What Former Legislators Want You to Know

While conducting interviews for the Indiana Legislative Oral History Initiative, I discussed with former Indiana state legislators quite a bit about the ins and outs of state politics. Our conversations covered topics like how legislators find themselves in politics, how the Indiana General Assembly has evolved over the years, and how elections are won and lost. Another interesting thing I learned, though, was how former legislators perceived of the general public during their time in office. In fact, during interviews I often asked former legislators about what they think the general public does not know about the Indiana General Assembly, as well as what they should know. Over the course of many interviews, I received a variety of answers. However, several important themes emerged, which some could argue, reflect a problematic trend for the State of Indiana.

Thomas Teague, courtesy of “Senator Quits Bill,” Indianapolis News, July 16, 1971, 3, accessed Newspapers.com.

For starters, the majority of former legislators that I interviewed told me point blank that the average Hoosier knows nothing or very little about the Indiana General Assembly and how it operates. Former Democratic Senator Thomas Teague, who served in the Indiana Senate from 1971 to 1978 and was the Senate Majority leader, stated the following when asked what the public does not know about the Indiana General Assembly: “Well, that would take about a library full . . . I don’t think the public knows very much at all about it. Maybe they don’t care. I think some do.” This belief was echoed by former Republican Representative Stephen Moberly, who served in the Indiana House of Representatives from 1973 to 1990 and said “Well, they don’t know a lot about it…it’s a pretty superficial understanding of government, which is a shame.” This is obviously a big statement to make in regard to the Hoosier population and one that needs to be taken seriously, as it certainly does not bode well for our democracy and our ability to effect change in our state. Additionally, this lack of awareness limits our ability to hold legislators accountable for policies we may not like as citizens.

Indianapolis Star, January 6, 1967, 12, accessed Newspapers.com.

What exactly do Hoosiers not know about state government? First, interviewees noted that many people confuse state legislators for members of the U.S. Congress. This was pointed out by Indiana  State Senator Frank Biddinger, who served from 1967 to 1969. He recounted the following story: “I would be at home, on a weekend, and . . . almost always, people would say to me, well, aren’t you supposed to be in Washington? They all thought I was a U.S. senator, I guess—they didn’t know the difference between a state senator and a U.S. senator.”

William Vobach, a Republican senator who served from 1983 to 1990, pointed out that because the public often conflates state legislators with U.S. lawmakers, there is an “idea that you have a staff that can run around and fix things and take care of agency problems…We haven’t got any of that.” He added that “there was just not understanding that we weren’t there all the time if something came up in the summer or something, you know? That, ‘why can’t you just go over and do it?’ [mentality].” This lack of understanding about basic civics and the functioning of state government is not relegated to Indiana. Recently, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation published a survey concluding that two-thirds of Americans couldn’t pass the test immigrants take to become U.S. citizens. This is an alarming fact, considering test-takers are asked to name various ways to participate in democracy.[1]

Former legislators also felt not enough citizens understand the nuances of government and how complex it is to get a bill passed into law. This was highlighted by former Republican Senator Farrell Duckworth, who served in the Indiana Senate from 1981 to 1984. He said:

They don’t realize what it takes to get a bill passed. They just don’t realize that . . . All of the hearings and everything to get the bill through and then get it kicked back in your face from the other house and have to go through it again or it completely dies and next year you’ve got to bring it back again. They don’t understand that. They think we just go up there and write the bills and that’s it. And get a big check [chuckles]. You’d be surprised how many people think that.

This observation was reiterated by former state legislators. This fact is unsurprising; if most Americans can’t pass a basic civics test, it’s unlikely they understand the complex process of how a bill becomes a law.

“Emergency Powers House Bill 1123 sees Failed Amendments as it Moves Forward,” The Statehouse File, February 8, 2021, accessed thestatehousefile.com.

Additionally, a political majority—or even supermajority—does not ensure the passage of a bill. Recently in Indiana there has been disagreement within the Republican party, specifically between the Indiana General Assembly and Governor Eric Holcomb. The controversy centers around the ability of the governor to declare a state of emergency, without the intervention of the Indiana General Assembly.[2] Essentially, a Republican in the House authored a bill that would allow the Indiana General Assembly to convene for an emergency legislative session, in the event that the governor declares a state of emergency. The process of getting this bill passed into law proved incredibly complicated.

To summarize, after being authored it was sent to the House Committee on Rules and Legislative Procedures and passed through committee. Then it was sent to the House floor for a vote and was passed by the Indiana House of Representatives. Next, it was sent to the Indiana Senate’s Committee on Rules and Legislative Procedures, where it passed committee and was sent to the Senate floor for a vote. On the Senate floor, two amendments were made to the bill before it was finally passed by the Senate. As a result, it was sent back to the House, which disagreed with these amendments. Thus, it was then sent to the conference committee where leaders of the Indiana House and Senate get together to make agreements on bills in which they disagree. Finally, a conference committee version of the bill was agreed on and sent to the Governor of Indiana, who then vetoed it. In turn, the bill was sent back to the Indiana House and Senate, which voted to overrule the governor’s veto, which officially made the bill law. But, it is still technically not over yet because now the Governor of Indiana is suing the Indiana General Assembly over the legality of the law.[3]

This recent event perfectly highlights how complex the legislative process is and why many Hoosiers, as well as Americans in general, may not quite grasp the ins and outs of how bills become law. And this is only a simplified version of the events. There are many other complexities of how bills become law because there are so many ways a bill can be killed or passed into law due to various legislative tactics. Republican Senator Robert Meeks, who served from 1983 to 1990, described the sometimes gritty legislative process:

Makin’ laws is like makin’ sausage. Doesn’t look good. And you know, General Assembly’s— the legislature was created to take the fighting off the streets and move it into a confined area called the chambers. That’s why it was done, take it off the streets and bring it in here. That’s exactly the way it was. So what goes on in there, in those meetings is generally not general knowledge of the public, they shouldn’t know about all that. Not that it’s bad, but it’s just that it’s sausage.

Conversely, Democratic legislator Earline Rogers noted that while there could be conflict among lawmakers, she told ILOHI that she doesn’t think the public recognizes “the camaraderie that’s there.” Political differences might complicate legislation, but “there’s a bond that political parties just can’t break up,” like the period when she and Republican colleague Tom Wyss were both caring for loved ones diagnosed with cancer.”

“Railroad Crossing Haunts Parents of Victims,” May 26, 1982, 11, accessed Newspapers.com.

The last and perhaps most important thing many legislators wanted Hoosiers to know: don’t hesitate to contact your legislator. As former Indiana Senator Dennis Neary, who served in the Indiana Senate from 1976 to 1992, argued:

They need to know that their voice does count, and legislators will listen to them. They won’t always agree with them, but they will listen to them. And the more legislators hear from their constituents, the more they will react on an issue . . . that the person thinks is important.

This may seem like a basic idea, but many Hoosiers and Americans are actually quite passive politically, and don’t seem to be as interested as they could be in employing their political voices. Rep. Charlie Brown, a Democrat who served from 1982 to 2018 and member of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus, described in practical terms how his constituents made their voices heard. He noted that during and after session, he attended public forums and mailed out surveys asking what legislative issues constituents wanted to pass. Rep. Brown noted that the information was “compiled by the staff and then it shows us the issues that are most important to the constituents back home.”

Indiana’s former legislators seem to emphasize that not enough is being done by everyday Hoosiers to nurture the health of the State of Indiana. Citizens should strive to be more politically active. Political passiveness towards state government may seem harmless, but bills that could one day affect your life, for better or worse, are being passed every session. We must remember that many around the world are fighting just for the opportunity to have a fraction of the amount of political influence that Hoosiers possess. The enactment of laws may not seem to be the most pressing issue in our day to day lives, but it has the potential to dramatically affect us whether we want it to or not. So it is critical to look into potential legislation and to weigh in by bringing your concerns and experiences to lawmakers. After all, they work for us.

 

Sources:

[1] Patrick Riccards, “National Survey Finds Just 1 in 3 Americans Would Pass Citizenship Test,” October 3, 2018, accessed Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

[2] Tom Davies, “Indiana Lawmakers Override Governor’s Emergency Powers Veto,” April 15, 2021, accessed AP News.

[3] Indiana House Bill 1123, passed April 15, 2021, accessed LegiScan.

The Associated Press, “Judge Letting Gov. Holcomb Sue Indiana’s Legislature to Block Emergency Law,” July 6, 2021, accessed WTHR.

Leedy Manufacturing Company and Purdue’s “World’s Largest Drum”

Purdue’s “World’s Largest Drum”, made by Indianapolis’ Leedy Manufacturing Company in 1921, has been involved in many rivalries over its size. Learn more about its unique history from our latest video.

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Credits: Written and produced by Justin Clark.

Music: “Regimented Instinct” by Teknoaxe, “Jumpin’ Boogie Woogie” by Audionautix, “Anchors Aweigh” by US Marine Corps Band, “National Emblem” by US Naval Academy Band, “Low Tide” by Silent Partner, “Jazz Bar” by Doug Maxwell, Media Right Productions, “Hail, Purdue” by Purdue All-American Marching Band

Continue reading “Leedy Manufacturing Company and Purdue’s “World’s Largest Drum””

The Intersection of War Work & Women’s Enfranchisement

Indianapolis women sewing Red Cross hospital garments, 1917, Indiana Red Cross Collection, accessed Indiana Memory.

On the precipice of World War I, Hoosier women had reason to be hopeful that they had, at last, won their long fight for suffrage. The 1917 legislative session brought about three major suffrage measures, all of which passed. But the constitutionality of suffrage bills would soon be challenged, and when the United States formally entered the war on April 6, 1917, Hoosier suffragists and clubwomen stood at a crossroads. Should they continue fighting for the vote or should they pause their efforts to focus attention on assisting the homefront?

Historian Anita Morgan noted that during the Civil War, “women had dropped suffrage campaigning in exchange for tackling war work and thought, erroneously, that war work would win them suffrage. That disappointment yet festered, and this time, they would not make the same mistake.”[i] In fact, Dr. Morgan asserted that “what the war managed to do was to finally focus the energies of all these suffragists and club women so they acted in concert for one goal—win the war and in the process win suffrage for themselves.”[ii] Leaders believed that their best response to the U.S. entering World War I would be to support its efforts entirely while simultaneously continuing the fight for suffrage. Doing so would put President Wilson in their debt and earn the National American Woman Suffrage Association valuable supporters.[iii] It would also, incidentally, afford women a unique experience in which to hone their public speaking and organizational skills.

***

World War I Poster Collection, accessed Indiana Memory.

“Never again will suffrage be decried or ignored in Indiana,” declared fliers sent to women across Indiana by Marie Stuart Edwards, president of the Woman’s Franchise League (WFL). Edwards wrote to Indiana Federation of Clubs’ members around the state reporting that suffragists were intensifying their efforts, regardless of the war, writing: “plans are being made to carry the fight and you will hear about them.” She encouraged Hoosier women to “emphasize the relations between suffrage and patriotism” to enhance their credibility as future-voters. By combining the war effort with suffrage efforts, women could now band together and show the country and government why they were worthy of the vote. Edwards went on to say that “real patriotism demands that we serve the Government no matter how out of patience we get with state authorities. If possible, make a showing as a LEAGUE.”[i]

Indiana women, following Edwards’s suggestion, quickly mobilized. Reports from the WFL show that Lenore Hannah Cox requested names of prominent women from across the state, who might telegraph congressmen in regards to the passage of the federal suffrage amendment when called upon to do so.[ii] Financial reports of the Woman’s Franchise League similarly show that the league began collecting Liberty Bond donations as part of its budget, promoting the drive through their newspaper, The Hoosier Suffragist.[iii]

Grace Julian Clarke broadsides and flyers, 1910-1930s, L033: Grace Julian Clarke papers, Women in Hoosier History, Indiana State Library Digital Collections.

Prolific columnist and Indianapolis suffragist Grace Julian Clarke wrote in the Indianapolis Star, “more depends upon us in this matter than many persons realize, and it is a work that only women can perform.”[iv] She quickly assumed a leadership role in her community and volunteered to lead a sign-up station for the Red Cross at the Irvington post office. Other prominent club women around Indianapolis followed suit.[v] Clarke also introduced a resolution at a “patriotic meeting” held at the Y.W.C.A. in Indianapolis that urged local women to “pledge . . . to do our bit in war emergency relief work, and to induce others to do the same.”[vi] About 400 women registered their intent to take part in war relief work after Clarke’s address. By May 1917, Clarke had been appointed to supervise WFL war work, which required Clarke to process all of the records from the war work registration drive.[vii] Registrars had asked women to complete registration cards promising to help with some type of government service if called upon during the war.[viii]

In October of 1917, Hoosier suffragists like Clarke joined the “fourteen-minute women,” speaking before clubs, church societies, and other women’s organizations for about—you guessed it—fourteen minutes on the subject of food conservation. The group was “one wing of the army of talkers, pledgers, advertisers and boosters” that the local branch of the United States food administration, led by future U.S. president Herbert Hoover, expected to disseminate important facts regarding food conservation. The “fourteen-minute women,” organized by suffragist and former WFL secretary Julia C. Henderson as part of the speakers’ bureau for the Seventh District for food conservation work, collaborated with “four-minute men.”[ix]

“Fourteen-Minute Women” Speakers’ Bureau Conference Program, May 10, 1918, (State Council of Defense), accessed Indiana State Library Digital Collections.

