for her readers of such notable figures as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau, Albert Camus, and Charles de Gaulle. Her later editor at The New Yorker, William Shawn, described Flanner as “a poet among journalists.” Flanner, who died at the age of eighty-six in 1978, said of her long career: “I love writing. I’m just nuts on writing. Just give me an inkpot and a paper and a pen, and away I go.”

Born on March 13, 1892, Flanner was the second child of Mary Hockett and Francis Flanner, one of the founders of Indianapolis’s Flanner and Buchanan Mortuaries and a leader in the community regarding business and philanthropic ventures, including the Flanner House. Although at first educated in public schools, Janet later attended Tudor Hall School for Girls, a private college preparatory institution. After graduation, she spent time with her family visiting Germany. Financial pressures and personal problems drove Francis Flanner to commit suicide in 1912. After her father’s death, Janet attended the University of Chicago, taking several writing classes. “I went there two years,” she noted. “I was requested to leave. Lawless. They [university officials] did object to my coming in so often at 3 a.m. I was mad on dancing.” After leaving the university, she worked for nine months at a reform school in Philadelphia.

In 1916 Flanner returned to her hometown to work on the Indianapolis Star. Under the tutelage of the newspaper’s drama critic, Frank Tarkington Baker, she broke ground as one of the country’s first movie critics. “It was an intelligent decision for Frank Tarkington Baker [the Star’s drama critic] to treat movies, though newcomers, as important,” Flanner later told Star reporter Lawrence “Bo” Connor. Baker assigned her to review the first movie for the paper—Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid. She wrote three-quarters of a column on the film and was later delighted when her review was used to promote the movie, a common practice today. Flanner also turned her writing skills to covering numerous burlesque shows, but was not allowed to stay by management for the program’s second act. “That’s where you saw the Jewish and Irish comedians,” Flanner recalled. “Behind the chorus girls. That’s really the kind of theater I took to innately, much to my mother’s shock.”

Flanner left Indianapolis shortly after her marriage to William Rehm, a New York City artist she had known at the University of Chicago. The marriage lasted only a few years, however, and Flanner later met Solita Solano, drama editor for the New York Tribune, in Greenwich Village. The two women became partners, staying together for approximately fifty years. While in New York Flanner tried to produce freelance articles for magazines and met and became friends with the writers and critics that made up the Algonquin Round Table. One of them was Jane Grant, a strong feminist and the wife of Harold Ross, later one of the founders of the sophisticated weekly magazine The New Yorker. When Solano went to Greece for an assignment in 1921, Flanner traveled with her and the two eventually settled in Paris. She quickly made connections with the expatriate literary community of the Left Bank that included such figures as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein.

Her fascinating life with the members of the Lost Generation and the culture and people of France were regular features of letters Flanner wrote to Grant. Impressed by her friend’s writing, Grant urged Ross to include them as a regular department in his struggling magazine. He agreed; Flanner’s first “Letter from Paris” appeared in The New Yorker’s October 10, 1925 issue. For her work, Flanner received, at first, $35 a column, a “great sum,” she noted, at that time. Ross helped to shape the style of Flanner’s writing, cautioning her: “I’m not paying you to tell me what you think. I want to know what the French are thinking.” Every two weeks, Flanner produced 2,500 words of copy in a conversational style about significant happenings in French politics and culture under the pseudonym Genêt, a name selected by Ross that puzzled Flanner for years. “I looked up the French meanings and found three, none of which mattered,” she said. “Ross never told me what it meant. Frankly, I think he thought it was a nice French way of spelling Janet.”

Living most of the time in a room at the Hotel Continental on the Rue Castigilione, Flanner took her writing seriously, often preparing by reading eight different newspapers a day and pounding out her copy on an small Olivetti typewriter. “I work with a conscientious kind of discipline,” she said. “I work like a beaver, I go over each Letter for clarification, for mining, for a spot of gold.” Flanner noted she reviewed her work again and again, going over a sentence several times. “I nag it, gnaw it, pat and flatter it,” she said. Flanner became a familiar sight on Parisian streets in her tailored suits, bobbed gray hair, and monocle. “I look rather like an 18th century judge off the bench,” she observed.

Driven from Paris by the Nazi invasion during World War II, Flanner returned to the United States, living in New York. She returned to Paris in 1944, following the advancing U.S. Army as it liberated France. In addition to continuing to produce her “Letter from Paris,” she also did several weekly fifteen-minute radio broadcasts for the NBC Blue Network. The work took its toll on Flanner. “I was down to 99 pounds after those 11 months,” she noted, but added that she “liked every minute of it.”

Before her death on November 17, 1978, Flanner received numerous honors for her work. In 1948 the French government made her a knight of the Légion d’honneur. She also received an honorary doctorate by Smith College and in 1966 won a National Book Award for her work Paris Journal: 1944–1965. Asked by a reporter late in her life how she accomplished all she had done through the years, Flanner noted that she was not “one of those journalists with a staff. I don’t even have a secretary. I act as a sponge. I soak it up and squeeze it out in ink every two weeks.”

Indianapolis's First Newspaper

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:56:00 +0000

In lieu of news on my upcoming book projects, here is an article I wrote many years ago that has yet to be published. I did present it as a paper at the annual meeting of the Indianapolis-Marion County Historical Society many years ago. It is about Indianapolis's first newspaper, the Indianapolis Gazette.

