Archey Biography Receives High Marks

John A. Beineke's book Going over all the Hurdles: A Life of Oatess Archey, has been named an "Outstanding Title" in the 2009 edition of The University Press Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries, an annual collection development tool published for two divisions of the American Library Association: the American Association of School Librarians and the Public Library Association.

Sabrina Carnesi of the AASL wrote about the book: "The biography of a college track star who, with a university degree, had to take a custodial job with his hometown school system, due to racism, before later rising to become a beloved teacher, coach, sheriff, and FBI agent. The word 'hurdles' is both literal and symbolic. It represents the hurdles Archey had to master in his college track career and the hurdles he had to overcome in life."

Beineke was born in Indianapolis and grew up in Marion, Indiana. His undergraduate degree in social studies was from Marion College, now Indiana Wesleyan University, and his masters and doctoral degrees were from Ball State University in education and history.

Beineke has been a public school teacher, a college professor and administrator, and a program director in leadership and education at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. He is currently dean of the College of Education and a professor of educational leadership and curriculum and also professor of history at Arkansas State University.

Blog Reviews Vietnam Book

Author Cym Lowell has written a review of the IHS Press book "To Bear Any Burden": A Hoosier Green Beret's Letters from Vietnam on his blog.

From 1968 to 1969, Daniel H. FitzGibbon, a Columbus, Indiana, native, graduate of West Point, and today an Indianapolis attorney, served as a captain with the Fifth Special Forces in South Vietnam. During his time in country, FitzGibbon wrote letters to his parents back home in Columbus about his experiences running two Special Forces A team camps, one located in the north central portion of South Vietnam, and the other near the country's border with Cambodia.

FitzGibbon's letters were saved by his mother and were given back to the veteran, who typed and copied them for his children so they would know "what Daddy did in the war."

IHS Press Authors Nominated for Honor

Two Indiana Historical Society Press authors, James H. Madison and Susan Neville, have been nominated as finalists in the inaugural Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award.

This new award seeks to recognize the contributions of Indiana authors to the literary landscape in Indiana and across the nation by the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Foundation, and is funded by the generosity of The Glick Fund, a fund of Central Indiana Community Foundation.

Nominations were submitted from across the state in early spring. Any published writer who was born in Indiana or has lived in Indiana for at least five years was eligible. A seven-member, statewide Award Panel selected the national winner and finalists in three categories from the pool of publicly nominated authors:

• National Author - $10,000 prize: a writer with Indiana ties, but whose work is known and read throughout the country. National authors were evaluated on their entire body of work. Winner: James Alexander Thom; Finalists: Scott Russell Sanders and Margaret McMullan

• Regional Author - $7,500 prize: A writer who is well-known and respected throughout the state of Indiana. Regional authors were evaluated on their entire body of work.Finalists: Jared Carter, Madison, and Neville

• Emerging Author - $5,000 prize: A writer with only one published book. Emerging authors were evaluated on their single published work. Finalists: Kathleen Hughes, Christine Montross, and Greg Schwipps.

Award finalists in all three categories will be honored on September 26, 2009 at the Central Library in downtown Indianapolis. The day’s events will include free public programming such as author lectures, “how to get published” workshops for aspiring writers, and more. An award dinner/fund raiser benefiting the Library Foundation will follow that evening where the winner of the Regional Author and Emerging Author categories will each be named. Thom will serve as the dinner’s keynote speaker. Ticket information for the award dinner is available by contacting the Library Foundation at (317) 275-4700 or by visiting www.indianaauthorsaward.org.

Madison is the author of the IHS Press books Eli Lilly: A Life, 1885-1977, Indiana through Tradition and Change: A history of the Hoosier State and its People, 1920-1945, and The Indiana Way: A State History (co-published with Indiana University Press). Neville wrote the IHS Press publication Twilight in Arcadia: Tobacco Farming in Indiana. Madison, Neville, and Carter have also written for the IHS Press's popular history magazine Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History.

Bass Photo Book Receives Honor

The Indiana Historical Society Press book Indianapolis: The Bass Photo Company Collection, written by Susan Sutton, has been named as one of three finalists in the 2009 Benjamin Franklin Awards competition in the Regional category. The awards are sponsored by the Independent Book Publishers Association.

