The making of a historical consciousness in Henry County, Indiana: a case study of the Henry County Historical Society, 1887-1950

Abstract

The residents of Henry County, through the evolving practices of collecting and preserving local history, organized and developed a sustainable local historical society. The 1902 dedication ceremony, which signaled the beginning of the “museum” chapter of the HCHS, was only one of many steps in the institutionalization of local history in Henry County. The foundation of a sustainable local historical society is constructed upon permanent quarters and a historical collection. Additional requisite building blocks include wide public support, adequate and consistent funding, and a paid individual to facilitate and manage the museum, its collections, and various other day-to-day operations and activities. In Henry County, this blueprint for sustainability was greatly facilitated by the county’s territorial beginnings and its cultural development before the Civil War, as well as the county’s old settlers’ society movement and local history writing during the latter half of the nineteenth century. With this said, historical societies were “not created in a vacuum” but rather amid a complex historical framework encompassing local, regional, and national contexts. For Henry County, this framework consisted of many varied but constituent parts. The American Centennial in 1876, industrialization, Quakerism, the popularity of Civil War history and commemoration in Indiana that peaked around 1900, and a state historical movement and the simultaneous development of other historical organizations following the Indiana Centennial in 1916 were also instrumental in the county’s evolving dedication to preserving local history and the organization’s course toward sustainability.