Books published by publisher Indiana Historical Society

To thirteen-year-old Sarah Caldwell, everything in Indiana is dark--the bug-filled cabin, the woods engulfing the farm, and especially the future. She is far from her beloved sister, Rachel, who stayed in North Carolina when their family moved. Their widowed father has married Eliza, a young Quaker schoolteacher, and Sarah has just discovered that Eliza is an abolitionist! Sarah believes she must tell her father about the secret, unlawful activities Eliza's sewing circle performs at Levi and Catherine Coffin's home. Yet when Sarah learns her sister will be visiting Indiana with her husband and baby, happiness and anticipation overcome her concern about Eliza. Rachel's family soon arrives, bringing Polly, a slave girl about Sarah's age. Thrown together to do farm chores and look after Rachel's baby, the two girls, white and black, free and enslaved, slowly develop a friendship. Between Polly's company and that of her extended family, Sarah's world brightens. Meanwhile, Sarah begins to question her beliefs about slavery. When bounty hunters nearly kidnap Polly, Sarah worries for her safety. Tensions mount within the cramped household as it appears that her brother-in-law may trade Polly's future for his family's prosperity. Ultimately, Sarah is faced with a bitter decision that could change forever the lives of her family.

From fighting for the cause of freedom during the Civil War to writing of one of the best-selling books of all time, Lew Wallace of Indiana enjoyed a remarkable career that touched the lives of such famous figures in American history as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Mark Twain, James Garfield, James Whitcomb Riley, and Billy the Kid.The ups and downs of Wallace’s amazing days are told in this new biography for young readers. Written by award-winning Hoosier historian and author Ray E. Boomhower, The Sword and the Pen: A Life of Lew Wallace, includes numerous photographs and illustrations of Wallace and the people he met and events he participated in during his lifetime. The book also features information on historic places related to Wallace’s life and times.Growing up when much of Indiana was still a wilderness, Wallace frequently fled from his classroom studies to wander the woods and fields he loved. The son of an Indiana governor, Wallace became passionate about books and combat. He tried to win lasting fame through service for the Union cause on the battlefield during the Civil War, but instead won honor and glory through a quieter pastime: writing. His novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, became one of the country’s best-loved books and was made into two successful Hollywood films.At various times in his life, Wallace also was a lawyer, an Indiana state senator, vice president of the court-martial that tried the conspirators behind the assassination of President Lincoln, governor of the New Mexico Territory during the days of outlaw Billy the Kid, and a diplomat who represented the United States in Turkey.Wallace dreamed always of glory and lived a life full of adventures, triumphs, and tragedies. Through it all, he believed in himself and was never afraid to accept new challenges. He remains one of the most colorful and important figures in the Hoosier State’s history.

In 1985 the eyes of the world turned to the Hoosier State and the attempt by a thirteen-year-old Kokomo, Indiana, teenager to do what seemed to be a simple task join his fellow classmates at Western Middle School in Russiaville, the school to which his Kokomo neighborhood was assigned. The teenager, Ryan White, however, had been diagnosed with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome from contaminated blood-based products used to treat his hemophilia. It was my decision, White said, to live a normal life, go to school, be with friends, and enjoying day to day activities. It was not going to be easy. White's words were an understatement, to say the least. His wish to return to school was met with panic by parents and some school officials. The controversy about White and the quiet courage he and his mother, Jeanne, displayed in their battle to have him join his classmates is explored in the eleventh volume in the Indiana Historical Society Press s Youth Biography Series. A Quiet Hero is written by Nelson Price, who wrote about White s odyssey during his days as a reporter and columnist for the Indianapolis News. Price goes behind the scenes and brings to light stories and individuals who might have been lost in the media spotlight. After a nine-month court battle, White won the right to return to school, but with concessions. These were not enough for parents of twenty children, who responded by starting their own school. At school, White became the target of slurs and lies, and his locker was vandalized. Although the White family received support from citizens and celebrities around the world, particularly rock singer Elton John, the situation grew so controversial in Kokomo that they moved to Cicero, Indiana a community that greeted them much differently. In Price s book, White, who succumbed to his disease in 1990, comes across as a normal teenager who met an impossible situation with uncommon grace, courage, and wisdom. It was difficult at times, to handle; but I tried to ignore the injustice, because I knew the people were wrong, White said. My family and I held no hatred for those people because we realized they were victims of their own ignorance.

