IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks :: Browsing by Author "Morgan, Anita"

Browsing by Author "Morgan, Anita"

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“An Act of Tardy Justice”: The Story of Women’s Suffrage in Indiana
(2019) Morgan, Anita; History, School of Liberal Arts
The Butler-Tarkington Neighborhood Association and the Fight Against Residential Segregation in Indianapolis
(2021-07) Prebish, Lydia Anne; Morgan, Anita; Mullins, Paul; Robertson, Nancy
The Butler-Tarkington Neighborhood Association (BTNA) is a community group organized in 1956 by a few concerned couples living in the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood on the north side of Indianapolis. These couples, both Black and white, witnessed a demographic change in their community as their white neighbors fled for the suburbs as the black population expanded. The BTNA, inspired to create an organization that would promote residential integration rather than continued segregation, worked to educate neighbors on the realities of integration, promote neighborhood conversation and comradery, and worked to influence the local and state governments on the impact of segregation that harmed their community. One of the first neighborhood organizations of its kind in the country, the BTNA still exists today, but little is known about their early history. This paper looks at the BTNA’s efforts to promote residential segregation in their community through activism, conversation, and legislative change. Additionally, this paper analyzes the BTNA success in its efforts to integrate the community during their first decade of existence.
The Clowes Family in World War II: 1939 to 1945
(2019-09) Barriger, Ashly; Haberski, Raymond; Cramer, Kevin; Morgan, Anita
Conflicted Duty on the Indiana Home Front: A Family’s Civil War Story
(2020-01) Tanzer, Anastasia; Morgan, Anita; Cramer, Kevin; Robertson, Nancy Marie
This project looks at the Ketcham family of Indianapolis and analyzes how each member had a different sense of duty that led them to take on different activities during the Civil War. It includes both a typical thesis portion and a public history supplement that takes the form of an exhibit brief. The supplement provides an alternate means of presenting the family to the public. The Ketchams were a white, upper-class family, so although many of their ideas and activities aligned with those of others across the northern United States, in this thesis I argue that they also had a unique experience. For example, the matriarch, Jane Merrill Ketcham, chose to serve as a nurse, as did many other women, but her decision took precedence over her husband’s preference. This assertion was noteworthy because, during this time period, women were still typically expected to defer to their fathers or husbands. This conclusion, and others throughout the project, are based on an analysis of both primary and secondary sources. The main primary sources used were the letters included in the Ketcham collection at the Indiana Historical Society, which provided insight to the thoughts, opinions, and activities of most family members – some members had fewer surviving letters than others. Scholarship regarding the Civil War from national, regional, and local perspectives allowed for a fuller picture of what the prevailing views and activities were and understand how the Ketchams were either emblematic of the common experience or different from it.
The Eugenic Origins of Indiana's Muscatatuck Colony: 1920-2005
(2020-09) Bragg, Abigail Nicole; Nelson, Elizabeth; Morgan, Anita; Cramer, Kevin
This thesis examines the widely unknown history and origins of Muscatatuck Colony, located in Butlerville, Indiana. The national eugenics movement impacted the United States politically, medically, legally, and socially. While the United States established mental institutions prior to the eugenics movement, many institutions, including ones in Indiana, were founded as eugenic tools to advance the agenda of achieving a “purer” society. Muscatatuck was one such state institution founded during this national movement. I explore various elements that made the national eugenics movement effective, how Indiana helped advance the movement, and how all these elements impacted Muscatatuck’s founding. I investigate the language used to describe people that were considered “mentally inferior,” specifically who the “feeble-minded” were and how Americans were grouped into this category. I research commonly held beliefs by eugenicists of this time-period, eugenic methods implemented, and how these discussions and actions led to the establishment of Muscatatuck in 1920. Muscatatuck Colony, though a byproduct of the national eugenics movement, outlived this scientific effort. Toward the mid and late twentieth century, Muscatatuck leadership executed institutional change to best reflect American society’s evolving thoughts on mental health and how best to treat people with mental disabilities. Muscatatuck Colony reveals a complicated narrative of how best to treat or care for people within these institutions, a complex narrative that many mental institutions share.