About two weeks before Christmas in 1821, a family, after an arduous journey from Jeffersonville, Indiana, finally stopped their wagon before their home in the new state capital of Indianapolis. Inside the four-horse wagon in which they had made the trip were the family’s meager possessions and the items upon which they would depend for their livelihood—the type, cases, press and other materials necessary for equipping a printing office.

From a one-room cabin George Smith, with assistance from his daughter Elizabeth and a recently hired journeyman printer lodged in a nearby cabin, on January 28, 1822 published the inaugural issue of the first newspaper ever printed in Indianapolis—the Indianapolis Gazette. For the next year, until the appearance of the Western Censor and Emigrant’s Guide, the Gazette served as one of the few means of state, national, and international news for the central Indiana community.

In addition to his important role as newspaper editor, Smith during his life also opened one of the first real estate agencies in Indianapolis and served two terms as an associate judge of the circuit court. John H. B. Nowland, describing Smith in his sketches of prominent citizens of the city, noted that he “was a man of warm feeling and devotion to his friends, and would go any length to serve and accommodate one. He cared nothing for money or property further than to make himself and his family comfortable.” Smith also stood out in the community by the way he wore his hair, braided, hanging down his back in a queue. His choice of hairstyle got him in trouble one day with a lawyer named Gabriel Johnson. During an argument between the two men, Johnson grabbed the judge by queue and seemed to have the upper hand for a time. Nowland noted, however, that Smith managed to rally and “administered to the lawyer a sound trashing.”

By the time Smith, with the assistance of his stepson and partner Nathaniel Bolton, placed the Gazette before the public, newspapers were well entrenched on the Hoosier scene. In 1804 Elihu Stout had printed the first newspaper in what was then the Indiana Territory, the Indiana Gazette at Vincennes. Other newspaper editors set up shop as settlements grew: Madison had the Western Eagle in 1813, Brookville the Enquirer and Indiana Telegraph in 1815 and shortly thereafter the Indiana Register in Vevay. Between Indiana's admission as a state in 1816 and 1829, papers were also established in Greencastle, Centerville, New Albany, Richmond, Salem, Terre Haute, and, of course, Indianapolis.

The founder of Indianapolis's first press, Smith was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1784. There are differing accounts on where Smith first learned the printing trade. Some historians have him serving as an apprentice with the Bradfords, colonial printers in Pennsylvania, another with the Lexington Observer in Lexington, Kentucky. Wherever he started, Smith, as did many other apprentices, underwent a painful initiation into the printing world. As the low man on the totem pole, apprentices were expected to run errands for the shop owner and his family, sweep the shop, keep the fires kindled, wash type, carry water for cleaning and wetting paper, and other onerous tasks. The chore dreaded most by printing apprentices involved the pelts used for ink balls. These pelts were soaked in chamber lye and gave the entire shop “a characteristic reeking smell.”

After completing his apprenticeship, Smith worked for a number of printing shops, including one that produced the Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Gazette newspaper. While working in Chillicothe, Ohio, in the early 1800s, he met and married Nancy Bolton, a widow with one son, Nathaniel. George and Nancy Smith eventually had a daughter, Elizabeth, born in Chillicothe on February 17, 1809. Elizabeth’s earliest memories centered on the printing office, which often was located in the house the family occupied. Both children helped out by doing small jobs in Smith’s print shop.

In 1820 the Smith family, which also included Nancy Smith’s brother, Uncle Nat Cox, well-known for his skill as a hunter, carpenter, and practical joker, was “seized with the fever of emigration” and decided to move to the young state of Indiana. According to Elizabeth, her father had originally booked passage for the family down the Ohio River on board the steam packet General Pike. Nancy Smith, however, upon seeing the steamboat, flatly refused to travel on what was to her an obviously dangerous craft. Instead, the family made the journey to Jeffersonville, Indiana, on a timber boat that was steered by Nat Cox. Upon reaching Jeffersonville, the family hired a wagon for the trip to Corydon, then the state capital. Displeased with Corydon (what upset Smith about the area is unclear), the family returned to Jeffersonville and there Smith opened a print shop.

The business in Jeffersonville, however, was merely a short stop for Smith, who in moving to Indiana had his eye set on establishing his printing trade in the newly established capital of Indianapolis. Perhaps as Stout had in picking Vincennes as the home for his newspaper, Smith looked forward to winning a contract with Indiana government as the official state printer, a distinction the Gazette later achieved. With the sale of lots in Indianapolis set for the fall of 1821, Smith left Jeffersonville and walked the 111 miles north for the sale.

Upon reaching Indianapolis, Smith bought two lots at the corner of Maryland and West Streets at the intersection of Missouri Street. One of these lots included on it a cabin built by a Kentucky squatter who had deserted it and went back to his native state. Returning to Jeffersonville, again on foot, Smith prepared his family for the move north, all except Nathaniel Bolton, who remained behind to finish some printing work for the state. It was a rough trip; the only settlements the family passed through on their journey were Paoli, Bedford, and Brownstown. They also had to endure a heavy snowstorm, which stopped them dead in their tracks for two days.