The 2009 Benjamin Franklin Award winner will be chosen from one of the three finalists and will receive the Benjamin Franklin Award during a ceremony on Thursday evening, May 28, 2009 at the Roosevelt Hotel, New York located at 45th and Madison in New York City.

Named in honor of America's most cherished publisher/printer, the Benjamin Franklin Awards recognizes excellence in independent publishing. Publications, grouped by genre are judged on editorial and design merit by top practitioners in each field.

Indianapolis: The Bass Photo Company Collection contains 183 photos selected from the vast Bass Photo Company Collection. The assorted images depict Indianapolis in good times and bad and provide a visual link to the city's past. Many of the images are so vivid that one can almost hear the clang of a trolley, the click of horse hooves, the roar of engines, and the din in the streets filled with bustling pedestrians. Included in the volume are nostalgic images of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, leisure activities, individual portraits, street scenes, Monument Circle, a parade of returning World War I soldiers, the Indianapolis Home Show, transportation, and architecture

IHS Press Titles Nominated for Awards

Three books published by the Indiana Historical Society Press are finalists in ForeWord Magazine's 2008 Book of the Year Awards. More than 1,400 books were entered in 61 categories. These were narrowed to 668 finalists from 376 publishers. These books represent some of the best work coming from today's independent press community.

The IHS Press books in the competition and their categories are:

* Red Skelton: The Mask behind the Mask by Wes D. Gehring, Biography

* Alone: The Journey of the Boy Sims by Alan K. Garinger, Juvenile nonfiction

* Going over all the Hurdles: A Life of Oatess Archey by John A. Beineke, young adult nonfiction

The winners will be determined by a panel of librarians and booksellers, selected from the 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 BookExpo America at the Javits Center in New York City on May 29. The winners of the two Editor's Choice Prizes will be awarded $1,500 each. The ceremony is open to all BEA attendees.

Small Press Month Workshop

March is Small Press Month and you are invited to learn more about publishing opportunities in Indiana by participating in a "How to Get Published" workshop from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, March 7, 2009, at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, 450 W. Ohio Street, Indianapolis.

Three Hoosier small presses--the Indiana Historical Society Press, Indiana University Press, and Hawthorne Publishing--will be involved in the program. Ray Boomhower and Teresa Baer from the IHS Press, Nancy Baxter from Hawthorne Publishing, and Janet Rabinowitch from IU Press will give their insight on small press trends. You will learn about what these publishers focus on and what they and other small presses have to offer writers.

Participants will also explore how the process works and what they need to consider when approaching a press with a book idea or manuscript. Participants will receive complimentary magazine and book copies and will be entered to win additional prizes.

The cost for attending the workshop is $15; $12 for IHS members. Reservations are required as seating is limited. To make a reservation, call the Society at (317) 232-1882.

Small Press Month is a nationwide celebration highlighting the valuable work produced by independent publishers. Held annually in March, Small Press Month raises awareness about the need for broader venues of literary expression. From March 1 to 31, independent, literary events will take place from coast-to-coast, showcasing some of the most diverse, exciting, and significant voices being published today.

As best-selling author Sherman Alexie—the face of this year's Small Press Month Poster—states: "The small presses represent what is most brave, crazy and beautiful about our country and our literature. So let us all sing honor songs for the independent publishers."

Small Press Month, now in its thirteenth year, is a grass-roots effort co-sponsored by: the New York Center for Independent Publishing, the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, and the Independent Book Publishers Association.

Article on Holiday Author Fair

John A. Beineke, author of the IHS Press youth biography Going over all the Hurdles: A Life of Oatess Archey, was one of the approximately 90 Hoosier writers who participated in the sixth annual Indiana Historical Society Holiday Author Fair, which was held on Saturday, December 6, at the Indiana History Center in Indianapolis.

Following his time at the Author Fair, Beineke wrote an article on the event that was published in the Indianapolis Star on Friday, December 12. Here is his article:

There were other things to do last Saturday afternoon. Basketball games to watch, holiday shopping at the malls, or even just staying home out of the cold. And there was also that so-called "light" snow that made roads tricky, even hazardous.