Members of the “fourteen-minute women” included other locally prominent women in hundreds of speaking tours during the war, which helped develop their public speaking skills.[x] In January of 1918, the “fourteen-minute women” were enlisted in state service after their effort had been found to be “so effective that it was deemed advisable to enlarge and extend it beyond the 7th District.”[xi] This expansion included training women to speak on activities that were expected of women in the General Federation of Clubs as an aid in prosecuting the war, with an emphasis on food conservation. Clarke, among others, received unique training and experience in public speaking as a result, further elevating her reputation as a public figure. Of this link between war work and the drive for enfranchisement, she contended:

we [women] are truly patriotic, not only by knitting and doing the conventional kinds of war work, but by the utmost exertions to secure for the women of our country their rightful place as equal partners in the tremendously important enterprise of government . . . Women of all religious denominations, club women, women who work whether in the home or in the many fields outside, young women and old, colored women and white, all women with sufficient wit to discern right from wrong, daylight from night, should enlist in the present suffrage drive.[xii]

Women quite literally utilized war work to demonstrate their deservedness of full-enfranchisement. The state’s Constitutional Convention law was challenged in court on the grounds that it was an “unnecessary public expense,” and the partial suffrage law was challenged for simply costing too much to effectively double the number of voters in the state. Responding to these assertions, Hoosier suffragists attended an Indiana Supreme Court hearing, bringing supplies most likely as part of their “knitting for soldiers campaign to support the war effort, and stayed through four hours of arguments.” In their newsletter, The Hoosier Suffragist, WFL members further challenged these claims, writing “‘Mr. Hoover says he expects the women of this country to save enough to pay for the war,” and yet some men complained that “ballot boxes and ‘fixings’ for women to vote will cost at least six thousand dollars.” The author quipped “If we pay for the war can’t the men scrape up the money for those ballot boxes?”[xiii]

***

Red Cross nurses in the foreground with soldiers in the center, marching beneath a replica of the Arc de Triomphe, which had been constructed for the celebration on Monument Circle, courtesy of the Indiana State Library Rare Books and Manuscripts collections.

On May 7, 1919, 20,000 jubilant men and women cheered returning soldiers at the Welcome Home Parade in Indianapolis. The parade stretched for thirty-three blocks, and left the city awash in red, white, and blue. Trains unloaded returning Hoosier soldiers who displayed their regimental colors. Many attendees had survived the 1918 influenza pandemic, nursed the sick at Fort Harrison, or lost friends and relatives to the pandemic. While suffragists celebrated the end of the war and the dwindling of a catastrophic pandemic, their struggle for full-enfranchisement endured.

According to Talking Hoosier History, Congress finally passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in June 1919, which then required thirty-six states to ratify in order to become law. Indiana suffragists immediately began calling for Governor Goodrich to convene a special session of the General Assembly to ratify the 19th Amendment. The governor, however, wanted to wait to see what other states would do before spending time and money on a special session. Months later, with still no sign of a special session, suffragists turned up the pressure and Franchise League president Helen Benbridge delivered petitions signed by 86,000 Hoosiers.

Indianapolis Star, January 17, 1920, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.

Their determination proved effective and Governor Goodrich agreed to call a special session. Historian Anita Morgan noted that Hoosier “legislators who spoke in favor of the [suffrage] measure gave women’s war work, which to them signified women’s loyalty, as the reason to support.”[i] On January 16, 1920, Indiana ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Indianapolis News reported on the reaction of women at the statehouse when they heard the news:

As soon as the house passed the resolution, a band in the hall began playing ‘Glory, Glory Hallelujah.’ Women joined in the singing. Scores rushed into the corridor and began embracing. Many shook hands and scenes of wildest joy and confusion prevailed.

The celebrations continued when, on August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment and the measure became law.

Increasing patriotism, in alignment with a united outward appearance by suffragists, proved a calculated and successful political strategy used by women during the war. The war had illuminated women’s ability to use genuine patriotism as a political tactic to achieve the vote through club and suffrage work. Although women were challenged during a time when they were so close to achieving the goal that they had been working on for nearly a century, loyalty to their country ultimately advanced the “cause of humanity and progress.”

 

Notes:

[i] Anita Morgan, “We Must Be Fearless:” The Woman Suffrage Movement in Indiana (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 2020), 196.

[i] Copy of flier attached to Mrs. Richard E. Edwards to Clarke, Nov. 3, 1917, GJC, Box 2, Folder 1, ISL.

[ii] Printed board letter and reports, Woman’s Franchise League of Indiana, Nov. 3, 1917, GJC, Box 2, Folder 1, ISL.

[iii] “Mrs. Fred M’Collough Head of Loan Drive,” The Hoosier Suffragist, October 26, 1917, p. 1.

[iv] Grace Julian Clarke, “Making Study of League to Enforce Peace,” Indianapolis Star, Oct. 27, 1918, 38.

[v] “Gaining Members Rapidly,” Indianapolis Star, April 7, 1917, 11.

[vi] “Many Women Enroll For War Relief Work,” Indianapolis News, April 12, 1917, 7.

[vii] “Supervisor of War Work,” Indianapolis News, May 9, 1917, 9.

[viii] “Census of Women Will Learn Qualifications for Aiding Government,” The Call-Leader (Elwood, Indiana), May 12, 1917, 1.

[ix] “Hoover Luncheon and Dinner,” Indianapolis News, October 19, 1917, 18.

[x] “Will Talk Wherever They Get the Chance,” Indianapolis News, October 16, 1917, 1.

[xi] “To Organize Speakers,” South Bend Tribune, January 18, 1918, 5.

[xii] Scrapbook regarding World War I, League of Nations, and suffrage, Grace Julian Clarke, vol. 422-11, Indiana State Library.

[xiii] Morgan, 160-161.

[i] Morgan, (unpublished manuscript), Chapter 7, p. 1.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Lynn Dumenil, The Second Line of Defense: American Women and World War I (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017), 274-275.

Old Settlers’ Day & the Victorious Washington Long

Three generations of the Long family in front of Washington’s home, ca. 1915. The author’s grandmother, LeNore Alice Hoard Enz, is the “little scowling” girl at left. Washington is in the center and his daughter and LeNore’s mother, Anna Long Hoard, is to his left with her hair up. Image courtesy of the author.

Washington Long woke up early at his daughter Anna’s house. He had not even heard the rooster crow yet, and the sky was still a dark blue as night faded away into the dawn. The old man slept in the front bedroom that Anna and Kellis Hoard added when he moved in. In the latter years of his life, Washington seemed aged and often forgetful. He moved in with his daughter and son-in-law in the new house down the hill from his own around 1919. Anna washed and ironed his clothes, as he set great store by how he looked, especially on a big day like today.

He noted his only daughter had set out his good summer suit, with freshly-pressed trousers and his Sunday shoes. A crisp white dress shirt and tie hung next to the suit. Washington dug into the dresser drawer and found his gold watch and chain. Today, he was going to look remarkable, a real gentleman farmer.

Washington no longer worked his land. Instead, his son-in-law, Kellis, and the hired man managed the farming at both the Hoard farm and Washington’s farm on the other side of Sugar Creek, Washington Township, Whitley County.

It was Thursday, August 19, 1926. Today might be a special day for Washington. He didn’t yet know. Since 1909, Whitley County had awarded loving cups to the oldest registered settler and the longest continuous resident at Old Settlers’ Days.

Would he be first in line to register at the Old Settlers’ tent near the Courthouse? Would this be the year he won a silver cup?

Washington is about the fourth on the right, image courtesy of the author.

After a family breakfast, Kellis pulled his reliable Ford machine in front of the farmhouse door. The early morning sky was cloud-free and blue as the perennial periwinkles that overgrew on the south side of the summer kitchen—a perfect day for a festival. Granddaughter Zoe, Anna, and Washington got in the car, and they were off, east on the Washington Center Road past the school where the Long children had graduated. Then, they headed north on Indiana State Road 11 (later Indiana State Road 9) to the Whitley County Courthouse.

The stately courthouse in the middle of town was the center of Old Settlers’ Day events. The French Renaissance-style building rose to three stories of Indiana limestone, topped with an iron-covered dome. A few people wandered inside to see the relics room, treasures belonging to the first white settlers of Whitley County.

Registration began at 9 a.m. The South Whitley and Columbia City high school bands played lively music for those waiting in line.

The day featured events for the whole family, a greased pole climbing contest, free children’s show at the Columbia Theatre, and a horseshoe pitching contest with cash prizes at the Gun Club.

Washington with his wife, Albina, and children, Anna, (the author’s great-grandmother), Franklin, and Calvin, ca. 1890, courtesy of the author.

For Washington, the highlight was the official, early afternoon Old Settlers’ Day ceremony in front of the courthouse. Ralph Gates, a local attorney, and future governor of Indiana, gave a welcoming address, followed by the Baptist Reverend Charles Watkins of Muncie, who gave a lengthy speech entitled, “Faith of our Fathers.”

Reverend Watkins urged the large crowd to remember that the first structure in pioneer life was the home, followed by the church, followed by the school. “It is just a short distance to a church nowadays by machine. The importance of religion cannot be overestimated,” said Reverend Watkins.[1]

“How much faith have the people in the future generation of boys and girls today?,” the speaker asked.[2]

Washington was widely known to enjoy liberal religious views and supported several religious organizations financially. He may have thoroughly enjoyed the zeal of the speaker. Or his attention might have wandered to the Civil War monument on the courthouse lawn, which honored the Whitley County Civil War dead. Washington’s brother, Lewis Reuben Long, died of dysentery after Vicksburg on the western front in 1863.

Reverend Watkins answered his question about the future generation of boys and girls. “I do not feel the flapper, or the drug store sheik would fall when they came to meet their duties and responsibilities of life. One evidence of age frequently manifested was to begin to criticize the younger generation because they do not do like the other person did when he was a boy and to think that they are going pell-mell to the devil.”[3]

Image courtesy of the author.

The sun was still high above on this early August afternoon. Underneath its’ warm rays, some elders nodded off during the featured address and lunch.

Watkins concluded his remarks by saying that the boys and girls who make love in automobiles are no different than their parents who used to tie their reins around the whip and let Old Dobbin find his way home.[4]

Finally, Reverend L.A. Luckenbill rose to present the two loving cups, one for the oldest resident and one for the most senior continuous resident.

“The winner of the oldest resident is Isaiah Johnson of Thorncreek Town-ship,” said Reverend Luckenbill. “Mr. Johnson was born on December 10, 1835, and is now 90 years, five months, and nine days.”

So much for being the most senior resident. The family held its collective breath. How many others here today had been born in a log cabin in Whitley County? In 1845?

“The longest continuous resident for 1926 is Washington Long of Washington Township. Mr. Long was born in Washington Township on February 23, 1845, and is 81 years, five months, and 27 days.”[5]

Image courtesy of the author.

Washington walked proudly to the bandstand, his green registration tag attached to his jacket lapel, his gold watch chain glimmering in the afternoon sun. He surveyed the large crowd that had gathered all along Van Buren from Main to Chauncey Street.

Reverend Luckenbill asked him to say a few words about his coveted award.

“Things ain’t like they used to was,” said the 81-year resident of Whitley County. And then he went back to his chair and sat to thunderous applause. Washington’s statement on constant change has become a family saying for generations.

The Hoards enjoyed visiting with friends into the evening as Washington accepted congratulations.

The Fort Wayne Colored Giants played the Columbia City Modern Woodmen at Carter Field in baseball. Others attended the Hog Calling Contest at the Band Stand, which offered cash prizes for the best call. For people who missed her afternoon show, Grace Gage, contortionist, and her two trained dogs gave a special performance on the courthouse lawn. Darkness came, and an illuminated aeroplane flew low over the crowd, followed by a 25-minute display of fireworks over Columbia City.

After a memorable day, the family returned home, still delighted Washington had finally received his due as a pioneer. He would not compete again, believing others should have their chance. His loving cup, however, became a treasured family heirloom.

Notes:

[1] “The Aftermath of the Annual Old Settlers’ Day,” The Post (Columbia City, IN), August 20, 1926.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Program, Old Settlers’ Day, Columbia City, Indiana, Thursday, August 19, 1926, Peabody Library, Columbia City, Indiana.
[5] “The Aftermath of the Annual Old Settlers’ Day,” August 20, 1926.

The Unlikely Civil Rights Legacy of Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton

“Sherman Minton,” photograph, n.d., Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library, accessed Indiana State Library Digital Collections.

Sherman Minton’s willingness to find flexibility in the law and his own thinking helped end state-sanctioned discrimination toward African Americans in housing, employment, and education. Considering his rigid stance on judicial restraint, Minton’s reformist civil rights record is surprising at first glance. He believed that Congress, not the courts, should define the country’s laws. As an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1949-1956, Minton invariably deferred to both congressional and judicial precedent, opposing activism by the Court. A closer look at his role in several landmark desegregation cases shows how Minton was able to stretch precedent in order to bend the moral arc of the universe toward justice. His much-lauded judicial opinion on Barrows v. Jackson, the Supreme Court decision that ended discriminatory housing covenants, is particularly relevant. Today, much work remains to fully end discriminatory policies that create disparity in income and living conditions for millions of Black Americans, a sort of de facto segregation that lingers more than sixty years after these Civil Rights Era desegregation cases. The civil rights work of Sherman Minton is worth considering here, if for no other reason, because it remains unfinished.

New Albany High School, The Vista, 1909, accessed Maurer School of Law History and Archives, Indiana University. Sherman Minton is second from the left.
Indiana University, The Arbutus for Nineteen Thirteen, “U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012,” accessed AncestryLibrary.com

Young Minton, better known as “Shay,” was a troublemaker. Born in Georgetown, Indiana, in 1890, he had to work from a young age to help support his struggling family. Yet, he somehow still found the energy to knock neighbors hats off with snowballs or loosen a wheel on his brother’s wagon, causing it to fall off and ruin his date. While Minton may have been rambunctious in his spare time, he was a serious student with a love of learning. He graduated from New Albany High School in 1910 and worked a series of jobs before enrolling at Indiana University in 1911.[1]

At IU, Minton excelled in football, baseball, and debate. He took two years of undergraduate classes before entering the IU School of Law, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws in 1915.[2] He then won a scholarship to Yale University School of Law where he earned his Master of Laws degree in 1916.[3] While at Yale, Minton came under the tutelage of former President William Howard Taft, who himself would go on to serve as a Supreme Court justice (the only president to boast this accomplishment). Reportedly, after Shay argued with Taft over a lesson about a certain Supreme Court ruling, Taft told his student:

I’m afraid, Mr. Minton, that if you don’t like the way this law has been interpreted, you will have to get on the Supreme Court and change it.[4]

Minton would later take the former president up on this suggestion.