Upon reaching Indianapolis Smith, as he had in other locations, set up a print shop in the family home, a one-room cabin that also served as bedroom, dining room, and kitchen. Recalling those early days in Indianapolis, Elizabeth Smith noted that her bed consisted of “two old sugar troughs with rails and short board laid crossways, on which was placed a good feather bed ‘made up nice.’” Her father and mother slept on a bed made with buckeye logs and rails, overlaid with brush. Uncle Nat Cox and a journeyman printer hired to help with work at the fledgling newspaper slept in a neighboring cabin owned by Doctor Kenneth A. Scudder.

In spite of the cramped conditions, Smith, with thirteen-year-old Elizabeth’s help (she had learned how to set type that winter) issued the first edition of the Indianapolis Gazette on January 28, 1822. Jacob Piatt Dunn Jr., in his history of the city, Greater Indianapolis, said that the Gazette was printed on “an old-fashioned, two-pull, Ramage hand press.” Such a primitive press limited a printer's production to approximately seventy-five impressions per hour. After setting type, forms were hand-inked by Smith and Bolton with buckskin balls stuffed with wool. When not in use, these balls were kept soft with liberal doses of raccoon oil. The two outside pages of the four-page newspaper were usually printed early in the week, according to Dunn, with the inside pages on Friday and the whole paper released to subscribers on Saturday.

A subscription to the Gazette cost two dollars, if paid within two months after subscribing, two dollars and fifty cents if within six months or three dollars thereafter. In lieu of cash—often in short supply in pioneer days—the newspaper accepted for payment “produce of every description . . . if delivered at the office.” Rags, a vital substance for the production of newspapers in those days, were also taken in lieu of cash. This barter system for purchasing newspapers continued in Indiana for many years. All the way up until the late nineteenth century of small-town newspapers took produce and livestock for payment.

In that first issue of the Gazette, Smith issued the following statement of purpose for his periodical:

We, this day, issue the first number of the Indianapolis Gazette, without comment: believing that we shall receive a generous support so long as we continue to publish it on principle consonant to the government and the times we live under. The Gazette will be enlarged to a sheet not inferior to any in the state as soon as the support will justify it.

Smith had all the confidence in the world that such support would be forthcoming. Although local news was often lacking in pioneer newspapers, Smith did in that first issue expound a bit on the bright future facing Indianapolis:

The improvement of this town since the sale of lots in October last has surpassed the expectations of those who entertained the greatest hopes of its future prosperity. There have been erected forty dwelling houses and several workshops since that period, and many other buildings are now in contemplation. One grist and two saw-mills are now in operation, within one mile of the centre of the town, and several others are nearly ready to be put into operation, equally as near. Business is comparatively lively at this time. We have, already, mechanics and professional men of the following description and number, to wit: 13 carpenters and joiners, 4 cabinet makers, 8 blacksmiths, 4 boot and shoe makers, 2 tailors, 1 hatter, 2 tanners, 1 saddler, 1 cooper, 4 bricklayers, 2 merchants, 7 houses of entertainment, 3 groceries, 1 school master, 4 physicians, one minister of the gospel and 3 counselors at law.

There were numerous problems to be faced, however, by anyone foolhardy enough to attempt publishing a newspaper on the frontier during the early nineteenth century. “The first problem of the printer,” noted one Indiana newspaper historian, “was to get paper, the second to get news, and the third to get paid.”

Securing the necessary paper for printing a newspaper proved to be a difficult task for any Indiana publisher at this time. Until 1826, when one was opened north of Madison, there were no paper mills in the state. According to Justin H. Brown, an early chronicler of Smith’s life, the paper for the Gazette’s first issue was brought by wagon from Springfield, Ohio, by George Smith’s father. Inadequate paper supplies sometimes led to the newspaper suspending publication for a week or two.

For news to fill the Gazette's columns, Smith and Bolton had did not have the luxury of turning to a newsroom of trained reporters ready at a moment's notice to scour the countryside unearthing interesting tidbits for readers. Instead, they had to rely on a unpredictable source—the mail. At a time when local news was “all over town,” noted Dunn, by the time it made its way to an editor, national and international news dominated newspaper columns. In fact, one scholar has noted, the “more exotic the location, the more news value an item seemed to possess in the minds of pioneer editors.”

To relay this kind of information to his readers, Smith, and other publishers, relied on mail dispatches concerning messages from the federal government and items of interest culled from other newspapers scattered throughout the country. Speeches and other messages from the president and Congress were related to readers in their entirety, without the news analysis that is commonplace today—a boon to politicians wanting to communicate their ideas and plans directly to their constituents.

There was one problem: Indianapolis had no post office nor any regular mail service at the time the Gazette started publication. Smith set out to remedy the situation. On January 30, 1822, a meeting was held at Hawkins’ tavern to arrange a private mail service. Under this system, all the mail for the community would be gathered at one post office and brought back to the city by a rider hired especially for that task. Those attending the meeting hired Aaron Drake as carrier and arranged with him to bring the mail from Connersville once a month.