But hundreds of readers found dozens of writers at the Indiana Historical Society's sixth annual Holiday Author Fair. The Indiana History Center on West Ohio Street hosted 90 Indiana authors who sat behind tables with their works piled in neat stacks in front of them. Children and adults roamed from table to table to peruse the books and chat with the authors.

Topics and themes of the books included art, fiction, mystery, humor, sports and travel. Biography was a popular subject. Ball State University professor of film Wes Gehring had his new biography of Red Skelton available in a bright yellow dust jacket, and the fourth edition of Nelson Price's "Indiana Legends," with biographical sketches from Lombard to Letterman and Riley to Robertson, demonstrated that there is no shortage of famous Hoosiers.

Talented Indiana Historical Society Press editor Ray Boomhower was there with his new book on the 1968 Indiana primary campaign of Robert Kennedy. Sitting behind another table, dressed in a 60-year-old Army captain's uniform, was a youthful Rick Barry, author of "Gunner's Run" a World War II thriller.

Sitting next to me was one of the more popular authors that afternoon, 89-year-old Francis DeBra Brown. "An Army in Skirts" is her splendid memoir of life in the Women's Army Corps in World War II. This book makes a good companion to James Madison's "Slinging Doughnuts for the Boys," the story of Mishawaka Red Cross volunteer Elizabeth Richardson's service in wartime England and France.

We are told that book companies are having a hard time of it and that kids and adults just don't read that much anymore. Video games, DVDs, the Internet, and HD television keep most people occupied. That is no doubt happening.

But it also needs to be reported that for a good number of Hoosiers the reading of books is still alive and well. Many individuals, young and old, left the Indiana History Center on Saturday afternoon with a bag full of books by Hoosier authors.

Dunn Award Winner Announced

Ann Allen is the winner of the Indiana Historical Society’s annual Jacob Piatt Dunn Jr. Award for the best article to appear in Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History for 2008. Allen, pictured at right receiving her award from James H. Madison, IHS trustee, won for her article, “Reece Oliver: Indiana’s Shadow Hero,” which appeared in the summer 2008 issue of Traces.

Named for the noted Indiana historian and author, the $500 award honors the article that in the opinion of the Traces editorial board and staff best serves the magazine’s mission. This mission involves presenting thoughtful, research-based articles on Indiana history in an attractive format to a broad audience of readers.

Former editor of the Akron/Mentone News, Allen has written about Akron, Indiana, and its residents for nearly fifty years, including her time as a correspondent for the Rochester Sentinel. She has written four books set in Akron. Allen is a past president of the Woman’s Press Club of Indiana.

Dunn, who helped revitalize the Society in the 1880s, produced such standard works as the two-volume Greater Indianapolis (1910) and his five-volume Indiana and Indianans (1919). In his remarkable career, Dunn also worked on a variety of Indianapolis newspapers, campaigned to establish free public libraries, endeavored to preserve the language of the Miami Indians, and prospected for minerals in Haiti.

Annual Holiday Author Fair December 6

Holiday shopping for an array of family, loved ones, and new friends can be a daunting task, but the Indiana Historical Society offers a personalized, one-stop shopping opportunity for book lovers and gift givers alike this holiday season at the sixth annual Holiday Author Fair, taking place from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday, December 6, at the Indiana History Center, located at 450 W. Ohio St. in downtown Indianapolis.

The Holiday Author Fair is the largest book signing gathering for Indiana-related material, featuring more than 90 Hoosier authors. Books include works of fiction, non-fiction, cookbooks, photography, history, children’s books and more. Visitors can converse with authors, have books signed, and enjoy refreshments and live entertainment.

New this year will be a special area for children (complete with a craft table and the children’s book authors) on the Eli Lilly Hall mezzanine and readings/presentations in the Frank and Katrina Basile Theater. Six author presentations will also take place in the Frank and Katrina Basile Theater. Featured authors include Harold Holzer, Philip Gulley, James Alexander Thom, Norbert Krapf, James H. Madison, and Lou Harry.

IHS Press authors participating in the event include M. Teresa Baer and Geneil Breeze, William Bartelt, John Beineke, Ray E. Boomhower, Frances DeBra Brown, Fred Cavinder, Earl Conn, Daniel H. FitzGibbon, Alan Garinger, Wes D. Gehring, Ralph D. Gray, Glory-June Greiff, Mary Blair Immel, Max Knight, Norbert Krapf, Cinnamon Caitlin-Legutko, Jim McGarrah, Geoff Paddock, Ashley Ransburg, Susan Sutton, and Julie Young

Some of the authors will give talks during the day. The schedule of talks are as follows:

* 12:30 p.m. Harold Holzer, "Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter, 1860-1861."

