The Blog of the Indiana State Archives
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IARA Divisions State Archives Collections From the Vault Blog |
From the Desk of Governor Schricker Part Two: The Days before Pearl Harbor
Even before Pearl Harbor, WWII reached Indiana. A 1941 letter from a Hoosier Lutheran missionary in China, sent to Governor Schricker, described battles with Japan and highlighted Indiana’s global ties through Fort Wayne’s Concordia Seminary. These connections gave Hoosiers early insight into a war that was already reshaping the world. Learn more about this period through this unique find from the Papers of Governor Schricker.
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Tales from the Vault
“Grateful Remembrance:” Memorial Day, Crown Hill Cemetery, and Your Veteran Ancestors
When Disaster Strikes Your Public Records
RIM Takeover! Celebrating Records and Information Management Month
Governors Evan Bayh and Frank O’Bannon Video Digitization Project
Records Management During an Election Year
IARA's Imaging and Microfilm Lab to the Rescue
Indiana Supreme Court Records at the Indiana State Archives
The John Newman Papers: A Case of County Court Separation
Indiana State Teachers Association Register
1880 Census Mix-Up
Indiana State Archives conservator Elizabeth Hague was preparing a large, disbound volume of the 1880 Agricultural Census when she discovered that the pages for Deer Creek Township in Caroll County were actually pages from the 1880 Population Census.
Fun Barcoding Finds
Even with all the work we do and all the patrons we assist, there are some records that won’t be used by archivists, other staff, or patrons. So, we wanted to highlight some of the fun things our barcoding teams have ‘discovered’ during the last 3 years of barcoding.
Inheritance Tax Records
There are two types of tax records kept at the Indiana State Archives. Genealogists may be interested in the tax records as a source of information about relatives.
Spanish-American War Records
Though often overlooked, the Spanish-American War left behind valuable documentation. IARA holds a collection of Spanish-American War records that genealogists may find useful.
Crown Hill Cemetery
During the summer of 1863, civic leaders acted to resolve the need for a new cemetery in Indianapolis. Greenlawn Cemetery, an amalgamation of three cemeteries serving as the city cemetery, was at capacity.
The Indiana Pi Bill
In 1897, Dr. Goodwin believed that he had solved the ancient mathematical problem of “squaring the circle” and created a new and much simpler value for Pi – 3.2.
Barcoding
The largest, most important, and most time-intensive project we’re working on is adding new labels and barcodes to every box and volume in our holdings.
Stories from the Archives
Collections that concentrate on individual people can always be counted on to be intriguing. A particular favorite for most genealogists is the Foster Care Files 1892-1910.
Santa Claus vs Santa Claus
Likely holding the record for the number of times the name “Santa Claus” appears in the title of a legal case, the story of Santa Claus v. Santa Claus started in 1856.
Backlog
If you’ve been following the State Archives for a while, you know that we’ve been working on preparing our records to be moved into a new building in 2026.
Research Indiana Indexes: Archives Staff Q&A
For Ask an Archivist Day, we asked our staff some questions about our new Research Indiana Indexes site.
Working From Home: The WPA Card Catalog
The WPA Card Index lives in a large card catalog in the Archives’ stacks area. Our archivists use it for research, but with over 400,000 cards, it isn’t exactly browseable.
Essential Operations
Essential operations during the lockdown stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the types of records that were still urgently needed
The Kindig Mystery
Several WWI soldiers named Kindig enlisted around the same time from South Bend, Indiana. They also all seemed to be (originally) from Union City, Michigan. We decided to investigate and see if we could figure out the mystery!
White River Park State Games
The Indiana State Archives holds a collection on the White River Park State Games. The collection includes advertising materials, budget paperwork, press releases, and planning documents. This collection represents an interesting decade of amateur sports history in Indiana.