Drake issued a circular to postmasters requesting that they forward all mail for Indianapolis to the Connersville office. Drake’s first distribution of the mail was very dramatic. “He returned from his . . . trip after nightfall," according to Brown, “his horn sounding far through the woods, arousing the people who turned out in the bright moonlight to greet him and learn the news.” An Indianapolis post office finally opened for business on March 7, 1822, putting Drake out of a job. Even with a post office in the community, the flow of news could be halted by everything from bad weather to incompetent post riders, who sometimes fortified themselves with alcohol before setting out on their journeys.

Even with adequate paper supplies and fresh news from the mails, the Gazette’s owners faced a never-ending struggle to make ends meet. George Cottman, Indiana Magazine of History founder and a printer himself, noted that in the early days of Indiana statehood "the sentiment seemed to prevail that the newspaper man and the doctor could wait for their pay a little longer than any one else." Along with subscriptions, Smith relied for income on classified advertising (Calvin Fletcher was a frequent advertiser on behalf of his law practice) and printing such items as pamphlets, handbills, cards and blank forms of every description, which, Smith and Bolton claimed, would be “executed at this office on a short notice and on moderate terms.”

To help keep their business solvent, Smith and Bolton also printed and offered for sale through advertisements in the Gazette books and almanacs. One of the first books the Indianapolis printers offered to the public was one titled The Indiana Justice and Farmers Scrivener, which contained information on the office and duties of justices of the peace, sheriffs, clerks, coroners, constables, township officers, jurymen, and jailers. Also, the book included a number of examples of written contracts that a farmer, mechanic or trader would have occasion for using during their life. Even in pioneer days, lawyers had to contend with a do-it-yourself ethic.

An 1831 almanac printed by Smith and Bolton, a copy of which is in the Indiana Historical Society's William Henry Smith Memorial Library, offered information not only on the phases of the moon aspects of the planets, but also listings of federal and state officials and helpful advice for Indianapolis gardeners.

Smith and Bolton published the Gazette together until July 1829 when politics came between them. Until that time, the newspaper had been politically neutral, a path that Bolton wished to continue. His step-father, however, wanted the paper to support Andrew Jackson and his policies. Bolton remained in charge of the Gazette while Smith announced his intentions to start a new paper to be known as The Jacksonian. In an August 6, 1829, letter printed in the Gazette, Smith proclaimed to readers that materials for The Jacksonian “are now ready and will shortly be here from Cincinnati.” Unfortunately, if any such newspaper was published, there is no record of it today.

Smith’s dream of a pro-Jackson newspaper did come true. On October 22, 1829, George L. Kinnard took over as part owner of the Gazette, changed its name to the Indiana State Gazette, and turned the newspaper's politics to pro-Democratic and a staunch supporter of Jackson. In late March 1830, the newspaper’s last ties to the Smith family dissolved as Bolton sold his interest to Alexander F. Morrison and the paper’s name was changed again, to the Indiana Democrat and State Gazette.

After leaving the printing business, Smith retired to his farm, called Mount Jackson, which was located on Indianapolis’s near west side. After what was described as a long illness, Smith died on April 10, 1836. His stepson, Bolton, took over the Mount Jackson farm and lived there with his wife, the poet Sarah T. Bolton. The two operated a tavern on the site until 1845, when the Boltons sold the property to the state as the new home for the Central Hospital for the Insane. In 1851 Bolton was elected as state librarian and four years later was named as consul to Geneva, Switzerland, by President Franklin Pierce. He remained in Switzerland until 1857, when ill health forced him to return to Indianapolis. He died on November 26, 1858.

Most Indiana historians would probably agree that Smith was not an outstanding newspaper man. But he typified the pioneer editor and provided through the pages of his newspaper a valuable resource to his readers. As R. C. Buley noted in his classic The Old Northwest, the Gazette and other newspapers of its type played a vital role in pioneer society, furnishing “the bulk of the knowledge of the essentials of representative government,” a task still being undertaken by newspapers today.

Happy Birthday Juliet

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:31:00 +0000

Saturday, January 7, is the birthday of a Hoosier original, Juliet Strauss, who was born on that day in 1863 in Rockville, Indiana.

During her life, Strauss wrote for her hometown Rockville Tribune newspaper and produced a steady stream of common-sense, down-to-earth observations on life for Indiana readers of her weekly “Country Contributor” column in the Indianapolis News and, from 1905 until her death in 1918, for the approximately one million Ladies' Home Journal subscribers through her column “The Ideas of a Plain Country Woman.”

Strauss came to be considered as one of the most widely read female writers in America. Indiana historian Jacob Piatt Dunn, Jr., who noted that Strauss’s writing possessed the Hoosier characteristic of “optimism and wholesomeness,” claimed that the Rockville writer was “more widely read than any American essayist has ever been.” In the history of the world, Dunn went on to say of Strauss, “nobody ever wrote so much about the common things of everyday life, and held their readers.”

I first came across Strauss while doing research for an article on Indiana’s centennial celebration for Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History in 1991. Her life and work intrigued me and I subsequently wrote an article about her career for the spring 1995 issue of Traces, which examined Hoosier literature. Through the years, I have developed a genuine fondness for this Hoosier original whose column "The Ideas of a Plain Country Woman" in the Ladies’ Home Journal attracted readers from throughout the country. It was not only her work for the Journal, and her columns in both the Rockville Tribune and Indianapolis News, that drew me into investigating her life, but also her dedicated efforts at saving from destruction the scenic splendor that now is Turkey Run State Park. The result was my biography, The Country Contributor: The Life and Times of Juliet V. Strauss, published in 1998.