* 1 p.m. Bill Harley, "Toads, Pirates, and Other Creatures!"

* 1:30 p.m. Norbert Krapf, Selections from Bloodroot: Indiana Poems and The Ripest Moments: A Southern Indiana Childhood.

* 2 p.m. Todd Tucker, "Notre Dame vs. the Klan vs. IUPUI: Anatomy of a Free Speech Controversy."

* 2:30 p.m. Tasha Jones, Selections from Hello Beautiful: A Memoir.

* 3 p.m. Susan Sutton, "The Bass Photo Company Collections: A Family Album for the City."

There is no admission charge for this event, and free parking is available in the Indiana History Center’s surface lot (corner of New York and West Streets). The Basile History Market will also offer complimentary gift wrapping on books and other purchases, such as music, Indiana-made household products, jewelry, original art, handmade textiles, children’s merchandise, reproductions from the IHS collection, and more.

The Holiday Author Fair is sponsored by Verizon and Indy Reads. For more details on these and other Indiana Historical Society offerings, call the IHS at (317) 232-1882 or toll-free at (800) 447-1830.

Interview with Skelton Biographer

Wes D. Gehring, professor of Film at Ball State University, is the author of twenty-eight books, many of which examine the lives of Hollywood legends. During his career, Gehring has written about the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Joe E. Brown, Carole Lombard, W. C. Fields, and Charlie Chaplin.

Gehring's latest book is a biography of Hoosier comedian Red Skelton, Red Skelton: The Mask behind the Mask, recently released by the IHS Press. Here, he talks about the book and Skelton:

You’ve written about a number of famous film comedians, why did you select Red Skelton?

I am a big fan. And when Ball State University gave him an honorary doctorate, I was selected to give the keynote address. He liked it and we got together when he would play Ball State. Though I had written an earlier biography of Red, the wealth of new onformation in recently released private papers attracted me yet again to the comedian.

Was there something about Skelton that surprised you when you were researching your subject?

I was shocked by what I discovered about the true dysfunctional nature of his childhood family--and the elaborate fantasy background he created as a cover.

What was it about Skelton’s comedy that made him such a hit with fans?

Though his comic gift was huge, especially his poignant mime, his enthusiasm to please could sell even the most corny of gags. He was an oh-so-talented favorite uncle.

Does Skelton get the respect he deserves as a comedian?

Sadly, he does not. But part of it was because he always refused to make his television show available for syndication. His TV comedy legacy is as important as Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason but while their reruns have been on non-stop since the 1950s, the under 40 crowd do not know Red.

What are you working on now?

I have a comic novel coming out in late November (The James Dean Murder Mystery), and a novelized Skelton memior set to appear in early 2009. I am currently researching a biography of Robert Wise, and writing a book about film comedians of the 1940s.

Norbert Krapf on You Tube

Indiana Poet Laureate and IHS Press author Norbert Krapf is featured in two interviews now available on You Tube. The interviews are:

* The WTIU program "Weekly Special."

* The Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library's program "Between the Lines."

Krapf, the author of the memoir The Ripest Moments: A Southern Indiana Childhood, released in 2008 by the IHS Press, received his bachelor’s degree from Saint Joseph’s College. He took his master’s degree and doctorate in English from the University of Notre Dame and taught English at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University for thirty-four years.

His seven poetry collections, in which his Indiana German heritage is central, include Somewhere in Southern Indiana, The Country I Come From, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and the retrospective collection Bloodroot: Indiana Poems, recently released by Indiana University Press.

IHS Press Titles Win Awards

The IHS Press won two honors at the 57th annual Chicago Book Clinic’s Book and Media Show Thursday, November 7, in Chicago.

The Press won the show's top honor--the Crystal Book Award of Excellence--in the General Trade Nonfiction with one-color and two-color internals for its publication Meredith Nicholson: A Writing Life. Also, the Press won an Honorable Mention in the Special Trade Pictorial category for Indianapolis: The Bass Photo Company Collection.