Fort Benjamin Harrison: From Military Base to Indiana State Park
(2020-04) Hankins, Melanie Barbara; Scarpino, Philip V.; Shrum, Rebecca K.; Morgan, Anita
For nearly a hundred years, Fort Benjamin Harrison served as an epicenter of training and organization for United States Army in Indianapolis, Indiana. However, budget cuts pushed the U.S. Congress to close Fort Harrison under the Defense Base Re-Alignment and Closure Act of 1991. Over the following five years, the U.S. federal government, various Indiana state agencies, city governments of Indianapolis and Lawrence, and citizen advocacy groups worked together to develop a reuse plan for the former military base. Succinct planning and compromises allowed 70 percent of the former military base to be converted into an Indiana state park. Over the lifetime of the base a variety of factors resulted in the unintended creation of the largest noncontiguous forest in Central Indiana ---an area perfectly suited as an Indiana state park. As Fort Benjamin Harrison enters its second decade as a state park, park staff must reevaluate the park’s military past and its effects on the land as it is today. This thesis examines the transitional years between the closure of the base and opening of the park, analyzes current interpretive practices at the park, and provides new suggestions for future public programming and interpretive practices.
Grace Julian Clarke: The Emergence of a Political Actor, 1915-1920
(2019-11) Swihart, Jacqueline; Morgan, Anita; Barrows, Robert G.; Kostroun, Daniella J.; Gabin, Nancy F.
The perspectives of unique suffragists and clubwomen in Indiana, like Grace Julian Clarke, reflect the typically overlooked narrative of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Far from a bystander, Clarke engaged in political wars at the state level long before having the right to vote. She demonstrated this ability early on when she acted as a campaign manager during the 1915 Indiana Federation of Clubs presidential election. By its end, club women around the state knew who Clarke was, trusted her word, and looked to her for critical information. As World War I encroached and threatened the nationwide fight for suffrage, Clarke again remained loyal to suffrage by using war-related activities to promote and expand awareness of women’s work and abilities in Indiana. Clarke strategically used these activities as a tool to advocate for enfranchisement by pressing leaders on her belief that women had earned their rightful place as equal partners. Although she stayed active in the suffrage movement throughout the war, it became clear toward its end that her assets as a political leader were demanded at a higher level. As such, she turned her attention toward international affairs (particularly the League of Nations) and away from suffrage. Though the United States never joined the League of Nations, Clarke’s advocacy of the covenant was critical in her formation as a true political influencer. By the time the covenant was being disputed at the national level, Clarke was corresponding with national leaders to coordinate speaking events around the state. She became more exclusive in these speaking engagements, as there were very few women who actually understood the covenant well enough to speak on its behalf. Clarke was unique in her ability to speak out for her own values, in large part due to the influence of her father, former Congressman George W. Julian. Her story demonstrates that women’s political influence did not begin nor end with the 19th amendment. Rather, women’s political influence evolved over time, and is still evolving today.