What writer could resist examining the life of a person who had so dedicated a following that the Woman’s Press Club of Indiana spearheaded an effort to erect a statue in Strauss’s honor at the park, which was sculpted by Myra R. Richards of Indianapolis. What was it about “The Country Contributor” that inspired this intriguing work, titled Subjugation? The impressive statue features a graceful figure of a woman with one arm outstretched holding aloft a slender goblet. Her other hand rests on the head of a peacock, which symbolizes pride. Crouched before the woman are a lion, representing brute force, and a tiger, signifying treachery. In the folds of the gown that fall from her figure are an ape, representing imitation in contrast to the genuine, and a wild boar, signifying gluttony. How many hikers have passed by this site and wondered how it came to be at Turkey Run?

There are, however, more complex reasons for a biographer to devote time and energy to their craft. I would be remiss if I failed to point out that I was drawn to Strauss in part because she captivated me with her frank comments about her life and career. In one example, she wrote George Cottman, Hoosier historian and Indiana Magazine of History founder, expressing her frustration early in her career over her failed attempts at convincing publishers to print her work. She confessed to Cottman that it made her “sick to see others who have scarcely a grain of talent printing their trash in respectable publications.” A bitter and self-serving statement perhaps, but it is also an honest one.

Zionsville Library Talk January 10

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:44:00 +0000

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I will be at the Hussey-Mayfield Memorial Public Library, 250 North Fifth Street in Zionsville, at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, January 10, to talk about my book Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary.

On April 4, 1968, Kennedy, a U.S. senator from New York, came to Indianapolis as part of his campaign for the Indiana Demcoratic presidential primary. Instead of a standard stump speech, he passed along the tragic news of King's death to a stunned crowd at the Broadway Christian Center at Seventeenth and Broadway streets.

The news of King’s death had sparked outrage and violence across the country. Riots had broken out in more than a hundred cities and approximately 75,000 National Guard and federal troops were called out to maintain some semblance of order. Thanks, in no small part to Kennedy’s calming words, the streets of Indianapolis remained quiet; there were no riots in the Circle City.

For more information on the program, call the library at (317) 873-3149.

Wallace Talk at Lebanon Public Library

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:38:00 +0000

At 6:30 p.m. Monday, November 21, I will be at the Lebanon Public Library, 104 East Washington Street, Lebanon, Indiana, to talk about the life and times of Hoosier author and Civil War general Lew Wallace. My talk before the local Civil War Roundtable will concentrate on Wallace's service in the war, including his early successes with the Eleventh Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, saving the day at the Battle of Fort Donelson, the controversey about his actions at the Battle of Shiloh, and the resurrection of his career thanks to helping save such Union cities as Cincinnati and Washington, D.C. (Battle of Monocacy)

In preparing my talk, I realized that while Wallace is best known today for writing the best-selling novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, his Civil War soldiering does not get the attention it deserves. On January 11, 1910, a large crowd gathered at the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington for the unveiling of a Wallace statue to join the one of Oliver P. Morton representing Indiana. Although Wallace was the first author to be represented with a statue, you will notice that in the photograph he is not in author garb, but wearing his Civil War uniform.

Holiday Author Fair December 3

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:14:00 +0000

For the ninth year in a row (a new record, perhaps), I will be participating in the annual Holiday Author Fair from noon to 4 p.m. at the Indiana History Center, 450 West Ohio Street, Indianapolis. (That's me with Philip Gulley at the 2009 Author Fair.)

More than 60 Hoosier authors will be at the Fair selling their wares. Among those in attendance will be filmmaker Angelo Pizzo, Chef Daniel Orr and local media personalities Howard Caldwell, Dick Wolfsie and Lou Harry along with bestselling authors James Alexander Thom and Dark Rain Thom and 2009 Indiana Poet Laureate Norbert Krapf.

There will be speakers throughout the day, holiday music, refreshments, and free gift wrapping. The Author Fair is free with admission to the Indiana Experience. For complimentary admission tickets, please drop me an e-mail at reboomer@yahoo.com.

Author interview

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:33:00 +0000

Here's an interview I did a few months back with Smithville Communication's Rob Ramsey to help highlight the 50th anniversary of Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 mission into space. Here is the interview.

Nov. 8 Book Signing

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:36:00 +0000

To commemorate the upcoming Veteran's Day holiday, I will be at the UPUI Barnes & Noble Bookstore from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, November 8, signing copies of my World War II-themed books.

The books that will be available are:

* Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu
* The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle
* "One Shot": The World War II Photography of John A. Bushemi

Lessons from a Master

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:45:00 +0000

When I sit down to write a nonfiction book or article, one of the authors I try to emulate is longtime New Yorker writer John McPhee. The other day I came across an interview McPhee did with the Paris Review in spring 2010. In the interview, McPhee offered details on how he prepares for his well researched books and offered advice any nonfiction writer could use.

Some of the gems that attracted my attention included:

"The thing about writers is that, with very few exceptions, they grow slowly—very slowly."