The Book and Media Show received more than 150 entries from publishers across the country. Founded in 1936, the Chicago Book Clinic encourages excellence in publishing by providing a platform for educational, social, and professional interaction of its members—professionals in book and media publishing, printing, editorial, design, and all business aspects of the publishing industry.

Red Skelton Biography Available

For twenty years, Hoosier comic Red Skelton entertained millions of viewers who gathered around their television sets to delight in the antics of such notable characters as Freddie the Freeloader, Clem Kaddiddlehopper, Cauliflower McPugg, and Sheriff Deadeye. Noted film historian Wes D. Gehring examines the man behind the characters--someone who never let the facts get in the way of a good story--in the new IHS Press biography Red Skelton: The Mask behind the Mask.

Gehring delves into Skelton's hardscrabble life with a shockingly dysfunctional family in the southern Indiana community of Vincennes, his days on the road on the vaudeville circuit, the comedian's early success on radio, his up-and-down movie career with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and his sometimes tragic personal life.

Gehring is a professor of film at Ball State University. The award-winning author of twenty-eight books, Gehring has written biographies of such screen legends as Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Irene Dunne, Carole Lombard, and James Dean.

Red Skelton: The Mask behind the Mask costs $19.95 in hardback and is available from the Society's Basile History Market. To order, call (800) 447-1830 or order online at the History Market.

New Children's Book Released by IHS Press

Orphaned at age thirteen, pioneer Joshua Sims joins a survey crew helping to build the Michigan Road in order to pay for his family's northern Indiana homestead. When the surveyors' ink supply is accidentally lost in the Tippecanoe River, Sims is ordered to travel alone to Detroit, Michigan, to obtain more.

In Alone: The Journey of the Boy Sims, a historical novel for children and young adults, author Alan K. Garinger imaginatively retells the story of the boy known in the survey crew's official journal only as "the boy Sims."

Traveling by foot, boat, and horseback, Sims meets runaway slaves, Native Americans, canal builders, and other frontier figures as he journeys to Fort Wayne, across Lake Erie, and along the Sauk Trail in Michigan. Sims's encounters force him to re-evaluate his beliefs about the people in the rapidly changing land he now calls home.

A past recipient of the Indiana Outstanding Young Educator and Indiana Outstanding Community Educator awards, Garinger is also the author of the Jeremiah Stokely series. His novel Torch in the Darkness: The Tale of a Boy Artist in the Renaissance, published in 2000 by Guild Press of Indiana, was a Young Hoosier Reader Award nominee.

Alone: The Journey of the Boy Sims costs $15.95 for hardback and $7.95 for paperback and is available from the Society's Basile History Market. To order, call (800) 447-1830 or order online at the History Market.

Book Highlights Indiana Political Heroes

Politics has always played an important role in Indiana, and the state itself at one time furnished candidates for national office for an assortment of American political parties. From 1840, when Whig William Henry Harrison captured the White House with his “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” campaign, to 1940, when Wendell Willkie won the Republican presidential nomination and challenged incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s try for a third term in office, approximately 60 percent of the elections had Hoosiers on a party’s national ticket.

Seeking political office became so ingrained into the state’s character that noted humorist and journalist George Ade once joked—playing off General William Tecumseh Sherman’s famous quote—that the first words of every Hoosier child upon birth were: “If nominated I will run, if elected I will serve.”

Geoff Paddock’s Indiana Political Heroes takes a contemporary look at those who serve in public office as it includes essays on eight Hoosier politicians that have made a difference in Indiana and in the nation’s capital as well. Paddock profiles such distinguished Democratic and Republican lawmakers as Birch Bayh, John Brademas, Richard Hatcher, Vance Hartke, William Hudnut, Richard Ristine, J. Edward Roush, and William Ruckelshaus. In these essays readers will learn about national educational reform, opposition to the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the growth of Indianapolis into a nationally respected community.

Paddock serves as the executive director of the Headwaters Flood Control and Park Project in Fort Wayne and is past president of the Fort Wayne Community Schools board of trustees. He is a frequent contributor to the Indiana Historical Society popular history magazine Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History and is the author of Headwaters Park: Fort Wayne’s Lasting Legacy (Arcadia Publishing, 2002).