In the 1850s, a young man from Ohio, ready to begin his career as a lawyer, pondered where to practice his new profession, considering Cincinnati, Chicago, and Indianapolis. The attorney, Benjamin Harrison, visited Indianapolis in March 1854 and decided to make the city home. The choice pleased his father, who wrote that the Harrison name would be enough to pave his way and the citizens would love him as they loved his grandfather, William Henry Harrison. In 1888 Harrison beat incumbent Grover Cleveland, becoming the twenty-third U.S. president. Although he served only one term, defeated for re-election by Cleveland in 1892, Harrison had some impressive achievements during his four years in the White House. His administration worked to have Congress pass the Sherman Antitrust Act to limit business monopolies, fought to protect voting rights for African American citizens in the South, preserved millions of acres for forest reserves and national parks, modernized the American navy, and negotiated several successful trade agreements with other countries in the Western Hemisphere. As First Lady, Caroline Harrison also added luster to the administration, fighting to improve a White House that had fallen into disrepair, advocating on behalf of fine arts, and serving as the first president-general of the Daughters of the American Revolution. After losing the White House, Harrison returned to Indianapolis, once again becoming one of the city s leading citizens. He died from pneumonia on March 13, 1901, in his home on North Delaware Street. Mr. President: A Life of Benjamin Harrison, is part of the multivolume Indiana Historical Society Press youth biography series.

Volume 2 includes records from monthly Society of Friends (Quakers) meetings in Wayne County, Indiana, not covered in volume 1, as well as records from Salem and Silvercreek/Salem meetings in Union County. Important Quaker materials such as meeting minutes, birth and death records, marriage records, removal certificates, and disownments are included.

This historical fiction novel is told in two voices: Sarah and Joseph.Sarah Sutton and brothers Gabe and Joseph Elliott grew up together in 1860s rural Indianapolis. As teenagers, the brothers vie for Sarah s attention, but their attempts are disrupted when they both enlist in the Union army. Sarah also joins the war effort when she follows her father, a surgeon, to tend wounded soldiers in a regimental hospital. At the close of the war, the childhood friends unite on the Sultana, a steamboat returning thousands of Union soldiers home from the South. Tragedy strikes when the boilers explode, and the fiery vessel sinks in the Mississippi River. Will the three survive?

At the age of fourteen, a young man in Waveland, Indiana, had taken over the family farm after the death of his father. Now responsible for taking care of his widowed mother and supporting his four brothers, he took up the reins on the plow to begin preparing the field for planting. Family legend has it that the young farmer, Theodore Clement Steele, tied colored ribbons to the handles of the plow so that he could watch the ribbons in the wind and the effect that they had on the [surrounding] colors. Recognizing Steele s passion for art, his mother supported his choice to make his living as an artist. He realized he had chosen a difficult path, writing in his journal: To do this requires a systematic devotion to the one object of my life, the bending of all things to the one. And this presupposes a clear understanding of the main object or purpose, so clear that there will be no mistaking it for a moment. Written by author and art historian Rachel Berenson Perry, Paint and Canvas: A Life of T. C. Steele, the eighth volume in the Indiana Historical Society Press s youth biography series, traces the path of Steele s career as an artist from his early studies in Germany to his determination to paint what he knew best, the Indiana landscape. Steele, along with fellow artists William Forsyth, Otto Stark, Richard Gruelle, and J. Ottis Adams, became a member of the renowned Hoosier Group and became a leader in the development of Midwestern art. In addition to creating artwork, Steele wrote and gave lectures, served on numerous art juries to select paintings and prizes for national and international exhibitions, and helped organize pioneering art associations and societies. Though known today primarily for his landscapes, Steele was an accomplished and sought-after portrait artist. By the time of his death, he had painted many of Indiana s most prominent citizens, including President Benjamin Harrison, Vice President Charles Fairbanks, Colonel Eli Lilly, James Whitcomb Riley, Catherine Merrill, William Lowe Bryan, and Lyman S. Ayres, among others. In 1907 Steele and his second wife, Selma Neubacher, moved to Brown County, where they built their home, dubbed The House of the Singing Winds for the aural treats produced as the wind blew through the wire of the screened porches surrounding the house. From 1907 to 1921 the Steeles spent the spring season at their Brown County property and wintered in Indianapolis. In 1922 Steele became artist in residence and an honorary professor at Indiana University.