"At one point I said, Mr. Shawn, you have this whole enterprise going, a magazine is printing this weekend, and you’re the editor of it, and you sit here talking about these commas and semicolons with me—how can you possibly do it? And he said, It takes as long as it takes. A great line, and it’s so true of writing. It takes as long as it takes."

"There are zillions of ideas out there—they stream by like neutrons. What makes somebody pluck forth one thing—a thing you’re going to be spending as much as three years with? If I went down a list of all the pieces I ever had in The New Yorker, upward of ninety percent would relate to things I did when I was a kid."

"Structure is not a template. It’s not a cookie cutter. It’s something that arises organically from the material once you have it."

"With nonfiction, you’ve got your material, and what you’re trying to do is tell it as a story in a way that doesn’t violate fact, but at the same time is structured and presented in a way that makes it interesting to read.

I always say to my classes that it’s analogous to cooking a dinner. You go to the store and you buy a lot of things. You bring them home and you put them on the kitchen counter, and that’s what you’re going to make your dinner out of. If you’ve got a red pepper over here—it’s not a tomato. You’ve got to deal with what you’ve got. You don’t have an ideal collection of material every time out."

"You write a lead. You sit down and think, Where do I want this piece to begin? What makes sense? It can’t be meretricious. It’s got to deliver on what you promise. It should shine like a flashlight down through the piece."

"You look for good juxtapositions. If you’ve got good juxtapositions, you don’t have to worry about what I regard as idiotic things, like a composed transition. If your structure really makes sense, you can make some jumps and your reader is going to go right with you. You don’t need to build all these bridges and ropes between the two parts."

"Stories are always really, really hard. I think it’s totally rational for a writer, no matter how much experience he has, to go right down in confidence to almost zero when you sit down to start something. Why not? Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you."

"All these labels—I’ve been called an agricultural writer, an outdoor writer, an environmental writer, a sportswriter, a science writer. And so you just grin. I’m a writer who writes about real people in real places. End of story."

Indy Author Fair October 29

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:38:00 +0000

I will be joining a number of other Hoosier authors selling and signing copies of my books at the Indy Author Fair from noon to 1 p.m. on Saturday, October 29, at the Central Library, 40 East Saint Clair Street, Indianapolis. The fair is part of the annual Eugene & Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, a program of The Indianapolis Public Library Foundation, The Indianapolis Public Library, and The Writers’ Center of Indiana.

In addition to the Author Fair, various workshops on writing will be presented at the Central Library from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Among the subjects to be explored are self publishing your book, how to write mysteries, publishing poetry, publishing romance fiction, and freelance writing. A complete schedue for the day can be found here.

Back in Business

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:37:00 +0000

After finally finishing the final draft of my biography of the late Indiana congressman and environmentalist Jim Jontz, I am back to report on events of note regarding my other publications. I will be in Franklin, Indiana, at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, October 19, at the Johnson County Public Library, 401 State Street, for an Indiana Humanities-sponsored "Novel Conversations" program on World War II fighter pilot Alex Vraciu (seen here shaking hands with Admiral Marc Mitscher.

My book Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu, copies of which will be available for sale at the talk, examines how Vraciu, possessed with keen eyesight, quick reflexes, excellent shooting instincts, and a knack for finding his opponent's weak spot, became skilled in the deadly game of destroying the enemy in the skies over the Pacific Ocean. For a period of four months in 1944, Vraciu stood as the leading ace in the U.S. Navy. He shot down nineteen enemy airplanes in the air, destroyed an additional twenty-one on the ground, and sank a large Japanese merchant ship with a well-placed bomb hit.

To register for the free program, call (317) 738-2833.

Celebrating Gus

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:33:00 +0000

Had a great time Thursday evening in Mitchell, Indiana, where I spoke as part of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 mission on July 21, 1961.

I talked about Gus and the Apollo 1 tragedy before a large and appreciative audience in the Gus Grissom Auditorium at Mitchell High School. Probably the biggest response I got during my talk came early on when I explained why I decided to write about Gus's life--as a way to rescue his reputation from the blackening it received thanks in some ways to Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff, and especially from director Philip Kaufman's 1983 movie of the same name. It was also good to see Gus's brother, Lowell Grissom, whom I previously met at the rededication of the Grissom Memorial at Spring Mill State Park Also at the talk were a group of engineers from McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, the company that built both the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft.

The Mitchell community should be proud of the way it honored one of its famous native sons. Thanks to the Mitchell Community Public Library for inviting me to be a part of the celebration.

Robert Caro Talk at Biography Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:06:00 +0000

In May I attended the second annual Compleat Biographer Conference. Noted writer and biographer Robert Caro was honored for his work at the conference and gave a luncheon talk that inspired many in the audience. Here is that talk:

A Sense of Place from Biographers International Org on Vimeo.

Liberty Bell 7 50th Anniversary Celebration

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:16:00 +0000

On July 21, 1961, Hoosier astronaut Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom became the second American and the third human to rocket into space as a Redstone rocket blasted his Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft into a suborbital flight lasting approximately fifteen minutes.