Upon graduation from Yale, Minton set up a law practice in New Albany. Soon after, the United States entered WWI and Minton immediately enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was commissioned as an infantry officer, trained at Fort Benjamin Harrison, and sent overseas in July of 1918 where he served on the French front.[5]

Indianapolis Star, May 24, 1932, 3, accessed Newspapers.com.

After returning from war, Minton entered the Democratic primary to seek a congressional Senate seat. While he was unsuccessful in this 1920 election, he would remain active or interested in Democratic Party politics his entire life.[6] For the following decade, he practiced law before making another unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 1930.[7] During the 1930s, he became even more politically active, campaigning for Paul McNutt in the 1932 gubernatorial race.[8] After McNutt was elected, the new governor rewarded Minton with his first public office, appointing him public counselor to the Public Service Commission. Minton began his work March 8, 1933, representing the public against utilities companies, and securing rate reductions in hundreds of cases.[9]

In 1934, Minton again ran for Congress on a platform of staunch support for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. That November 6th, Indiana voters finally sent Minton to Washington.[10] He took his seat in the U.S. Senate next to future President Harry Truman in January 1935.

Tampa Morning Tribune, January 3, 1935, 2, accessed Newspapers.com

Minton would serve only one term in Congress, but the experience influenced his later judicial positions. As a member of a committee that investigated utility companies, he helped break up monopolies, work he would later continue from the bench. He was a vocal critic of the Supreme Court decisions that declared several New Deal policies unconstitutional, establishing his long-held view that the Court shouldn’t overturn the will of the people as expressed through their elected officials. And he became a spokesman for the administration, explaining complicated issues (like Roosevelt’s court packing plan) in plain language, a strength he would later bring to his written judicial opinions.[11]

When it came to increasing or strengthening the rights of  African Americans, he was swayed neither by the administration nor legislative precedent. Instead, Minton took a moral stand for civil rights. For example, he broke with the administration’s lack of action against lynching by advocating for anti-lynching legislation throughout his term.[12] When opponents to a 1938 anti-lynching bill claimed that the states should regulate lynching, not Congress, Minton noted that there had been eight lynchings the previous year and none were prosecuted. “In other words,” Minton told his fellow senators, “there was 100 percent failure to prosecute the most heinous crime.”[13] He finished with a moral argument for legislative interference to stop lynching, stating:

I am interested in State rights, but I am much more interested in human rights.[14]

Minton was again nominated for his Senate seat in 1940, but lost as the Republican Party swept the Indiana elections. Recognizing his service to the Democratic Party and the administration, in January 1941, President Roosevelt made Minton his administrative assistant. Soon a position on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, a busy federal court located  in Chicago, opened, and FDR nominated Minton for this prestigious judgeship. On May 7, 1941, the Senate confirmed the nomination and that October Minton joined the Seventh Circuit bench. [15]

Chicago Tribune, October 7, 1941, 2, accessed Newspapers.com

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals heard a large number of cases and Minton wrote his share of opinions and dissents in his eight years on the bench in Chicago. Yet, even drawing on this large sample of cases, it can be difficult to understand his judicial philosophy. He seems full of contradictions at times.

An ardent New Dealer, Minton believed the government was responsible for improving the lives of its citizens, which included protecting consumers. Thus, Minton often decided against corporations engaging in monopolistic practices and usually decided for the rights of labor unions. However, it was the greater good of the majority of citizens that moved Minton, not necessarily the rights of individuals. Thus, he often decided in favor of government agencies at the expense of individual rights. This was especially true when the decision could potentially impact national security. Perhaps this is not surprising considering for much of his time on the Seventh Circuit bench, the world was at war and many in the United States feared both foreign and domestic enemy agents.[16]

New York Daily News, March 30, 1948, 57, accessed Newspapers.com.

Minton was dedicated to judicial restraint and  upholding legislative intent – two sides of the same coin. In other words, Minton believed that the courts should not overturn congressional legislation which was the will of the people made law. This dovetails with his interest in protecting the rights of the majority. By deferring to Congress, Minton believed he was deferring to the people of the United States who elected the congressmen. But in cases of individual freedoms, his position sometimes put him out of step with his colleagues who saw an opportunity to expand civil liberties through their decisions. Minton was not opposed to increased civil liberties, he just believed that such issues were under the purview of Congress, not the courts. He would adhere to this view as he ascended to the nation’s highest court.[17]

Indianapolis Times, October 12, 1949, 1, accessed Hoosier State Chronicles.

In September 1949, President Harry Truman nominated Sherman Minton, his old friend from their years in the Senate, for the Supreme Court of the United States. Minton was confirmed and took his place on the bench that October.[18] As an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Minton maintained his general position of restraint, tendency to side with legislative precedent and the administration against individuals, and his disinclination to overturn the rulings of state courts. Despite this determination, Minton maintained a consistently strong, activist position when it came to civil rights issues, especially desegregation, as evidenced by landmark cases such as McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, Sweatt v. Painter, Brown v. Board of Education, and Barrows v. Jackson.

“George W. McLaurin,” photograph, n.d., Oklahoma Publishing Company Photography Collection, accessed Oklahoma Historical Society.

On June 5, 1950, the Supreme Court decided both McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents and Sweatt v. Painter. These cases overturned the “separate but equal” precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson with the Court unanimously deciding that, at the level of graduate school and law school, segregation denied Black students equal educational opportunities, violating their Fourteenth Amendment rights to “equal protection of the laws.”[19] Referring to the separate areas where a Black student was forced to eat and study, Chief Justice Fred Vinson wrote in the Court opinion:

Such restrictions impair and inhibit his ability to study, to engage in discussions and exchange views with other students, and, in general, to learn his profession . . . State imposed restrictions which produce such inequalities cannot be sustained.[20]

Alabama Tribune, February 17, 1950, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.

These cases provided precedent for the Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. In this historic case, the Court determined that, like the earlier cases dealing with higher education, segregation in public schools also violated the Fourteenth Amendment. In short, the justices determined that there was no such thing as “separate but equal” education. In his opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote:

We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of “separate but equal” has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.[21]

“English Class at Moton High School,” photograph, 1914, Brown v. Board of Education, National Archives. National Archives caption: English class at Moton High School, a school for Black students, one of several photographs entered as evidence in the case Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, which was one of five cases that the Supreme Court consolidated under Brown v. Board of Education, ca. 1951

Chief Justice Warren felt that an unanimous decision was essential in Brown in order to convey to the public that the Court was taking a moral as well as a constitutional stand against segregation and that the issue was now decided unequivocally. Imparting that moral argument in the opinion for Brown, Justice Warren wrote:

To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.[22]

Legal historians Linda Gugin and James St. Clair argued that Sherman Minton played a vital role in making these decisions unanimous. The scholars called him “the Court’s strongest team player” because of the warm personal relationships he fostered with his colleagues.[23] Minton was reportedly the only justice welcome in every one of their offices. He regularly organized group lunches and made sure to express his respect for his fellow justices when he dissented from their opinions. It was, therefore, quite possible that Minton was able to convey the importance of a united front on the Brown decision to his undecided colleagues.

Greencastle Daily Banner, November 17, 1953, 4, accessed Hoosier State Chronicles.

Because the opinions in the aforementioned cases were written by the Chief Justice (Vinson for the 1950 cases and Warren in 1954), it is impossible to definitively analyze Minton’s impact on the decisions. However, in the 1953 case of Barrows v. Jackson, Minton penned the Court’s opinion, allowing us a rare opportunity to dissect his thinking and interpret his own views on segregation and civil rights. To summarize the complicated case of Barrows v. Jackson briefly, the white neighbors of Los Angeles resident Leola Jackson were suing her for damages after she sold her house to African American buyers. This sale violated the neighborhood’s “restrictive property covenant,” a clause forbidding the sale of property in the neighborhood to non-white buyers.[24]

In the 1948 case Shelley v. Kraemer, the Supreme Court had ruled that while private discrimination was not unconstitutional, state courts could not enforce restrictive covenants because this would constitute state action in discrimination. Such state involvement would violate the State Action Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which affirms that “a state cannot make or enforce any law that abridges the privileges or immunities of any citizen.” In other words, white people were free to discriminate against African Americans by refusing to sell them homes in segregated neighborhoods, but the courts could not enforce such segregation or it would be the state itself that was discriminating against African Americans, which was unconstitutional.[25]

White supporters of segregated neighborhoods quickly identified a weakness to exploit in the Shelley decision – the issue of damages. Was it legal for white home owners to sue for damages when their restrictive covenants were violated? If so, this blatant attempt to intimidate white sellers into not selling to Black buyers would make the spirit of Shelley, which was intended to end covenants, null and unenforceable. The Barrows v. Jackson case would decide if state-sanctioned segregated neighborhoods could continue.[26]

Alabama Tribune, April 24, 1953, 5, accessed Newspapers.com.

Minton’s decision in Barrows v. Jackson drew on this idea of state action as defined in Shelley and expanded it to finally end restrictive covenants for good. This required an advanced understanding of the technical aspects involved in the case, as well as a morally-based desire to end injustice in housing for African Americans. In order to end the unjust covenant practice, Minton had to engage in some complex legal maneuvering and creative use of precedent.

The first issue Minton addressed in his majority opinion in Barrows v. Jackson was a relatively straightforward application of the “state action” determination in the Shelley decision. He argued that if the state were to award damages to Jackson’s neighbors for her violation of the covenant, this would constitute “state action.” This would then violate the Fourteenth Amendment State Action Clause.[27]

The major legal challenge Minton resolved with his opinion, was that of the petitioners’ attempt to circumvent Shelley altogether. The white petitioners were not suing the Black buyers for damages, which would have made the discrimination obvious. They were suing the white seller. This was a carefully chosen legal strategy. Traditionally, the Court would not hear cases where the party being impacted, in this case discriminated against, was not present. The attorneys for the neighbors hoped that the case would be dismissed because the rights being violated were that of a third party (the Black buyers), who were not present in the courtroom. Here, Minton flipped the question. He asked the Barrows’ attorneys, “whose constitutional rights would be violated if California failed to award contract damages to the petitioners?” They had to reply “that no one’s rights would be violated.” So, where then was the damage? The petitioners would have to bring the racial issue into the courtroom if they were claiming some damage had been done in selling to a Black buyer.[28]

Indianapolis Recorder, June 20, 1953, 7, accessed Hoosier State Chronicles.

Minton extended the Shelley decision to cover the missing third party issue by explaining that Jackson had a right to protect herself against the “coercion” of the petitioner. In short, the Shelley decision was intended to stop discrimination against African American buyers. If Jackson had to pay damages for violating the discriminatory covenant that Shelley had intended to invalidate then she would, in fact, be paying for failing to discriminate – a direct contradiction of the intent of Shelley. He determined that the interests of Jackson and the Black buyers were closely enough aligned that Jackson represented the buyers. Thus there was no missing third party and racial discrimination was the inherent issue.[29]

Minton had little tolerance for the petitioners’ blatant attempt to circumvent the Shelley decision through such lawsuits aimed at technicalities. And he had no tolerance for continued discrimination against African Americans. He summed up his thinking eloquently and passionately in his written opinion:

The relation between the coercion exerted on respondent [Jackson] and her possible pecuniary loss thereby is so close to the purpose of the restrictive covenant to violate the constitutional rights of those discriminated against, that respondent is the only effective adversary of the unworthy covenant in its last stand. She will be permitted to protect herself and, by so doing, close the gap to the use of this covenant, so universally condemned by the courts.[30]

Minton and his clerks cited several other cases, notably Pierce v. Society of Sisters, and wrote careful clauses further defining the third party issue. [See complete legal analysis here]. In summary, Minton closed the last loophole allowing restrictive covenants and state-sanctioned segregation. Legal scholars Gugin and St. Clair summarized the final decision thusly:

The court moved to make restrictive covenants virtually unenforceable in state courts by ruling that state courts cannot award damages when a restrictive covenant is violated because it is tantamount to the state itself discriminating on the basis of race, which it may not do under the Fourteenth Amendment.[31]

California Eagle, June 18, 1953, 2, accessed Newspapers.com

Minton’s arguments as forwarded in his written opinion in Barrows v. Jackson may stand as his finest judicial moment. Gugin and St. Clair called it “Minton’s most memorable opinion” and noted that “he was praised in law review articles for his imaginative approach.”[32]  In fact, the Barrows decision has been classed among the most important desegregation events of the Civil Rights Era. Although Barrows determined that the state would not discriminate, de facto segregation continued.

Tracy Hadden Loh, Christopher Coes, and Becca Buthe, “The Great Real Estate Reset,” December 16, 2020, accessed Brookings.

In fact, neighborhoods remain segregated to this day. The real estate opportunities afforded white Americans and denied Black Americans in the 1950s helped widen the economic disparity between races. “White flight” from cities and government subsidies for suburbs have created new segregated neighborhoods. Zoning, housing codes, gentrification, and low-income housing areas have further separated economic classes, divided along racial lines. Recently, the Covid-19 pandemic further highlighted this disparity. More than twice as many Black Americans died as a result of “the inequitable living conditions, work circumstances, underlying conditions, and lower access to health care that characterize segregated neighborhoods.” According to the Brookings Institute:

Public policy and industry practice have produced a separate and unequal landscape of American neighborhoods, propagating multigenerational negative impacts on health, social mobility, and wealth for people of color as well as harmful divisions in our economy and society.[33]

As the Supreme Court decided in the desegregation cases when Minton sat on the bench in the 1950s, there is no such thing as separate but equal. The work for equal rights for Black Americans and the perfection of the promises made in the United States Constitution continues.