When fourteen-year-old Cody Carter s grandfather gives him a box of dusty leather journals written by their Carter ancestors, even the history-loving Cody could not have predicted the adventure he was about to take. Journal by journal, Cody is physically transported back in time to experience the lives of Carters on the frontier in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Indiana as the family moved ever westward in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He hunts with Daniel Boone, huddles in a frontier fort under siege, makes friends with Native Americans in the Indiana Territory, operates a lock on the Whitewater Canal, hides slaves on the Underground Railroad, and experiences defeat at the Battle of Corydon. Ultimately, Cody confronts the difficult questions of war, westward expansion, and slavery while living the history of everyday people. Written by a history teacher determined to bring the past to life for his students, The Carter Journals reminds us that history is all around us---and that we daily make history of our own.

Two Moon Journey tells the story of a young Potawatomi girl named Simu-quah and her family and friends who are forced from their village in Indiana, where they have lived for generations, to beyond the Mississippi River in Kansas. Historically the journey is known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death. Like the real Potawatomi, Simu-quah sees the soldiers set fire to part of her village as she takes her first steps to the distant and frightening westward land. She experiences the heat and exhaustion of endless days of walking; helps nurse sick children and the elderly. She sleeps beside strange streams and caves and turns from hating the soldiers to seeing them as people. In Kansas, as she plants corn seeds she has saved from her Indiana home, she turns away from the bitterness of removal and finds forgiveness, the first step in the journey of her new life in Kansas.

During the bleak days of the Great Depression, news of economic hardship often took a backseat to articles on the exploits of an outlaw from Indiana John Dillinger. For a period of fourteen months during 1933 and 1934 Dillinger became the most famous bandit in American history, and no criminal since has matched him for his celebrity and notoriety. In Hoosier Public Enemy: A Life of John Dillinger, ninth volume in the Indiana Historical Society Press s Youth Biography Series, John A. Beineke delves into Dillinger s life from his unhappy days growing up in Indianapolis and Mooresville, Indiana; his first unlucky brush with the law; his embracing of a life of crime while behind bars at the Indiana Reformatory; his exploits as the leader of a gang that terrorized banks and outwitted law enforcement in the Midwest, earning a reputation as a Robin Hood-style criminal,; and his headline-grabbing death in a hail of bullets on July 22, 1934, at the Biograph Theater in Chicago. Dillinger won public attention not only for his robberies, but his many escapes from the law. As Beineke notes in the book, Dillinger s breakouts, getaways, and close calls were all part of the story. The escapes he made from jails or tight spots, when it seemed law officials had him cornered, became the stuff of legends. While the public would never admit that they wanted the bad guy to win, many could not help but root for the man who appeared to be an underdog. Another reason that the name Dillinger still resonates with the public is that his raids on banks coincided with the rise of new crime-fighting methods. These modern approaches were employed by newly created agencies of the government to battle the innovative technologies used to carry out the crimes. Powerful automobiles and modern and deadly weapons were used by the men (and some women) who were labeled as public enemies. There was also the Dillinger personality. He was viewed as the gentleman bandit, letting a poor farmer keep the few dollars on the bank counter rather than scooping it up with the rest of the loot. He was polite and handsome. Women liked him. One of Dillinger s girlfriends, Polly Hamilton, once said, We had a lot of fun. It s surprising how much fun we had. All this made good copy for newspapers around the country. It seemed like a Hollywood movie and Dillinger was the star. Although his crime wave took place in the last century, the name Dillinger has never left the public imagination. Biographies, histories, movies, television and radio shows, magazines and newspapers, comic books, and now Internet sites have focused on this Indiana bandit. If the public enjoyed reading about the exploits of these public enemies or viewing the newsreels in the movie theaters of that day, so did Dillinger. Ironically, it was outside a theater screening a movie about gangsters that his life ended.