Indiana Political Heroes costs $12.95 and is available from the Society's Basile History Market. To order, call (800) 447-1830 or order online at the History Market.

IHS Press Author Interview

Norbert Krapf, author of the IHS Press memoir The Ripest Moments: A Southern Indiana Childhood, was interviewed by the Indianapolis Star recently about his work and his appointment as Indiana's new poet laureate.

IHS Press Youth Biographies Nominated for Indiana Best Books Competition

Two publications in the IHS Press's Youth Biography Series--A Belief in Providence: A Life of Saint Theodora Guérin by Julie Young and Fighting for Equality: A Life of May Wright Sewall by Ray E. Boomhower--are finalists in the Indiana Center for the Book's 2008 Best Books of Indiana competition.

Joining the IHS Press books as a finalist in the Children's/Young Adult category is When I Crossed No-Bob, written by Margaret McMullan and published by Houghton Mifflin.

This competition began in 2005 to highlight Indiana's ongoing literary successes. Books by Indiana authors or about Indiana, published between January 1 and December 31 of the previous year, are eligible. Categories include fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and children/young adult. A complete list of the finalists is available on the Center's web site.

The winners of the competition will be announced in a ceremony at 1 p.m. on Saturday, August 16, at the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis.

Interview with Lincoln Author

William E. "Bill" Bartelt is a retired educator who, for more than fifteen summers, worked as a ranger and historian at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. Here he answers questions about his new book "There I grew up": Remembering Abraham Lincoln's Indiana Youth.

What was the main reason you decided to do this book on Abraham Lincoln’s Indiana years?

It is part of the Lincoln story that is not well known. When I worked as a ranger at Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial I learned few visitors understood that Lincoln spent almost a quarter of his life in Indiana. Even those who are aware of Lincoln’s time in the state have no real understanding of the land and the people of his Spencer County neighborhood.

I decided I would let Lincoln, his family, and his neighbors tell the story. I saw my purpose as providing the context for what Lincoln and others remembered about his life from age 7 to 21.

How important was Lincoln’s time in Indiana in shaping his character for his life to come?

I think we can all agree that much of our character is developed early in our lives and the period from age 7 to 21 is extremely important. The same can be said for Lincoln.

It is difficult to say with certainty exactly how those Indiana years formed his character, but it is obvious that experiences in Indiana helped develop traits we associate with the mature man. These traits include his ability to think for himself and trust his opinions, his ambition, his sensitivity and compassion, the ability to craft words to entertain and influence others, his curiosity, and his desire to learn from books and the people he met. Certainly the deaths of his mother and sister taught him at an early age that bad things happen and those things cannot be changed.

Did you discover anything new about Lincoln in doing your research?

I learned much more about the people living in his neighborhood. Using census records, land records, and family histories I was able to develop a greater understanding of the people he associated with on a daily basis. Many biographers fail to tell the story of the Little Pigeon Creek Community and portray the Lincoln family living in the woods far from other people. That was not the case. Lincoln and his family had neighbors to share the work, joys, hardships, and daily events of the area.

The most exciting discovery for me occurred while examining neighborhood land records in the National Archives. I unfolded a bundle of documents that probably had not been viewed for 150 years or more. There I found the record documenting that Thomas Lincoln had a claim on a quarter section of land adjoining his farm. He disposed of the claim after two years and the importance may be insignificant, but to discover something no one else knew was exciting. Adding to the thrill was seeing Thomas Lincoln’s signature and the signature of the local Justice of the Peace—one of Lincoln’s Indiana teachers.

You worked many years at the Lincoln Boyhood Home. What is your favorite story from your time there?

I have many fond memories of my summers at Lincoln Boyhood. I think I learned more about what history really is during that time than from any college class. There is a real difference between examining the big picture in a class and interpreting the story at a specific historic site.

One event that I remember with amusement occurred one afternoon as I worked the information desk. A small boy walked up to me and hesitantly offered an unexpected statement, “I have a friend who doesn’t believe in Abraham Lincoln.” I assured the boy that Lincoln had indeed been a real person and lived at this site when he was the boy’s age. That encounter has forced me to present Abraham Lincoln as a real human and not as some sort of mythical figure.

What are some of the things Indiana is doing to celebrate the Lincoln bicentennial?