Notes

[1] 1900 United States Federal Census, Georgetown Township, Floyd County, Indiana, page 8, line 36, Enumeration District: 0054; FHL microfilm: 1240371, Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, accessed AncestryLibrary.com.; “Twenty Pupils Suspended,” Plymouth Tribune, February 25, 1909, 4, accessed Hoosier State Chronicles.; Linda C. Gugin and James E. St. Clair, Sherman Minton: New Deal Senator, Cold War Justice (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1997), 38-44.

[2] “Indiana University Debaters Who Will Meet Illinois and Ohio Orators in Annual Contest,” Indianapolis News, March 13, 1913, 4, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Minton, Star Half Appears on Field,” South Bend Tribune, November 19, 1913, 12, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Bryan Prize is Awarded,” Indianapolis Star, April 9, 1914, 18, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Lineup for Sunday’s Game,” Bloomington Evening World, April 23, 1915, 1, Newspapers.com.; “Medic and Law Graduate List,” Bloomington Evening World, May 28, 1915, 5, accessed Newspapers.com.

[3] “News of the Colleges,” Indianapolis News, September 29, 1915, 12, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Minton Enters Yale,” Bloomington Evening World, September 29, 1915, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; 1920 Alumni Directory of Yale University (New Haven: Yale University, 1920), 541, accessed  HathiTrust.

[4] Gugin and St. Clair, 52.

[5] Sherman Minton Draft Registration Card, June 1, 1917, Floyd County, Indiana, Form 522, No. 46, U.S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, accessed AncestryLibrary.com.; “In Second Training Camp,” Indianapolis News, August 14, 1917, 3, accessed Hoosier State Chronicles.; U.S. Army, Passenger List of Organizations and Casuals Returning to the United States, July 7, 1919, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985; National Archives at College Park, Record Group 92, Roll or Box 125, U.S., Army Transport Service Arriving and Departing Passenger Lists, 1910-1939, accessed AncestryLibrary.com.

[6] “Soldier Announces His Candidacy for Congress,” Jasper Herald, December 5, 1919, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “J. W. Ewing Wins Third District Nomination,” Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram, May 8, 1920, 10, accessed Newspapers.com.

[7] “Democrats to Open Campaign Sept. 18,” Seymour Daily Tribune, September 13, 1914, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Democratic Speakings Announced for County,” Brownstown Banner, September 17, 1924, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Sherman Minton Has Brilliant Record,” Jeffersonville Evening News, reprinted Jasper Herald, January 24, 1930, 4, accessed Newspapers.com; Sherman Minton, “To The Voters of Dubois Co,” Jasper Herald, May 16, 1930, 4, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Democrats in Jasper Rally,” Bedford Daily Mail, October 15, 1930, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.

[8] “Meeting Shows M’Nutt Backing,” Indianapolis Star, February 8, 1932, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “McNutt Meeting Set for Tonight,” Boonville Enquirer, April 29, 1932, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.

[9] Ralph L. Brooks, “State’s Commerce-Industry Division Affects All Citizens,” Indianapolis Sunday Star, September 17, 1933, 57, accessed Newspapers.com.

[10] “Republicans Sweep City, County; Minton Beats Robinson in Race for Senate Seat,” Lafayette Journal and Courier, November 7, 1934, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Minton Leads Lake Ticket,” Hammond Times, November 8, 1934, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Minton Winner,” Boonville Enquirer, November 9, 1934, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.

[11] Gugin and St. Clair, Chapter Four: “Fulfilling His New Deal Promise.”

[12] “Senators Agree on One Point,” Muncie Evening Press,” August 6, 1937, 22, accessed Newspapers.com.; “May Use Anti-Lynch Bill in Filibuster,” Baltimore Sun, November 25, 1940, 7, accessed Newspapers.com.

[13] Congressional Record, 75th Congress, 3rd Session, 1938, vol. 83:2. 1931-45, cited in Gugin and St. Clair, 115.

[14] Ibid.

[15] “Sherman Minton Is Named to Circuit Court of Appeals,” Muncie Evening Press, May 7, 1941, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Minton Sworn In as U.S. Judge,” Indianapolis Star, May 31, 1941, 11, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Induction Today,” Chicago Tribune, October 7, 1941, 3, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Minton Becomes U.S. Judge, Says Good-by, Politics,” Chicago Tribune, October 8, 1941, 3, accessed Newspapers.com.

[16] Gugin and St. Clair, Chapter Seven: “A Faithful Disciple of Judicial Restraint.”

[17] Ibid.

[18] “Names Minton to High Court,” Terre Haute Tribune, September 15, 1949, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Minton Is Confirmed for Court, 48 to 16,” New York Times, October 5, 1949, 1, accessed timesmachine.nytimes.com.; “Hoosier Sworn In As Supreme Court Justice,” Muncie Evening Press, October 12, 1949, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Minton Sworn In As Supreme Court Justice,” New York Times, October 13, 1949, 18, accessed timesmachine.nytimes.com.

[19] Supreme Court of the United States, McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education et al., Decided June 5, 1950, 339 U.S. 637, Legal Information Institute.; Supreme Court of the United States, Sweatt v. Painter et al., Decided June 5, 1950, 339 U.S. 629, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School.

[20] Supreme Court, McLaurin v. Oklahoma State.

[21] Supreme Court of the United States, Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka et al., Decided May 17, 1954, 347 U.S. 483, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Gugin and St. Clair, 263.

[24] Supreme Court of the United States, Barrows et al. v. Jackson, Decided June 15, 1953, 346 U.S. 249, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School.

[25] Supreme Court of the United States, Shelley et ux. v. Kraemer et ux. McGhee et ux. v. Sipes et al., Decided May 3, 1948, 334 U.S. 1, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School.

[26] David N. Atkinson, “Justice Sherman Minton and the Protection of Minority Rights,” Washington and Lee Law Review 34, iss. 1 (1997): 97-117, accessed Washington and Lee University School of Law Scholarly Commons.

[27] Supreme Court, Barrows et al. v. Jackson.

[28] Ibid.; Atkinson, 109.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Supreme Court, Barrows et al. v. Jackson.

[31] Gugin and St. Clair, 248.

[32] Ibid., 248-49.

[33] Tracy Hadden Loh, Christopher Coes, and Becca Buthe, “The Great Real Estate Reset,” December 16, 2020, Brookings Institute.

“Washed Up:” A Discovered Artifact and the Rub-No-More Soap Company

At the Indiana Historical Bureau, we routinely get requests from researchers for assistance. Some of these are fairly simple, like helping with someone’s family history or determining the age of an antique they just bought. However, every once in a while, we get queries so interesting that they require a whole lot more research, and you never know what you might turn up.

Back in March, I received an email from a gentleman in California who recently found a unique item while metal-detecting on the beach. He needed help figuring out what it was and how old it might be. It was a weathered, rusted emblem with two elephants on the front and a name, “Rub-No-More.” On the back, it said, “some worry about wash day; others use Rub-No-More.”  He also knew it had an Indiana connection, as a quick internet search determined that the Rub-No-More brand was based out of Fort Wayne.

The Rub-No-More Watch Fob that washed up on the beach. Image: Kevin O’Brien.

It turns out that the item he found was a Rub-No-More watch fob, likely made sometime between 1905-1920. A watch fob was a decorative piece that accompanied a pocket watch, and helped keep the watch in a wearer’s pocket. A fob exactly like this one was recently sold at auction. Chicago’s F.H. Noble & Company, whose long history includes making trophies and urns for cremated remains, manufactured the fob. But what about the history of the company who commissioned it, the Rub-No-More Company? In learning more about this small, weathered piece of advertising, I discovered a history of one of Indiana’s most successful businesses at the turn of the twentieth century.

Rub-No-More watch fob recently sold at auction. Image: Hakes’s Auctions.

While its origins go back at least to 1880, the Summit City Soap Works of Fort Wayne (the Rub-No-More Company’s original name) was formally incorporated in May of 1885, with a capital stock of $25,000  for “manufactur[ing] laundry and other soaps,” according to the Indianapolis Sentinel. Their penchant for lavishing gifts on customers goes back almost to its founding. As the Wabash Express reported on May 27, 1886, Harry Mayel of the Summit City Soap Works came to Terre Haute and provided “over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in beautiful and valuable presents” to purchasers of the company’s Ceylon Red Letter Soap. While this was a great deal for consumers, it appears it wasn’t as good for the company. By 1888, the Summit City Soap Works was insolvent, with $18,000 in debt and only $14,000 in assets, and a court-ordered receiver came in to clean up the mess. The difficulties didn’t end there. Two years later, as mentioned by the Crawfordsville Daily Journal, the company’s facilities on Glasgow Avenue burned to the ground, an estimated loss of $6,000. The company, sadly, had no insurance to cover these damages.

Clearly, it was time for new leadership, and it came in the form of the highly successful Berghoff family, German immigrants who became a mainstay of Fort Wayne’s business community. The Berghoffs ran a profitable brewery in the city, most known for its “Dortmunder Beer” brand. They parlayed this success into other ventures, including the Summit City Soap Works. Gustave A. Berghoff, a traveling salesman for the brewery, purchased the soap manufacturer in 1892, likely from his own brother, Hubert. The latter had purchased the firm a year earlier for a measly $5,000, and intended to revive the soap maker to “run day and night,” according to the Fort Wayne Sentinel.

Dortmunder Beer advertisement from Berghoff Brewing Company. Image: FortWayneBeer.com.

Gustave Berghoff and his team wasted no time getting the company back on its feet and profitable, betting its success on a brand new product, Rub-No-More. Introduced in 1895, Rub-No-More was a “labor saving compound” that “clean[ed] the working clothes of a mechanic as well as the finest linen of the household, without much rubbing,” the Fort Wayne News wrote in its May 30th issue. To kick off the new product, the company launched a massive advertising campaign that provided free samples of Rub-No-More to every family in Fort Wayne. Summit City Soap Works then sold it at five cents, in a package that would cover five washing weeks. Rub-No-More became a hit, greatly benefiting Berghoff and his company. As such, they continued their tradition of giveaways. For example, in 1898, Summit City Soap Works offered its customers a free children’s book or wall calendar in exchange for saved Rub-No-More coupons and Globe Soap wrappers.

Fort Wayne Daily News, November 4, 1898. Image: Newspapers.com.

The company completely reorganized in 1903, including a new incorporation and expansion of its facilities. After eighteen years as an incorporated company, the Summit City Soap Works saw its capital stock increase four fold, to $100,000. Its executive staff also evolved, with Gustave Berghoff retaining his position as president but appointing his brothers, Henry and Hubert Berghoff, along with J. W. Roach and Albert J. Jauch, to the board of directors. The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette reported that Berghoff was “having built a large addition to his factory, which will double the plant’s capacity.” The paper also commented on the company’s success, writing that “the business has grown from a small beginning to large proportions, and the institution is now known all over the United States, and the output is used almost universally in this country.”

The company also expanded its marketing, filing for multiple trademarks in 1905. The first filing, from April 17, 1905, included its new logo for Rub-No-More as well as an emblem, one so iconic to the company that it inspired my research: the two elephants logo. Used for decades as the symbol of Rub-No-More, the trademark displays an adult elephant dressed as a washerwoman washing a child elephant with its trunk. The second filing, dated September 19, 1905, includes both the new logo for the company’s name as well as the two elephants symbol. These became the company’s go-to branding for both its products and promotional materials, and it served them well. Grocers at Kendallville purchased 14,000 pounds of soap from the company in April of 1909, as noted by the Fort Wayne Sentinel, which traveled “in a single shipment over the [city’s] interurban.” That year, the Summit City Soap Works continued its tradition of promotional giveaways. An advertisement in the Dayton Herald offered customers free gifts in exchange for some of their products’ packaging trademarks. They offered girls an embroidery set and boys a “very interesting game” suitable for thirteen people.

Rub-No-More trademark application, September 1905. Image: Google Books.

One incident in 1911 showed how Rub-No-More soap could lead to more than just fun giveaways. A young woman named Bessie Lauer, an employee of the Summit City Soap Works, wrote her name on the inside of a soap bar’s packaging. It made its way out west, where a “wealthy California orange grower” found it and sought out a courtship, perhaps even marriage. She turned down his offer, but the publicity it garnered led to a Hanford, California Sentinel article describing the whole affair. Apparently embarrassed by the incident, Lauer told the Sentinel that “this is the first time she has ever written her name on a soap wrapper, and she fervently states that it will be her last.”

After decades of operation under the Summit City Soap Works moniker, the company formally changed its name in 1912 to the Rub-No-More Company, solidifying the importance of their branded soap to the entire enterprise. (A notification of the name change was published in the January 18, 1912 issue of the Fort Wayne Daily News, but it wasn’t official until April 12, 1912, when articles of incorporation were filed, according to the Indianapolis News. Advertisements in newspapers as early as June of that year indicated the name change). Around this time, Gustave Berghoff, the company’s president, began serving on the board of directors of the German-American National Bank based in Fort Wayne, greatly increasing his stature within the local business community.

Rub-No-More Logo, Trade Mark News. 1911. Image: Google Books.

By 1917, sales of the Rub-No-More Company topped $3,000,000 a year, as referenced in a profile in the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette celebrating its 25th anniversary under the ownership of Berghoff. The article noted the expansion of its production facilities, from “the old days [when the plant was] comprised [of] but a few shacks” with “equipment consisting mostly of crude apparatus[es],” to a plant comprising “thousands of square feet.” This machinery was “of the most modern design . . . the value of which totals near a million dollars.” Within two decades, Rub-No-More, the company’s flagship product, became a mainstay product for consumers, with “circulars, wrappers, etc. . . . reproduced 200,000,000 times a year,” bringing “both the institution and the city continually before the minds of millions of people residing in this and foreign countries.”

