INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Historical Society (IHS)’s newest exhibit, Rivers, Rails and Roads, opens June 10 at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center, located at 450 W. Ohio St.
The exhibit showcases sketches, photographs and maps to illustrate the changes in transportation over time as well as first-person texts and oral histories that explain what it was like to use and work for various modes of transportation.
The IHS collections contain numerous photographs and drawings recording transportation technologies from before Indiana statehood to the present day. These include examples of steamboats traversing the Ohio River as well as some of the many automobiles manufactured locally by Indiana companies.
IHS also holds many oral history project transcripts and recordings. The Indiana Extension Homemakers Association Oral History Project, 1980-1990 contains more than 340 interviews of women who were members of the Indiana Extension Homemakers, an association started in 1913 to assist rural homemakers with skills to handle everyday taskwork. Many of these women recalled when automobiles were still new and uncommon.
In addition, the Raul and Rogelia Piñon Latino Oral History Project Interview was conducted by IHS Multicultural Collections Coordinator Nicole Martinez-LeGrand. In this interview, Raul and Rogelia Piñon share their experiences as first-generation Mexican immigrants in the United States, including the challenge they faced when attempting to purchase an automobile.
Also, the Getting There: Oral Histories About Transportation in Michigan City project includes interviews with railway employees and an activist for the preservation of the South Shore Rail Line, one of very few interurban railways still in operation today. These interviews were created through the Michigan City Public Library and are available to IHS through Indiana University Northwest.
Rivers, Rails and Roads opens to the public June 10 and runs through October 28. The History Center will also offer free admission on Thursdays during the summer, June 1 to July 27, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information about IHS, go to www.indianahistory.org.