The mission of the Indiana Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission is to educate residents of Indiana and the nation about Indiana's important role in the life of Abraham Lincoln. This is being accomplished by conducting conferences, erecting historical markers, constructing a Lincoln Bicentennial Plaza in Lincoln State Park, working with local communities to observe the celebration, erecting “Welcome to Indiana, Lincoln’s Boyhood home” signs on highways, and making a Lincoln’s Boyhood Home license plate available. Much of the work of the commission is focusing on education and assisting the schools of Indiana to observe the event in a meaningful manner.

I encourage everyone to go to the Web site IndianasLincoln.org for a more complete answer to this question.

Lincoln's Legacy Explored in New IHS Press Book

In 1859 Abraham Lincoln covered his Indiana years in one paragraph and two sentences of a written autobiographical statement that included the following: “We reached our new home about the time the State came into the union. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals in the woods. There I grew up.”

William E. Bartelt's new book “There I Grew Up”: Remembering Abraham Lincoln’s Indiana Youth uses annotation and primary source material to tell the history of Lincoln’s Indiana years by those who were there. Bartelt begins with Lincoln’s own words written in two short autobiographical sketches in 1859 and 1860, and in the poetry Lincoln wrote following a campaign trip to Indiana in 1844. In 1865 Lincoln’s law partner, William H. Herndon, began interviewing Lincoln’s family and those who knew Lincoln in Indiana. Bartelt examines Herndon’s interviews with Lincoln’s stepmother Sally Bush Johnston Lincoln, cousin Dennis Hanks, stepsister Matilda Johnston Moore, neighbors Nathaniel Grigsby, Elizabeth Crawford, and David Turnham, and others who knew Lincoln in Indiana. Also included in the volume are excerpts from Lincoln biographies by William Herndon, Ida Tarbell, Albert Beveridge, and Louis Warren, in which Bartelt analyzes to what extent these authors researched Lincoln’s Indiana period.

The book also reveals, through the words of those who knew him, Abraham Lincoln’s humor, compassion, oratorical skills, and thirst for knowledge, and it provides an overview of Lincoln’s Indiana experiences, his family, the community where the Lincolns settled, and southern Indiana during the years 1816 to 1830.

Bartelt is a retired educator who, for more than fifteen summers, was employed as a ranger and historian at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. He is a member of the Federal Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission's Advisory and Education Committees and serves as vice chair of the Indiana Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

“There I Grew Up”: Remembering Abraham Lincoln’s Indiana Youthcosts $27.95 and is available from the Society's Basile History Market. To order, call (800) 447-1830 or order online at the History Market.

IHS Press Examines an Army in Skirts

More than 150,000 women served in the Women's Army Corps (WAC) in World War II. Although the majority of WACs were assigned to duties in the United States, several thousand received overseas assignments.

One of these women was Frances DeBra Brown from Danville, Indiana, who worked as a draftsman at American headquarters in London and Paris. An Army in Skirts: The World War II Letters of Frances DeBra, recently released by the IHS Press, contains the letters that Frances wrote to her family and letters from family and friends to Frances. The letters vividly detail her World War II service, beginning with basic training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia.

After an assignment at an army air field in Marianna, Florida, where DeBra worked on the post newsletter, she was shipped overseas on the RMS Queen Mary. While in London she worked through buzz bomb and V-2 rocket attacks, slept in shelters fully clothed, and made the acquaintance of a young English woman and her family. Arriving in Paris two weeks after the city’s liberation, Frances witnessed the city’s devastation and the effects of war on the populace. During her stay in Paris she attended classes at the École des Beaux-Arts and received a marriage proposal.

Frances DeBra Brown, a teacher, artist, and art conservator, lives in Yazoo City, Mississippi. A prize-winning miniature artist, her work was accepted by the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors, and Gravers for its art show at The Mall Galleries, The Mall, London, England. She is a member of the American Institute for Conservation and the International Institute for Conservation and has cleaned and repaired hundreds of paintings and has done conservation work for the Mississippi State Capitol, the Hall of Governors, and the Old Capitol of Mississippi Museum.

An Army in Skirts costs $27.95 and is available from the Society's Basile History Market. To order, call (800) 447-1830 or order online at the History Market.