Terre Haute Daily Tribune, March 22 1918. Image: Hoosier State Chronicles.

An interesting modern parallel, the Rub-No-More Company encouraged sterilizing face masks during the influenza pandemic of 1918. A notice printed in the November 22, 1918 issue of the Indianapolis News instructed readers to “sterilize flu masks” by “thoroughly dissolv[ing] two tablespoonsful [sic] of Rub-No-More soap chips in one quart of boiling water” to “carefully wash masks.” As with today’s COVID-19 pandemic, soap companies have used their advertising to encourage people to wear masks and to keep them clean, something the Rub-No-More company did over 100 years ago.

Indianapolis News, November 22, 1918. Image: Hoosier State Chronicles.

Despite the Rub-No-More Company having a mostly positive reputation, it wasn’t without controversy. In 1918, the Indianapolis Star reported that the Rub-No-More Company was one of several companies charged with violating the federal child labor law. In a grand jury indictment against them, it was alleged that “three children were required to work ten and one-half hours a day” at their plant. Another issue the company faced came from its manufacturing process— one of “obnoxious odors.” The Indianapolis Times wrote in 1923 that the City of Fort Wayne was seeking a “permanent injunction” requiring the Rub-No-More Company to reconfigure their production process to alleviate the harsh smells that bothered the city’s east side residents.  It is unclear what the outcomes of these situations were, but violations of child labor laws and air quality, somewhat new to American industry in 1918, represented some of the lesser angels of industrialization.

Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, November 4, 1917. Image: Newspapers.com.

After 35 years of success at the helm, Gustave Berghoff sold the Rub-No-More Company to Procter & Gamble and retired from the company in 1927. The company’s roughly 140 employees were transferred to other Procter & Gamble plants after a transitional period where Rub-No-More Company’s manufacturing stock was used. The Rub-No-More brand continued for many years under the Procter & Gamble umbrella, with advertisements for the product appearing in newspapers well into the early 1950s. Gustave Berghoff, the company’s former president, died on January 25, 1940 at the age of 76. He is buried in Catholic Cemetery in Fort Wayne.

The Rub-No-More Company exists in history as something of a Horatio Alger tale. A German immigrant, helped by his family, purchased a failing firm and turned it into one of the most successful soap companies of the early 20th century. Additionally, its innovative approach to marketing, promotions, and branding ensured its dominance in the marketplace. This story is also about how even a simple item, like a watch fob washing up on the beach in California, can lead to an understanding of one of northern Indiana’s industrial giants at the beginning of the American Century.

THH Episode 48: Giving Voice: Cheryl Cooky

Jump to Show Notes

Transcript for Giving Voice: Cheryl Cooky

[Music Intro]

Marino: Hello and welcome. I’m Michella Marino.

Pfeiffer: And I’m Casey Pfeiffer.

Marino: And this is Giving Voice. For today’s episode we’ll be talking with Cheryl Cooky, a professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University. Dr. Cooky teaches courses in the American Studies Program and the Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, on topics of sport, American culture, and feminism. She earned her doctorate degree from the University of Southern California in Sociology and is the co-author of the 2018 book No Slam Dunk: Gender, Sport, and the Unevenness of Social Change.

Pfeiffer: Dr. Cooky has written numerous book chapters, has been published in a wide array of academic journals and is frequently quoted in both national and international news media outlets. She is the past President of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport and a member of the National Policy Advisory Board for the Women’s Sports Foundation. We’re so excited to speak with you today, Dr. Cooky. Thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit about how and why you began studying uh gender and sports?

Cooky: Yeah, thank you. That’s a tough question to answer, because how I got into studying gender and sport isn’t really uh a linear narrative that I can tell, which I think will be probably a theme for this conversation today. But long story short, um I was uh undergraduate at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, had aspirations to go to medical school. Um and didn’t quite do as well as you needed to do in some of those courses, uh and realized that maybe that wasn’t the the pathway for me. Uh however, I really found myself interested in studying human movements, I thought maybe physical therapy would be a track for me. Um and over the course of my education, I came to take courses in um various disciplines related to, you know kind of sport, uh motor development, and sports psychology. Anyway, I graduate with a degree, I don’t really have uh sort of conventional career path, but I knew I loved studying. I knew I loved being a student. I knew I loved doing research, I had some opportunities to work as an assistant in some of the lab’s um at uh Illinois. And, thought maybe graduate school, might be a good route for me. And I had never really taken a class on women’s studies. I hadn’t really um thought that much about gender and gender issues, until it was uh a couple of classes that I took in my master’s program at Miami, Ohio that really got me, thinking about sport and its role in our culture and really um for me quite different ways. Um then I had either thought about before or even been socialized to think about and, you know I grew up playing sports. Um I loved being physically active. Uh my parents weren’t really that involved so I didn’t have you know the helicopter parents on the sideline going to all of my games. Um, I also grew up in a time, in uh place where um you know girls participation in sports wasn’t really valued um in the culture and in the community and in my peer group. And so, I received these very subtle messages that you know while I wasn’t necessarily being told I couldn’t play sport. I was certainly getting messages that it really didn’t matter. And so, I found myself, freshman year of high school um dropping out of sport and joining then what was then called the pom pom squad, essentially the dance team. Um, and it became sort of a supporter of men’s sports, rather than an athlete in it of my own right. And so that experience, really kind of informs um the way I think about sports, um the kinds of topics that I seek out. I’ve done some research looking at girls’ experiences in sport to see if, you know to what extent things have changed over time. To look at the ways in which kind of culture uh sends messages about women’s sports and female athleticism. And so, I think you know again, and not a nice, neat narrative, but uh sort of uh this is where I am today, I guess, you know the rest is history as we would say.

Marino: Well, that sort of segues nicely into talking about our most recent Talking Hoosier History episode, which featured the history of the South Bend Blue Sox, which was a women’s professional baseball team in the 1940s and 50s. Um, the Blue Sox were one of four original teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and this was obviously several decades before the passage of Title IX. Um can you speak a little on the status of women’s sports generally in the early to mid-20th century? You know, what opportunities were there for girls and women to compete?

Cooky: I that’s uh an important question to ask and I hope to communicate to the listeners that I think there’s a way in which, for those of us who don’t study history, and I’m not a historian by training, uh but certainly I think that the kind of narratives we tell around women’s sports or the stories we tell around women’s sports, are really informed by a kind of um historical lens, such that we tend to see women’s sports in uh kind of linear trajectory and sort of a progressive development of change overtime. In other words, you know I hear this all the time from my students, like oh well you know back in whenever it is were talking about right. At the turn of the 19th or 20th century or during World War II, or you know before Title IX girls and women didn’t play sports, girls and women didn’t have opportunities and they certainly did. Not to the extent which they do today, but I think that when we look at the turn of the 20th century and up and through World War II, certainly girls and women were playing sports. The kinds of opportunities that they had really varied though, with respect to race, social class, the sports itself, and so um, if we look at higher education for example. Women had opportunities to participate in either competitive or non-competitive sports opportunities were happening in that space, certainly I think for women of color, black women in particular, there were different kinds of opportunities to participate in sports. Women were participating in the Olympics, although the events they participated in were certainly shaped by gender and gender ideologies. So, I think when we are looking at…Oh and I should say to, you know social class right. Women of more affluent means were uh able to participate in leisure activities like lawn sports, golf, tennis, so I think that there’s really important distinctions that we need to make when we are talking about women. Uh and scholars use the term intersectionality. Some people may have seen that in uh popular culture and media, but it’s really kind of thinking about the ways in which gender and how gender is shaping our experiences, is also informed by these other social identities and social locations.

Pfeiffer: You talking about um, you know Olympic participation and it being shaped by gender ideology and you know this certain sports that women could participate in. I mean, were there certain ones that were more acceptable for women to play or conversely sports that were highly discouraged at the time?

Cooky: The sports that uh allowed for a kind of performative adherence to conventional femininity right, so when we think about tennis, uh when we think about gymnastics for example those are that we tend to…figure skating, right. Those are sports that we tend to associate more with the kind of ascetic dimensions, which really sort of then plays into our cultural notions of femininity and feminine value being really rooted in appearance right. And that’s particularly so for white affluent women who are able to, you know achieve and uphold right those conventional notions of femininity. Basketball was a sport that was quite popular at the time um, I think that it is one of the first sports that women really kind of gained a foothold in. Certainly, the way that basketball was played at the turn of the 20th century and you know kind of up and through the mid-20th century, is much different than how the game is played today um we hear stories about the different rules that were implemented to take out the contact elements in the sport. So that’s the other part, right. So, one is kind of sports that emphasize the ascetics. The other piece are sports that are perceived to be not contact sports, right and so those are might be more individual sports or even team sports that are played individually. Sports like track and field for example. Um or sports that were popular at the time. This is probably the case today, but certainly scholars have written about the ways in which gridiron American football is highly gendered as masculine, although there are and have been women’s professional football leagues. Certainly, they don’t reach the sort of status or cultural uh level that the National Football League does, right but I think football is one of those sports that have really been resistant to any of the broader changes in our culture with respect to um increasing uh acceptance of female athleticism and women’s sports participation.

Marino: There’s a lot of things I’d like to talk about that you just said in there, but particularly you know you just used that word acceptance and there is this misconception that women you know haven’t been playing sports through much of the you know late 19th and 20th century. And of course, as you note that’s not the case um sports were in fact modified for women or were sort of channeled into appropriate sports for women, um but often time when we’re talking about women’s sports of course you always hear about Title IX and that being sort of this landmark or watershed moment for women’s sports. So, I was wondering if you could just tell us a little bit about what Title IX was and how it alters the landscape for women’s athletics.

Cooky: So, Title IX is federal legislation that was passed in 1972 that essentially says that any educational institution that receives federal funding cannot discriminate on the basis of sex. So, often we associate Title IX with athletics and certainly the legislation had a really visible impact in terms of as you said kind of shifting the landscape for women’s sports and women’s sports participation, but Title IX itself doesn’t specify or isn’t exclusive to athletics and in fact pertains to any um educational opportunity that is apart of uh higher education or part of the high school educational experience right. So, that you can’t um you can’t have a club that would not allow girls or women to be members of that club. I think Title IX over time has expanded um into thinking about the ways in which things like sexual harassment and sexual assault can impact educational experiences, but really Title IX is about expanding opportunities for um for the underrepresented sex and in this case girls and women right. So, what Title IX did within the scope of athletics was to dramatically expand opportunities, such that the year prior to Title IX’s passage 1 out of every 27 girls participated in high school sports. Today, its I think its 1 out of ever 2.5 girls are participating in high school sports. Uh, its certainly had a significant impact in terms of expanding participation opportunities at the collegiate level as well. Title IX also applied to things like uh resources um and the quality of opportunity so its not just about giving girls and women a spot on a team, but its also about ensuring that that team has the resources to…you know access to practice fields, it has a team bus. It has um uh coach, the coach is paid. If it’s a scholarship sport, that the athletes are getting proportional amounts of scholarships and so on. So, I think for me what Title IX did was twofold, one was to expand opportunities right and that was really the intent of the law and then we had this sort of corresponding change that happened along with that when you get girls and women, now having the legal right to access to opportunities that comes with a sort of shift and change in the culture and so on a mass level, what we saw was an increasing acceptance of girls and women in sport and female athleticism. This didn’t happen overnight, it didn’t happen whole sale um its certainly an issue that we’re confronting, even today, but it definitely shifted the landscape so that the idea that girls and women shouldn’t be playing sport was really challenged in very powerful ways.

Pfeiffer: Yeah, I think that that is a great way to phrase it and you know I think we can all agree that obviously there’s been so much forward progress uh, so many gains made in women’s sport um, since Title IX passed in 1972, uh but their still is a lot of discussion, you know particularly through the end of the 20th century around this idea of apologetic or compensatory behavior for women athletes. Can you explain a little bit what that means for women athletes and how they’ve had to navigate social expectations surrounding athletics even in this post Title IX period?

Cooky: Sure, so the female apologetic is a term that was coined I believe by uh uh a historian um in the early 1970s to describe the ways in which, girl and women athletes have to sort of um navigate the gendered expectations of sport, with the gendered, broader gendered expectations of the culture. So, one of the really important things to understand about sport when were talking about gender and sport, um gender and history and sport, is that sport in the United States in terms of its modern development in the 20th century, was really uh uh, served a really important cultural function of socializing, young men and and boys and young men into what scholars call hegemonic masculinity or dominant forms of masculinity. So that during the great social upheavals, at the turn of the 20th century increased urbanization, industrialization, the expansion of education, all of these really fundamental social changes that were happening, were accompanied with a kind of so called crisis of masculinity, right, and so you know sort of long story short, sport is an institutional space by which our culture invests in the sort of maintenance of masculinity that’s kind of built on physicality, dominance, competitiveness, aggression, assertiveness, and so on. We know though that sort of broadly speaking those qualities and characteristics which are essentially human characteristics are highly gendered and gendered as masculine. So you take this institutional and cultural space of sport, which is really sort of steeped in these hegemonic understandings of masculinity and you put girls and women into that space. Right, and so there is this kind of conflicting message between the expectations that are required of girls and women on the playing field and the expectations for girls and women off the field and those expectations are not incongruence, as is the case with male athletes right, there’s actually a conflict. And so, the female apologetic, describes the ways that girls and women navigate those right and so there’s this cultural pressure, whether sort of real or perceived for girls and women to then really emphasize and highlight femininity. Right, so it’s through clothing, it’s through playing style, it’s through appearance and sort of portrayals um the roles that girls and women play on the field and off the field that then, sort of say I might be really tough and competitive and aggressive when I’m on the field, um but I’m gonna wear my hair in a ponytail. I’m gonna have long fingernails, I’m gonna wear uh you know are uniforms are gonna be such that they show that we are women or girls on the field. Were gonna have short skirts, were gonna have tight fitted jerseys, were gonna have short shorts, right to kind of show off our our bodies in ways that appeal to compulsory heterosexuality. And then off the field, I’m going to appear seminude in a photoshoot in a magazine. I’m gonna be, you know make sure I go out with my boyfriend or my husband, I’m gonna highlight in kind of the media things that I do. I’m gonna highlight that I’m a mother that I have children right and the media kind of plays into that. And that’s really, I think, sort of encapsulates the female apologetic. I think what’s important here though for me as a sociologist is to sort of think about agency. And so, its not that you know, that there are these cultural pressures, but certainly individual athletes have agency to either conform to those cultural pressures or resist those cultural pressures. So, I think female athletes particularly in this moment are much more able and willing to assert their own agency and to construct a kind of public image that may in fact actually run counter to what we would associate with conventional femininity or or the female apologetic and the increased visibility of lesbian athletes, I think is a great example of that. The increased visibility of athletes who are um embracing kind of more what we would call androgenous modes of appearance, I think is another way in which female athletes, women athletes are kind of resisting the hyper sexualization in sports. Um, we just saw that with the German gymnastics team, you know sort of resistant to wearing leotards and wearing the unitard instead. And so, I think that’s um, a really important point to acknowledge that those cultural pressures might exist, but athletes themselves have agency to either conform or resist.