Limitations and liabilities: Flanner House, Planned Parenthood, and African American birth control in 1950s Indianapolis
(2017-09) Brown, Rachel Christine; Robertson, Nancy Marie; Morgan, Anita; Labode, Modupe
This thesis analyzes the relationship between Flanner House, an African American settlement house, and Planned Parenthood of Central Indiana to determine why Flanner House director Cleo Blackburn would not allow a birth control clinic to be established at the Herman G. Morgan Health Center in 1951. Juxtaposing the scholarship of African Americans and birth control with the historiography of black settlement houses leads to the conclusion that Blackburn’s refusal to add birth control to the health center’s services had little to do with the black Indianapolis community’s opinions on birth control; instead, Flanner House was confined by conservative limitations imposed on it by white funders and organizations. The thesis examines the success of Blackburn and Freeman B. Ransom, Indianapolis’s powerful black leaders, in working within the system of limitations to establish the Morgan Health Center in 1947. Ransom and Blackburn received monetary support from the United Fund, the Indianapolis Foundation, and the U.S. Children’s Bureau, which stationed one of its physicians, Walter H. Maddux, in Indianapolis. The Center also worked as a part of the Indianapolis City Board of Health’s public health program. These organizations and individuals did not support birth control at this time and would greatly influence Blackburn’s decision about providing contraceptives. In 1951, Planned Parenthood approached Blackburn about adding birth control to the services at Morgan Health Center. Blackburn refused, citing the Catholic influence on the Flanner House board. While acknowledging the anti-birth control stance of Indianapolis Catholics, the thesis focuses on other factors that contributed to Blackburn’s decision and argues that the position of Flanner House as a black organization funded by conservative white organizations had more impact than any religious sentiment; birth control would have been a liability for the Morgan Health Center as adding contraceptives could have threatened the funding the Center needed in order to serve the African American community. Finally, the position of Planned Parenthood and Flanner House as subordinate organizations operating within the limitations of Indianapolis society are compared and found to be similar.
The Lost Cause, Reconciliation, and White Supremacy in South Carolina's Education System, 1920 - 1940
(2021-08) Bird, Jeffrey Allan, Jr.; Kaufman-McKivigan, John; Morgan, Anita; Guiliano, Jennifer
Between 1920 and 1940, South Carolina saw major changes in its education system both in response to low literacy rates in the state and as part of a national trend in education reform. The period also saw the emergence of one history textbook as the dominant history text for middle school students across the state. William Gilmore Simms and his granddaughter, Mary C. Simms Oliphant, the authors of this history text, had influence over middle school-aged children’s history education for over a century with their books being used in South Carolina schools in some capacity from around 1840 until 1985. These books exhibit strong influence from the Lost Cause Movement, as well as reconciliationist and white supremacist ideology, to present a more pro-southern point of view of the Civil War. Through heroification—the remaking of historical figures into heroes despite their flaws—revision/omission, and both implicit and explicit racism, Simms and Simms-Oliphant weaved narratives that twisted the facts of the Civil War era. These narratives implanted in the seventh and eighth grade students’ minds who typically read the textbooks’ false ideas about the events and people involved in the war. While research on history textbooks generally is widespread, there have been no in-depth studies of the influence of Simms and Simms-Oliphant on South Carolina’s education system. In the 1920s and 1930s, when students across the country on average completed eight to nine years of school, Simms’ and Simms-Oliphant’s books would have been the last history book many of those students would have read before ending their schooling. This gave these two authors immense power to influence public opinion in South Carolina. Ultimately, it appears that education is the primary tool through which South Carolina, and other southern states, have institutionalized Lost Cause, reconciliationist, and white supremacist narratives of the Civil War era that continue to influence public opinion in South Carolina and across the South.
Mobilizing Children to Aid the War Effort: Advancing Progressive Aims Through the Work of the Child Welfare Committee of the Indiana Woman's Council of National Defense and the Children's Bureau during World War One
(2019-07) Jarnecke, Meaghan L.; Morgan, Anita; Cramer, Kevin; Robertson, Nancy Marie
This thesis examines the motivations of the Woman’s Council of National Defense. It will examine how women in Indiana and Illinois organized their state and local councils of defense as they embraced home-front mobilization efforts. It will also show that Hoosier women, like women across the United States, became involved in World War One home-front mobilization, in part, to prove their responsibility to the government in order to make an irrefutable claim for suffrage. As a result of extensive home-front mobilization efforts by women, the government was able to fulfill its own agenda of creating a comprehensive record of its citizens, thus guaranteeing a roster of citizens eligible for future wartime mobilization. By examining the Child Welfare Committee and the Children’s Year in a broad view, this thesis supports the assertions of historians like Robert G. Barrows, William J. Breen, and Lynn Dumenil, who have shown how Progressive-minded women advanced Progressive reforms by embracing the war effort and using it to their own advantage.

Browsing by Author "Morgan, Anita"

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