Grissom's home county of Lawrence will be honoring its favorite son by commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Liberty Bell 7 mission with special events from July 21 to 23 at venues located at Spring Mill State Park and the neighboring cities of Mitchell (where Gus was born and raised) and Bedford.

As Gus's biographer (Gus Grissom: The Lost Astronaut), I will be doing a program on his the ill-fated Apollo 1 mission that took his life along with fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee in a fire on January 27, 1967. My talk begins at 6 p.m. in the Grissom Auditorium at Mitchell High School, 1000 Bishop Boulevard, Mitchell. Following my talk will be a presentation of the Discovery Channel documentary on the search and recovery of the Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft. Afterwards, Kurt Newport, the man who led the search for the capsule and documented the recovery on film, will speak and answer questions from the audience.

Other programs during the next few days include a Friday luncheon with two other Lawrence County astronauts, Charlie Walker and Ken Bowersox; a Saturday open house at the Grissom boyhood home in Mitchell; a grand parade through the streets of Mitchell; and a Saturday evening reception at the Grissom Memorial at Spring Mill State Park.

This Writing Life

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Wed, 25 May 2011 11:54:00 +0000

Just returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., where I participated in the second annual Compleat Biographer Conference sponsored by the Biographers International Organization. I was lucky enough to be invited to sit on a panel discussing "Writing Biography Pieces for Magazines and Online."

It was somewhat overwhelming to sit in the ballroom at the National Press Club alongside a couple of hundred other people who had written or were interested in writing biography. During lunch alone I sat at a table with a woman writing a biography of the physicist who helped leak the secret of the atomic bomb to the Russians (Klaus Fuchs), the head of the manuscripts department at the Library of Congress, and the editor of Consumer Reports (Greg Daugherty, who was alson on the panel discussion with me and Wil Haygood of the Washington Post. Impressive company indeed.

"Vast Wasteland" Speech

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Wed, 11 May 2011 12:14:00 +0000

This week marked an important anniversary in broadcast history. On May 9, 1961, Newton Minow, recently appointed as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission by President John F. Kennedy, spoke before a convention of the National Association of Broadcasters.

During his talk, Minow said: "When television is good, nothing--not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers--nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland."

The phrase "vast wasteland" has become famous, and the 50th anniversary has been commemorated with C-Span special programs and articles in a number of newspapers. Lost in all of this is the author of the speech--Hoosier journalist and writer John Bartlow Martin.

In the spring of 1961 Martin, a former Indianapolis Times reporter considered by his peers as "the ablest crime reporter in America, had come to Washington, D.C., to do legwork for a series of articles on television for the Saturday Evening Post. Martin had worked on the presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson and Kennedy, and while in Washington he wrote speeches for Robert Kennedy, Bill Blair (the U.S. ambassador to Denmark), and Minow. "Of the three speeches," Martin noted in his autobiography It Seems Like Only Yesterday, "Newt Minow's had the most impact. It was for Newt an important speech, perhaps the most important he would ever make, for he intended to try to reform televison and the FCC alone had the power to do it."

Martin had begun research for his articles on television by he began the series by describing a day watching television for twenty straight hours, concluding that it had presented “a vast wasteland of junk.”

In writing Minow’s speech, Martin said he suggested he say to the National Association of Broadcasters: “I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air . . . and keep your eyes glued to the set until the station goes off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland of junk.” Martin goes on to note that in editing the speech, Minow “had the wit to cut ‘of junk.’”

Although Martin originated the “vast wasteland” phrase, it took nothing away from Minow, who, as Martin stated, also had the “courage to throw it [the phrase] in the teeth of the broadcasters and thus show the public the need for reform.”

Writing the speech did change the way Martin handled his series for the Post. Although he stuck to his lead on watching television for twenty hours, he had to change the ending of the passage that used "vast wasteland," not as his own summary of what he had seen, but instead writing, "This is what Newton N. Minow, the beleagurered new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has called 'a vast wasteland.'"

Vraciu Talk in Highland

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:41:00 +0000

Calumet Region readers can learn more about one of their area's heroes at a program on World War II fighter ace Alex Vraciu I'll be giving at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 12, at the Highland branch of the Lake County Public Library, 2841 Jewett Avenue, Highland.

My book Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu, copies of which will be available for sale at the talk, examines how Vraciu, possessed with keen eyesight, quick reflexes, excellent shooting instincts, and a knack for finding his opponent's weak spot, became skilled in the deadly game of destroying the enemy in the skies over the Pacific Ocean. For a period of four months in 1944, Vraciu stood as the leading ace in the U.S. Navy. He shot down nineteen enemy airplanes in the air, destroyed an additional twenty-one on the ground, and sank a large Japanese merchant ship with a well-placed bomb hit.

To register for the free program, call (219) 972-7353.

New Review of RFK Book

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:11:00 +0000

I am often astonished about how long it takes for a book to be reviewed in academic journals. Case in point: a new review of my book Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary. Although the book was published in spring 2008 by Indiana University Press, it has just been reviewed in the June 2011 issue of Presidential Studies Quarterly.

The review, by Joseph A. Palermo of California State University, the author of two books on RFK, is an insightful look at my book and one that I am very pleased with. Palermo notes that my "account of the 1968 Indiana primary is a highly readable monograph that contextualizes the campaign quite well," and concludes his review by indicating that the book "is a valuable contribution to RFK scholarship and sheds new light on the inner workings of one of Kennedy's most important political endeavors."