Marino: Well, that’s really interesting because I mean I think, in a lot of ways this female apologetic, or this apologetic behavior has been going on even pre-Title IX of course as we saw in our episode with the South Bend Blue Sox, but you know continued at least through my time playing sports in the 90s and 2000s and I think you still do see it somewhat in sport today, but as you note, you know individual players and athletes do have that agency to make that decision and I think in some ways, you know are supported when they resist and pushback against that too. So, I think our final question here is what else needs to be done to sort of level the playing field for female athletes?

Cooky: Oh my gosh, so much work needs to be done (Laughs). That could be a whole other episode in it of itself, but I know we don’t have a whole lot of time. You know I think what’s important that I would want to communicate is, I think that there are ways in which many of the issues and problems and challenges that girls and women face at the beginning of the 20th century are not that different than the issues that girls and women face at the beginning of the 21st century. Certainly, there’s been a tremendous amount of change over that time frame, but there’s ways in which women I think still occupy a second-class status in sport. And so, you know I could talk more about the really important gains that we’ve made and the changes that we’ve seen and we talked a little bit about that with Title IX, but I think certainly the distribution of resources, um weather those are economic resources, whether that is cultural resources in the form of media attention and media coverage that is certainly an area that needs to be addressed. We talked about Title IX earlier and Title IX is important and has expanded opportunities, but when we look at all those resources and the quality of opportunities. What we find is that most institutions in higher education and in high schools as well do not comply with Title IX. In the sense of those resources, so certainly I think um expanding the investment uh economic investment and girls and women’s sports is important and I think the other piece that I’ll say here that I also think needs to be addressed and your podcast is helping to do that right, is to you know increase visibility of girls and women’s sports, within sort of the cultural discourse and within media spaces and so you know having the opportunity to learn about women’s sports um and to do so in consistent ways, I think is gonna go a long way in terms of hopefully seeing some real shifts and changes uh in the culture over the next 100 years. I think the other piece that I also want to say here, you know we needed to think about changing the way we think about gender in our society. Um, and I think that the issue of trans athlete participation um is really going to bring forward a number of really important conversations around the sex segregated nature of sports. Um and I think that’s uh really important space and potential for change uh as well.

Pfeiffer: Excellent, well this has been fantastic I think it’s a great follow up to our um most recent episode of Talking Hoosier History and I feel like what you said in terms of just sharing this information. Women have been participating in sports for well over 100 years and they will continue to participate in finding those opportunities for them too, uh whether it is, you know in terms of access, just making sure that those gains continue to be made, but really appreciate you sharing your insight with us today and really taking the time to talk with us.

Cooky: Thank you so much for having me its been a pleasure.

Marino: Yeah, thank you Cheryl. We appreciate it.

Cooky: Thanks.

[Music Outro]

Show Notes for Giving Voice: Cheryl Cooky

Learn more about Dr. Cooky’s work here: https://cla.purdue.edu/directory/profiles/cheryl-cooky.html

See more of Dr. Cooky’s work here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=kw2zExYAAAAJ&hl=en

View a Ted Talk about women’s sports here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPS2YoXWMSs

How IU’s Thomas Atkins Proved that “Power is Colorless”

Thomas Atkins, 1961, Arbutus yearbook, accessed Indiana University Archives Photograph Collection.

Residents at Smithwood Hall, a racially-integrated women’s dormitory at Indiana University, pelted objects from their windows on April 8, 1960. This did little to drive away the students who surrounded the building, singing segregation songs with lyrics like “Glory, glory Governor Faubus, the South shall rise again” and “Let’s all go to n****r haven.” Not until campus police arrived did the emboldened protesters finally disperse. The reason for their ire? The university had just elected its first African American student body president, Elkhart native Thomas I. Atkins. In fact, he was the first Black student to serve as president of a Big Ten school.

Protesters apparently targeted the dorm “commonly regarded as the key housing unit in campus elections” because residents voted narrowly in favor of Atkins, 388-372. As Thursday night crept into Friday morning, sisters at Alpha Phi discovered a burning cross—a signature of the Ku Klux Klan—on the white sorority’s lawn. It was rumored that some felt the sisters’ voting apathy resulted in Atkin’s victory. Under the cloak of darkness, approximately 400 students congregated at the center of campus, some waving Confederate flags and others shouting that “a bunch of beatniks” had engineered the victory. Before they could hang an effigy of Atkins, campus police broke up the protesters. The hate-filled demonstrations resumed Friday evening, when another fiery cross was found near housing for married students. Leo Downing, dean of students, noted wryly, “‘Our so-called ‘Klan element’ was really stymied in this election. . . . They either had to vote for Atkins, who is a Negro, or for [Mike] Dann, who is Jewish.'”

Campaign poster, 1960, accessed accessed Indiana University Archives Photograph Collection.

Atkins, described by the Indianapolis Recorder as a “mild-mannered honor student and speaker pro tem of the student senate,” responded graciously, stating he would ignore the protests as “‘not representing the Indiana University student body.'”[1] The backlash he experienced would follow him throughout his prolific civil rights law career, but his time in Bloomington helped him learn how to withstand it.

No stranger to adversity, Atkins recalled that after contracting polio at the age of five, doctors told him he would need to use crutches his entire life. Three years later, he was walking unassisted and in 1982 told the Boston Globe “‘One thing [polio] did was convince me that nothing was impossible.'” Developing tenacity at a young age served him well when Elkhart’s elementary schools “accidentally” integrated after the Black school collapsed and the town could not afford to rebuild it. Fearing for his safety, the third grader lined his pockets with rocks the first days he attended the desegregated elementary school.  As a teenager at Elkhart High School, he accomplished what he would at IU: being elected as the school’s first Black student body president.

* * *

The backlash at Indiana University failed to tamp Atkins’s ambitions and the following month, the Muncie Evening Press announced he was the school’s first student to receive the U.S. Experiment in International Living grant. This allowed him to temporarily live in Turkey, where he gained insights for his thesis, “The Role of the Military in Turkish Society.” The Senior, who stayed with an Istanbul family of three, returned home in October and concluded that Turks “cannot see how the United States can propose to lead the free world and still have racial prejudice at home.” The following month he was one of three IU students nominated for a Rhodes Scholarship, which would fund three years of study at England’s Oxford University. So esteemed was Atkins that he was selected as one of twelve Board of Aeons students to advise university president Herman B Wells. In one instance, President Wells called upon him to convince discriminatory Bloomington barbers to cut Black students’ hair. Wells and Atkins convened a meeting with the barbers and, through compromise, got the barbers to agree to cut students’ hair regardless of their race.[2]

While setting himself up for professional success, Atkins made a significant and controversial decision in his personal life. Seven years before the landmark Loving v. Virginia case, in which the Supreme Court ended bans on interracial marriage, Atkins married white South Bend native Sharon Soash. Reportedly, the couple met playing with the Indiana all-state high school orchestra, and in college carpooled to the South Bend-Elkhart area from Bloomington during holiday breaks. Soash had served as Atkins’s student body campaign manger and recently graduated from IU with a history major.

“Parents Against Mixed Marriage,” Terre Haute Tribune, January 1, 1961, accessed Newspapers.com.

So taboo was their romance, that  just before the wedding one photographer staked out at Thomas’s mother’s house in an attempt to snap a picture of the couple; he was quickly rebuffed. While Soash’s father considered Atkins to be a gentleman, he tried to talk her out of the marriage. Unable to be dissuaded, they tied the knot in Cassopolis, Michigan because, according to the Boston Globe, interracial marriage was illegal in Indiana. The newlyweds planned to return to Bloomington and live in a married housing unit, where they no doubt experienced their share of harassment. Now with a spouse to consider, Atkins decided to withdraw from the Rhodes scholarship nomination process.

The South Bend Tribune reported that both Atkins planned to pursue careers in national diplomacy, a field undoubtedly in-demand during the early Cold War years.[3] Thomas was well on his way to this goal after earning a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, which enabled him to pursue graduate studies at Harvard University. While there, a Ford Foundation fellowship allowed him to train in Arabic and Middle Eastern studies and earn his Masters in 1963. In fact, the Indianapolis Star reported that Atkins earned an astonishing twelve educational fellowships, five of which were from Harvard. Despite his international ambitions, he ultimately chose to fight on the “homefront” while working towards his law degree at the Ivy League school.

That homefront was Boston, where Black parents’ charges of de facto segregation in its public school system had routinely fallen on deaf ears. Atkins turned up the volume as the local NAACP branch’s executive secretary. His knowledge of the law, appreciation of educational opportunities, and ability to withstand racially-charged backlash, made the 25-year-old an ideal advocate for the city’s Black youth. Atkins and other NAACP leaders organized a series of protests beginning in the spring of 1963, like the June 18 “Stay Out for Freedom.” In lieu of school, approximately 8,000 junior and high school students met at ten designated “Freedom Centers,” like St. Mark’s Social Center, where they discussed the Black liberation movement and learned about citizenship. The organizers’ goal was simple: get the Boston School Committee to admit that de facto segregation was present in the district. Atkins summarized “We have not asked the committee to sign away its soul in blood, but merely admit that such a condition exists.” However, the committee refused to concede this fact—and would continue to do so for years.

The assassination of Medgar Evers, a Black WWII veteran and Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary, just days prior to the “Stay Out for Freedom” event underlined the need to fight for racial equality. Atkins served as master of ceremonies at a June 26th memorial service for the slain activist at Parkman Bandstand. Over 15,000 Bostonians turned out to pay their respects and march against injustice. Recognizing that protest must be coupled with policy in order to be effective, Atkins and other leaders hosted a voter registration drive at the memorial service.

Boston Globe, July 29, 1963, 6, accessed Newspapers.com.

Adding to their tactical repertoire, on July 29 Atkins and other activists blocked School Committee members from entering committee headquarters, threatening to do so every day until members agree to meet with NAACP’s Education Committee. Picketers handed out pamphlets to passersby about the “deplorable conditions of the Roxbury schools” and marched carrying signs that read:

“Stop Jim Crow Teacher Assignments”
“Why No Negro Principals?”
“Would You be Patient?”
“Don’t Shoot Us in the Back”

The battle lines firmly drawn, Chairman of the School Committee Louise Day Hicks responded that “Parades, demonstrations and sit-ins may appeal to the exhibitions, but they will not help the Negro school child who everybody admits does need help.”

Fed up with being stonewalled, Atkins, on behalf of the NAACP,  issued an ultimatum to the School Committee the following day, stating it had until August 2 to meet or face bigger demonstrations. Atkins wrote, “It is launched with utmost regret, for the Branch would by far prefer the relatively quiescent atmosphere of the bargaining table to the commotion and clamor surrounding a picket line.” In issuing the ultimatum, Atkins advised the School Committee to consider:

Whether they are willing to accept the moral responsibility for this demonstration and as to whether they are willing to accept the political responsibility of having another debit chalked up on an accounting sheet which already show many more debits than credits in the areas of civil rights.

When that meeting did take place, School Committee members refused to discuss segregation. The longer the dispute went on, the more entrenched both sides grew. Although critical city officials categorized the conflict as a battle of semantics, Atkins and other leaders refused to move the goal post: without addressing segregation’s existence, equality would be impossible. Local reformer Susan Batson explained that de facto “was the most evil kind” of segregation because “no one is responsible and some say it doesn’t exist.”

Boston Globe, September 6, 1963, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.

Surely, the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August—at which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech—further empowered Boston leaders, who organized a “sleep-in” at School Committee headquarters. Such demonstrations drew the ire of committee member Joseph Lee, who called NAACP protesters “frauds, mountebanks, and charlatans.” Further, he contended:

they are clearly doing all in their power to obstruct the education of the Negro-American school child in Boston, so that they can perpetually pose as a potential Moses to lead the deprived pupil out of such imposed intellectual bondage–and at the same time pose as saviors to gull [sic?] a handsome living out of white dupers.

To these allegations, Atkins responded as he did to the IU demonstrations, with measured aplomb, stating, “I think it’s amusing.” He suggested that white residents and school committee members were shaken because “The Negro wasn’t proud of being a Negro before. Now he is. There isn’t a Negro Problem in Boston—there is a Boston problem.” But when it became clear that the committee would not recognize segregation, Atkins focused on leveraging the Black vote.  If activists couldn’t get committee members to change their minds, they would change committee members.

“6000 March for Rights in Boston,” Boston Globe, September 23, 1963, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.

That summer, Atkins arranged for mobile registration booths to sweep the city in preparation for the elections. Before an audience of 6,000, gathered at the dilapidated Sherwin School on September 23, he urged, “Don’t complain-vote!,” foreshadowing the pleas of President Obama in 2016. Atkins framed voting as a form of self-help; to not do so would allow the school system to continue to “insult” and “ignore us.” He reminded the crowd that “Abraham Lincoln didn’t free you! He issued a document that has been studiously ignored for 100 years!” While Black and white children played on the playground, their parents sang emancipation anthems like “We Shall Overcome.” The audience also participated in a moment of silence to honor of the victims of the Birmingham bombing that took place just days earlier, another somber reminder of the injustices Black Americans faced.[4]

“Playground Integrated,” Boston Globe, September 23, 1963, 5, accessed Newspapers.com.

With all hands on deck, the NAACP branch set out to collect voters’ signatures, registering 600 new voters in the predominantly-Black Ward #12 by the time polls closed on November 2. This was double the number of new Ward 12 voters registered in 1959. Now all that was left to do was wait as the election results rolled in.

Despite all their picketing, press conferences, and political campaigning, Atkins and fellow activists were dealt a blow when voters reelected each of the School Committee members. In fact, chairman Louise Day Hicks received more votes than even the mayor. Bostonians all but confirmed they agreed with the policy of “separate but equal.” But Atkins’s ability to mobilize Black voters helped sow the seeds of enduring political activism. According to the NAACP, 80% of eligible voters in Black wards turned out to cast their ballots, a percentage staggeringly higher than the 58% turnout in Boston’s other wards.

Atkins’s campaign to desegregate the school district—an effort that would require years of agitation—served another purpose, the Boston Globe noted. The city no longer looked to the South for news of the “Negro revolution.” Chants of liberation resounded in Boston’s streets, and the Globe reported civil rights is now “on the lips of cab drivers and politicians, housewives and factory workers.” The Globe added that the Civil Rights Movement is not an “accidental ripple of the national wave of protest. It is well-planned and seriously developed by a small, devoted band of persons,” Atkins, being one of them. He “has been instrumental in the carrying out of the vigorous, new approach” of the NAACP. The Boston transplant helped inspire a new militancy in the fight for Black liberation, which would culminate later in the decade with the Black Power Movement.[5]

Thomas Atkins, as NAACP executive secretary, leading a beach-in at Carson Beach to advocate for open public facilities in 1975, Boston Globe, June 29, 2008, 16, accessed Newspapers.com.

The 1963 electoral defeat hardly took the wind out of Atkins’s sails. He worked for educational and employment equality when elected Boston’s first Black city councilman in 1967.  Richard Hatcher’s election in Gary, Indiana—making him one of the first Black mayors of a large US city—that same year spoke to incremental gains in political representation for African Americans. In the tumultuous year of 1969, Atkins earned his law degree and went on to become a nationally-renowned civil rights lawyer. He continued to  work with the NAACP to fight for Boston’s Black students in the 1970s and 1980s, overseeing the safe implementation of busing as a means of integration. In trying to mitigate the harassment and violence directed at Black children bused to new schools, he perhaps recalled his own childhood fears of attending Elkhart’s newly-desegregated school.

An NAACP survey inquiring about the challenges South Boston High School students faced in the 1970s confirmed the inadequacy of the education they had received. Atkins recalled:

I was sitting in my office one night, and I reached into my briefcase and here were these forms. So I took them out, and I began sort of absently to read through them. As I read through one after another of these forms, what I saw was that these kids couldn’t spell. They could not write a simple declaratory sentence. And as I read these forms, none of which were grammatically correct or spelling proper, I just started to cry. It was impossible to explain the feeling of pain on the one hand, but on the other hand, I knew we were right.

Indianapolis News, November 9, 1967, 6, accessed Newspapers.com.

Anguish spurred action and Atkins became what The Times, of Munster, Indiana, described as “one of the most active and successful civil rights lawyers in the nation.” He filed segregation suits against school systems in Hammond and Indianapolis, Indiana; Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio; Benton Harbor and Detroit, Michigan; and San Francisco. One activist noted “There’s no place where Tom Atkins wasn’t influential.” According to his son, this prolific work made him a target of death threats and ultimately he left his Roxbury home for the protection of his family. His son described Atkins “running chicken wire over windows to block Molotov cocktails and installing spigots throughout  the seven-bedroom house to connect the hoses for fighting fires.” [6]

* * *

In 1994, Atkins returned to his alma mater for the dedication of IU’s new Thomas I. Atkins Living/Learning Center. On a campus once pockmarked with fiery crosses, stood a residence hall that focused on “academic excellence and cultural awareness-specifically, the culture and history of African and African-Americans.” While social progress had been made since the 1960s, racial issues persisted. The dormitory hoped to change that by facilitating discussions among various races and improve how students related to one another. With the new center, the campus also hoped to attract more Black students, an issue Atkins addressed at his 1994 visit. He said “Leadership is not made of being the first follower. . . . IU needs to get out in front and I don’t think the university has done that sufficiently. I hope IU accepts the challenge to get it done.” After all, “without education, the door is locked” to American minorities.

Times-Mail (Bedford), November 20, 1994, 25, accessed Newspapers.com.

In his 50s, doctors diagnosed Atkins with Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was determined to overcome it through grit and hard work, as he had when afflicted with polio, stating “I believe miracles are usually man-made.” As the disease progressed, the Boston Globe noted he “continued to assist on cases even after he needed his son to translate his slurred speech and a special computer arm to help him peck out sentences.” The indomitable Atkins succumbed to the disease in June 2008, just months before voters elected Barack Obama the nation’s first African American president. His historic election came on the heels of work done by fearless leaders like Atkins, who the Boston Globe described as a “humanist” with a “steely resolve.”  His time in Elkhart and Bloomington helped cultivate this unique blend of empathy and empowerment, best summarized by one of Atkins’s favorite sayings: “Power is colorless. . . . It’s like water. You can drink it or you can drown in it.” [7]

Sources:

[1] “Another Cross Burned After Negro’s Win,” The Times (Munster), April 10, 1960, 6, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Campus Demonstration Follows Election of I.U. Negro Student,” Rushville Republican, April 8, 1960, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Segregation Demonstration Held at I.U.,” Anderson Herald, April 10, 1960, 18, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Whites Attempt to ‘Hang’ in Effigy, Negro Prexy [sic?] at IU,” Indianapolis Recorder, April 16, 1960, 1, accessed Hoosier State Chronicles.

[2] “3 Seek Rhodes Scholarship,” Indianapolis Star, November 6, 1960, 18, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Foreign Study Grant to Indiana Studied,” Muncie Evening Press, May 27, 1960, 7, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Thomas I. Atkins, Rights Champion and City Councilor, Dies,” Boston Globe, June 29, 2018, 16, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Turks Believe Race Prejudice Moral Question,” Indianapolis Star, October 3, 1960, 22, accessed Newspapers.com.; Andrew Welsh-Huggins, “Atkins a Campus Activist since 1960,” Times-Mail (Bedford), November 20, 1994, 25, accessed Newspapers.com.

[3] Erin Moskowitz and Mark Feeney, “Civil Rights Trailblazer Atkins Dies at 69,” Boston Globe, June 29, 2008, accessed Boston.com.; John H. Gamble, “Atkins and Bride Look to Career,” South Bend Tribune, January 1, 1961, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Parents Against Mixed Marriage,” Terre Haute Tribune, January 1, 1961, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Student Leaders in Interracial Nuptials in Mich.,” Indianapolis Recorder, January 7, 1961, 7, accessed Hoosier State Chronicles.; “Thomas I. Atkins, Rights Champion and City Councilor, Dies,” Boston Globe, June 29, 2018, 16, accessed Newspapers.com.; “White Girl Marries Negro I.U. Leader,” South Bend Tribune, December 31, 1960, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.

[4] “14 Get Wilson Grants at N.D.,” South Bend Tribune, March 13, 1961, 16, accessed Newspapers.com.; “15,000 to Mourn Evers Here,” Boston Globe, June 26, 1963, 7, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Atkins Named Director of Federal Bank,” South Bend Tribune, January 9, 1980, 16, accessed Newspapers.com.; Boston Globe, July 29, 1963, 1, 6, accessed Newspapers.com.; Boston Globe, June 17, 1963, 1, 3, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Elkhart Native Seeks Boston Mayoral Bid,” Indianapolis Star, May 13, 1971, 13, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Fellowship to Elkhartan,” South Bend Tribune, June 1, 1962, 20, accessed Newspapers.com.; Ian Forman, “De Facto Sleeping Giant in Mrs. Hicks’ Smash Win,” Boston Globe, November 6, 1963, 1, 29, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Hub School Boycott Planned by Negroes,”1963 Year of Ferment for Negroes in Boston,” Boston Globe, December 25, 1963, 43, accessed Newspapers.com; Boston Globe, June 13, 1963, 12, accessed Newspapers.com.; Robert L. Levey, “Does Bias Win Votes in the Hub?,” Boston Globe, August 20, 1963, 11, accessed Newspapers.com.; Robert L. Levey, “‘Don’t Complain-Vote,’ Atkins Urges Negroes,” Boston Globe, September 23, 1963, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; Robert L. Levey, “How Hub Negro Protest Gains,” Boston Globe, December 8, 1963, 75, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Mrs. Hicks Asks Brooke Help Halt School Boycott,” Boston Globe, June 14, 1963, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; Richard J. Connolly, “New Demonstrations Due: Hot Words Fly in Sit-In Fight,” Boston Globe, September 8, 1963, 1, 22-25, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Some 3,000 Boston Negro Pupils Boycott Classes in Mass Protest,” North Adams Transcript (Massachusetts), June 18, 1963, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Text of a Statement Read by Thomas Atkins, Executive Secretary of the Boston Branch NAACP, Concerning Direct Action to Be Taken Against the Boston School Committee,” July 30, 1963, Boston Public Schools Desegregation Project, Northeastern University Library Digital Repository Service.

[5] Robert L. Levey, “How Hub Negro Protest Gains,” Boston Globe, December 8, 1963, 75, accessed Newspapers.com.; “N.A.A.C.P.: Vote on ‘Racial Basis,” Boston Globe, November 6, 1963, 29, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Political ‘Consciousness’ is Sweeping Negroes,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 2, 1963, 5, accessed Newspapers.com.

[6] Associated Press, “Negroes Win Many Races,” Spokane Daily Chronicle, November 8, 1967, accessed Google News.;”Discrimination Charges Aired,” The Times (Munster, IN), August 8, 1978, 17, accessed Newspapers.com.; “Education for Blacks is Issue–Not Busing,” Palladium-Item (Richmond, IN), September 9, 1981, 9, accessed Newspapers.com.; Felicia Gayle, “Integration Suit Begins,” The Times (Munster, IN), July 27, 1979, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; Steven Hansen, “Activist Profiled,” The Times (Munster, IN), August 24, 1978, 11, accessed Newspapers.com.; Eric Moskowitz and Mark Feeney, “Civil Rights Trailblazer Atkins Dies at 69,” Boston Globe, June 29, 2008, B3, accessed Newspapers.com.; “NAACP Lawyer Faces Arrest,” South Bend Tribune, July 26, 1978, 3, accessed Newspapers.com.; “New Boston Councilman,” Indianapolis News, November 9, 1967, 6, accessed Newspapers.com.; David M. Rosen, “Boston May Call in U.S. Marshals,” The Republic (Columbus, IN), October 8, 1974, 13, accessed Newspapers.com.; Howard M. Smulevitz, “IPS Desegregation Plan Calls for Busing of 41,000 Pupils,” Indianapolis Star, November 14, 1978, 2, accessed Newspapers.com.; Howard M. Smulevitz, “Ohio Decisions Seen Lending Weight to Dillin’s Busing Stand,” Indianapolis Star, July 3, 1979, 9, accessed Newspaper.com.; Transcript, “The Keys to the Kingdom (1974-1980),” Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1985, accessed PBS.org.

[7] “A Boston Pioneer and his Mark,” Boston Globe, July 1, 2008, 10, accessed Newspapers.com.; Lejene Breckenridge, “Achievements of Ex-Elkhartan Honored at I.U.,” South Bend Tribune, January 3, 1995, 1, accessed Newspapers.com.; Lauren Fagan, “Civil Rights Attorney, Elkhart Native Atkins Dies,” South Bend Tribune, July 2, 2008, B3, accessed Newspapers.com.; Eric Moskowitz and Mark Feeney, “Civil Rights Trailblazer Atkins Dies at 69,” Boston Globe, June 29, 2008, B3, accessed Newspapers.com.; Andrew Welsh-Huggins, “Exploring the Culture of Color,” and “Atkins a Campus Activist since 1960,” Times-Mail (Bedford), November 20, 1994, 25, accessed Newspapers.com.

THH Episode 47: “The Dutiful Dozen”: The South Bend Blue Sox and Women’s Professional Baseball

Transcript and Show Notes for “‘The Dutiful Dozen’: The South Bend Blue Sox and Women’s Professional Baseball”

Written by Casey Pfeiffer and Michella Marino. Produced by Jill Weiss Simins.

[Crowd noise and cheering at a baseball game]

Justin Clark [using old time radio voice and effects]: And we’re all tied up here at 1 a piece as we head to the bottom of the 10th. The Blue Sox need to put one across to keep their championship hopes alive. . . And we’ve got something cooking here. . . Runners on the corners now with two out. Can they do it again folks? Westerman up at the plate with a chance to win it. And there’s a liner smashed to the right side and it’s through! Ladies and gentlemen, as they’ve proven time and again, don’t count these Sox out yet! We’ve got ourselves a tied series, and we’ll see you tomorrow for the championship!

[Audio clip of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”]

Clark: For fans cheering at the ballpark on September 10, 1952, few could have anticipated that their team would again have a chance to bring a championship title home to the city. The season had started off bright and expectations were high, but the ballclub had all but limped to the finish line. Injuries, costly managerial decisions, and discord between the players and leadership contributed to their drop in the standings. When six members walked off the team in late August and early September in a player strike just days before the end of the regular season, the club’s chances at clinching a consecutive playoff championship seemed bleak. After all, they’d lost a third of their roster and were reduced to just twelve players – a dutiful dozen. Giving up would have been easy. But as we all know…

[Audio clip from A League of Their Own, Tom Hanks]: “There’s no crying in baseball.”