SPJ Journalism Contest Honors

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:15:00 +0000

I was lucky enough to win two honors at the 32nd annual Society of Professional Journalists Best in Indiana Journalism Awards that were announced on Friday, April 22, at a gala awards banquet in Indianapolis. The awards, presented by the Indiana chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, honored print and broadcast work from 2010.

I won first place in the personality profile magazine or special interest publication or periodical for my article in the fall 2010 issue of Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History titled "The People's Choice: Indiana Congressman Jim Jontz."

I also received a third place award in the nonficition book category for my IHS Press publciation Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu. Ted Evanoff and Abe Aamidor won first place in the book category for their work At the Crossroads: Middle America and the Battle to Save the Car Industry.

RFK Speech Anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 13:05:00 +0000

On April 4, 1968, U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy came to Indianapolis as part of his campaign for the Indiana Demcoratic presidential primary. Instead of a standard stump speech, he passed along the tragic news of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. to a stunned crowd at the Broadway Christian Center at Seventeenth and Broadway streets. The forty-third anniversary of that historic speech will be commemorated in a program from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 4, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Indianapolis.

At 7 p.m. I will be attending a special screening of Don Boggs's documentary "A Ripple of Hope" at the IUPUI University Library's Lilly Auditorium. I will be available after the documentary to discuss aspects of the Kennedy campaign in Indiana from my book Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary.

In addition, you can be part of the crowd there that night by visiting the Indiana Historical Society's exhibition "You Are There 1968: Robert F. Kennedy Speaks," which will be at the IHS through April 14, 2012.

Gemini 3 Anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:49:00 +0000

On March 23, 1965, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration took another step on its journey to reaching President John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth before the end of the decade. At 9:24 a.m. a Titan II rocket lifted off from Pad 19 at Cape Kennedy in Florida. Astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young were onboard for a three-orbit mission in the maiden voyage of the Gemini spacecraft, Gemini 3.

The Gemini spacecraft had been nicknamed "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" by Grissom, who wanted to avoid the problems he had experienced during his first flight into space during the Mercury missions onboard the Liberty Bell 7, which had taken on water and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean after its hatch had prematurely exploded.

The Gemini 3 mission proved to be a success, but what caused the most headlines after the journey was an item smuggled aboard the spacecraft--a corned beef sandwich. The day before liftoff, Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford, the mission's backup crew, had stopped at Wolfie’s Deli on North Atlantic Avenue in Cocoa Beach. “We were both irked by the fact that Gus and John weren’t going to have real food on their flight, so Wally had a corned beef sandwich [with pickles] made up,” said Stafford. As Grissom and Young finished suiting up for their trip in their immaculate white G3C pressure suits, Young had stowed the corned beef sandwich in the leg pocket of his suit.

As Grissom monitored Molly Brown’s performance during the flight, he was surprised to hear Young nonchalantly inquire: “You care for a corned beef sandwich, skipper?” Grissom, who noted that if he could have fallen out of his couch he would have, thanked his crewmate for the treat and took a bite. Crumbs from the rye bread, however, started floating around the cabin, and the overpowering aroma of kosher corned beef proved too much for the spacecraft’s life-support system to handle, so Grissom put the sandwich away.

Although the mission proved to be a great success, controversy soon developed regarding the corned beef sandwich briefly enjoyed by Grissom. At first, the astronauts had no inkling that the nonregulation food might cause any fuss, as they joked about it while discussing the flight in Life magazine just a week after the mission’s conclusion. Some members of Congress, however, failed to see any humor in the situation, with NASA administrator James Webb being peppered with complaints at an appropriations subcommittee hearing that the space agency “had lost control of its astronauts.”

The complaints eventually made their way to Deke Slayton, the person in charge of the astronaut office who had given Young permission to take the sandwich on the flight. Slayton officially informed the astronauts they could not take “unauthorized items, especially food, aboard the spacecraft. I even had to give poor John a formal reprimand . . . not that it affected his career.”

Vraciu Book Honored

noreply@blogger.com (Ray Boomhower) — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:31:00 +0000

My book Fighter Pilot: The World War II Career of Alex Vraciu, published by the Indiana Historical Society Press, has been named as a finalist in the juvenile, nonfiction category of ForeWord Magazine's annual Book of the Year awards.

Winners will be determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers selected from ForeWord Magazine's readership. Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners, as well as Editor’s Choice Prizes for fiction and nonfiction will be announced at a special program at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in New Orleans this June. The winners of the two Editor's Choice Prizes will be awarded $1,500 each and ForeWord’s Independent Publisher of the Year will also be announced. The ceremony is open to all ALA attendees and exhibiting publishers.

ForeWord's Book of the Year Awards program was created to spotlight distinctive books from independent publishers. What sets the awards apart from others is that final selections are made by real judges--working librarians and booksellers--based on their experiences with patrons and customers.

The magazine's awards process brings readers, librarians, and booksellers together to select their top categories as well as choose the winning titles. Their decisions are based on editorial excellence, professional production, originality of the narrative, author credentials relative to the book, and the value the book adds to its genre.