The women of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League were accustomed to adversity and relished the opportunity to compete at the same level as male professional baseball players. Showcasing their determination, grit, and innate athletic skill, the South Bend Blue Sox were prepared to leave it all on the field again for a chance at the 1952 title.

I’m Justin Clark, and this is Talking Hoosier History.

Though it would be twenty years until the passage of Title IX in 1972, which prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex” in federally funded educational or athletic programs, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, or AAGPBL, set an early precedent for women in professional sports. The League showed that when they had the opportunity, female athletes could be as competitive and entertaining as men. Yet, it also underscored that societal expectations of femininity were – and continue to be – imposed on female athletes. The South Bend Blue Sox and other teams of the League serve as an example of women succeeding in fields dominated by men, while reminding us of the work still needed today to help achieve greater gender equality in sports.

[Audio clip of the AAGPBL “Victory Song”]

Clark: Many of us are familiar with the quote, “There’s no crying in baseball,” from the popular movie A League of Their Own. The 1992 film put the AAGPBL back in the public eye, four decades after its founding. While the movie highlighted the history of the League (with some Hollywood liberties, of course), it’s important to note that though it was among the first, if not the first, organized professional women’s league to play baseball, women have been playing the sport since at least the 1860s.

Baseball, since its early roots in America in the mid-18th century, has been considered a man’s sport by most.  After developing into a professional game in the 19th century, it was dubbed too strenuous for women—the long base paths, heavy bat, overhand pitching, etc. etc. So women who played in the late 19th and early 20th century faced social criticism for their foray into this masculine domain.  Despite this, women continued playing on barnstorming teams and at women’s colleges on the east coast in the post-Civil War era through the turn of the 20th century but not in particularly high numbers, at least officially.

In the 1880s in urban areas, the game of baseball was modified to accommodate smaller spaces such as indoor gyms and city playgrounds, which led to the development of softball.  As softball evolved by the turn of the century, women were pushed into this sport and away from baseball.  Softball grew dramatically through recreational and industrial leagues during the Great Depression, and although generally acceptable for women in the pre-WWII era, female players were often deemed masculine.  Time Magazine described female softballers as “cavorting U.S. tomboys…girls [who] can pitch, bat, field grounders, otherwise perform like a reasonable facsimile of the male.” This widespread popularity of softball set the stage for a ready-made pool of athletes for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.  These women knew how to play, and they were good. Very good.

[Audio clip of “Baseball Boogie”]

Clark: America began contributing towards the WWII effort and then officially joined the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

Radio clip: “Millions of women who have never before been employed in industry are now enlisted in the nation’s labor forces. They are stepping in wherever they are needed to do a man’s job.”

Clark: More women entered the workforce, finding new employment opportunities in jobs traditionally held by men, who had taken up arms to fight.  This included professional baseball.

[Audio clip of “Baseball Boogie”]

Clark: Baseball was America’s national pastime and provided release from the stressors of the depression and war years. As the American economy shifted to wartime production in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s, industrial recreation gained even greater importance for war workers and spectators who wanted to enjoy wholesome entertainment.

Radio clip: “See baseball is back again.  All of Washington is out, including the President of the United States.”

Clark: In January 1942, President Roosevelt stated,

Clark [using Roosevelt voice]: “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. . . everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before. . . they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work. . .”

Clark: Nevertheless, there were still concerns that a manpower shortage could affect professional baseball in the spring of 1943 and leave ballparks empty. Not willing to wait around and see what happened, Philip K. Wrigley, chewing gum magnate and owner of the Chicago Cubs, stepped up to the plate.

He decided that professional women’s softball was the answer. When it became clear, though, that men’s professional baseball would not be curtailed by a manpower shortage, instead of abandoning his idea of women’s professional softball, Wrigley shifted gears slightly. According to historian Merrie Fidler,

Casey Pfeiffer: Wrigley “fashioned the league’s objectives to compliment the war effort in the mid-sized industrial communities that supported its teams.”

Clark: Wrigley founded the All-American Girls Softball League as a non-profit organization. He explored potential host cities ranging from Detroit to Cincinnati to Gary, but the final cities selected to host League teams were South Bend, Indiana; Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin; and Rockford, Illinois. These cities had been hotbeds for women’s softball since the 1930s, were mid-sized war production cities, and were conveniently located within a 100-mile radius of Wrigley’s base of operations in Chicago.

Radio Ad: for Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum: “Hi ho, hey, hey.  Chew Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum!”

Clark: Wrigley offered a previously unimaginable opportunity: a chance for female athletes to play professional ball.

He used his already established scouting network to recruit the very best players from across the US and Canada, eventually even recruiting Latin American players. The League held final try-outs in Chicago and then distributed players to each of the four new teams. The original South Bend team included women hailing from the state of Florida to the city of Chicago to the province of Saskatchewan, and a little bit of everywhere in between.

Furthermore, this was a paid opportunity, and the League paid well—salaries started at $45/week, which according to contemporary newspapers was “more than the average stenographer or factory girl gets, and far above the average Class D minor leaguer” and ranged up to $85/week, which was on par with “players in the top minor leagues.”  And to drum up further publicity, the League hired former male major league stars as team managers.

At the League’s onset, the women played a hybrid game that fell somewhere between softball and baseball. The game continued to evolve throughout the League’s 12-year history, eventually becoming baseball.

Radio clip: “Like many another sport, baseball has made way for the ladies. They train like men for professional games that draw a million paid admissions every year.  From coast to coast and even from Canada and Cuba comes the cry, ‘Slide, baby, slide!’”

Clark: Early on, the women used the underhand pitch and a typical softball but batted with Louisville Slugger baseball bats. Each team played with nine players, allowed lead offs and steals, and lengthened the base paths and pitching distance. By 1948, overhand pitching was implemented and in the final season a regulation size baseball.  The League constantly evolved in its name and structure. In later years, it has been labeled, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Here we will just say the League to avoid confusion.

Wrigley was of the mind that for society to fully accept women’s professional baseball and to shed stereotypes of women softball players, he would have to highlight the players’ femininity.  The women would be promoted as “All-American girls.” Indeed, one United Press article described the new league as “beauty at the bat, pulchritude on the pitcher’s mound, and glamour in the gardens when the nation’s first professional girls’ softball league opens its initial season.” As Fidler explains,

Pfeiffer: “Wrigley attempted to achieve this goal by soliciting the design of a special ‘feminine’ uniform, by employing team chaperones, by establishing player conduct rules similar to those in vogue for women on college campuses, and by educating players in the finer points of ‘feminine’ charm.”

Radio clip: “But you don’t need to go to college to learn that!”

Clark: This meant in the early years that players attended charm school and were required to abide by such League rules as “Always appear in feminine attire when not actively engaged in practice or playing ball,” “Boyish bobs are not permissible,” and “Lipstick should always be on.”

Radio clip: “Lipstick is your exclamation point. Be sure that your lipstick harmonizes with your rouge and your nail polish, and check with any reds in your costume to see that everything is in key…Be sure you put your best face forward!

Clark: These rules of conduct were established as a form of what sociologist Jan Felshin has dubbed “Apologetic behavior.”  This is a term used frequently when discussing women’s sport in the 20th century and describes the compensatory behavior required of women when they engage in a social transgression, i.e. since women were engaging in the traditionally masculine sport of baseball, they must apologize or compensate for this by emphasizing their femininity.

Radio clip: “Jean bunts it.  The squeeze is on!  Tiby Eisen slides home with a run and a nicely bruised leg. Better a bruise than long pants, eh, gals?”

Clark: They did this through their skirted uniforms, the strict codes of conduct, and highlighting their traditional feminine accomplishments such as reading, horseback riding, and scrapbooking.  Mina Costin, a staff writer for the South Bend Tribune, described the new professional players as such:

Michella Marino [with old time radio effects]: “Time was when girl softball players were thought of as brawny, tough-looking and acting babes who couldn’t do anything but heave a ball and swing a bat.  But the members of South Bend’s new girls team are ladies, in appearance and character, without exception.”

Clark: She followed with a detailed description of the new star pitcher, Margaret (Sunny) Berger:

Marino [with old time radio effects]: “Sunny is a small, sun-tanned, blue-eyed blond, who looks like a college co-ed.”

Justin Clark: After describing Berger’s collegiate background and hobbies, which of course included her devotion to the Red Cross, Costin concluded the article with the following:

Marino [with old time radio effects]: “There you have Miss America, 1943. No, she’s not a bathing beauty—she’s a softball player, and a darn good one, too.”

Clark: Although men’s baseball integrated in 1947, the League never did.  Despite several Black female players trying out for the South Bend team in the early 1950s, sources suggest that Black women baseballers did not fit within the “All-American” standards set by the League, and none were ever officially on a team roster.  Wrigley emphasized white middle-class femininity and indeed embedded it into every aspect of his organization.  It was couched in language surrounding respectability, but race and sexuality certainly played into it.  In this instance, respectability meant white and heterosexual.

Historically, while much has been made of this emphasis on the player’s femininity, what is less often covered is their stellar athleticism, so let’s jump into our team at hand here, the South Bend Blue Sox, and their long road to back-to-back championships.

Radio clip: “Okay, gals. Play ball!”

Clark: In the spring of 1943, South Bend, with a population just over 100,000, was booming with its $13 million in defense contracts, shedding any last vestiges of the depression-era.  Corporations like Studebaker, a local automaker, and Bendix Aviation, had shifted production to meet wartime needs.  When the 15 new professional ball players assigned to the Blue Sox team stepped off the South Shore El from Chicago [train noise and horn] into their new host city, they were greeted by South Bend mayor Jesse Pavey and other local civic leaders.  The city was glad to have them [clapping], and the women were thrilled to be there.

The Fort Wayne Daisies –the only other team from the Hoosier state –joined the League in 1945.

Radio clip: “Two teams are working out—the Fort Wayne Daisies and the Racine Belles…”

Clark: While the AAGPBL was founded, in part, in response to the Second World War, the League peaked in the postwar period and remained in operation until after the 1954 season, because of its roots within host cities such as South Bend and Fort Wayne.

Community support for the League and their new team remained strong in South Bend. Local industrial, business, civic, and fraternal organization leaders expressed interest in supporting the team and contributed financially as guarantors to ensure the team’s stability and success for over a decade.

The South Bend Blue Sox began their tenure at Bendix Field, but relocated to the stadium at Playland Park for the 1946 season. Playland was centrally located, offered more seating, including a section of 2600 covered seats, and a brand new lighting system. Attendance dramatically increased over the next couple of seasons.

[Journalists reporting in background and photo bulbs going off]

Local newspaper coverage, or the lack thereof, could make or break a team, but the South Bend Tribune certainly aided the Blue Sox. [Journalism/newsroom noise] The Tribune reported on all their home and away games and provided box scores for the “Girls Pro League” just as they did with men’s professional baseball. This positive, regular coverage spurred attendance and helped develop a loyal following among residents.

Despite several solid seasons of play and a tie for the pennant in 1949, league and playoff championships continued to elude the Blue Sox. That all changed in 1951. Led by all-star pitcher Jean Faut and a strong veteran core, the team knew they had the talent to go the distance, and they set to work proving it.

[Crowd yelling “Yay!”]

The Sox had a good start but finished in third in the first part of the season; they went on a tear in the second half. In late July, the team won an impressive eleven games in a row, including a perfect game by Faut, the first of two she threw in her remarkable career. To date, there have been a total of 23 perfect games in Major League Baseball history. No pitcher in the league has ever thrown more than one. Paul Neville of the South Bend Tribune reported on Faut’s 1951 gem in the July 22nd issue of the paper, praising her as “a sturdy gal with a lot of heart, a fast ball that hops, and a curve that breaks off like a country road.” In August, the Blue Sox outdid themselves, winning sixteen in a row. The consistent, “sizzling” play by all members of the team propelled them to the top of the standings and saw them clinch their first outright league championship in nine seasons.

South Bend defeated Fort Wayne in the first round of the ’51 playoffs but fell two games behind to the Rockford Peaches in the title series. According to the South Bend Tribune,

Clark [using old time radio voice and effects]: “It looked like a hopeless proposition, trying to win three straight from Rockford, which was on a nine-game victory streak of its own.”

Clark: Needing a win, they handed the ball to their ace.

Clark [using old time radio voice and effects]: “It’s an old story with the South Bend Blue Sox but they’re counting on Jean Faut to pull them out of another jam at Playland Park.”

Clark: Faut and the team battled back, as they so often did, coming from behind in each of the last three games to win their first playoff championship. It was a long-time coming and the city was thrilled:

Clark [using old time radio voice and effects]: “The 1951 Blue Sox were a team that improved steadily as the season progressed. Their position in the standings at the end of the first half and then their top rung spot after the second half shows that they learned and put their new knowledge into use. They’ve brought great credit upon themselves and South Bend and for that we can only say, ‘Congratulations!’”

Clark: On the surface, South Bend looked primed to compete for the championship title again in 1952. The team boasted a strong roster that played well with each other, but off the field, tensions and outside pressures mounted, threatening to disrupt their work. Contract conflicts became a major point of contention. Several players demanded higher pay to reflect their experience and talent, but the League, already struggling financially, often refused to budge. The frustrations over pay cast a shadow over the season. The Blue Sox also learned they would be without fan-favorite shortstop Senaida “Shoo-Shoo” Wirth for the year when she announced that she was pregnant, another aspect of the AAGPBL that male leagues did not have to contend with.

Added to this, was a complicated set of player and leadership dynamics that the Blue Sox began to confront in 1951 and were exacerbated in the ’52 season. In January 1951, the Sox hired a new manager, former Minor Leaguer Karl Winsch. In addition to his role with the team, Winsch just so happened to be Faut’s husband and the father of their young son. The relationship made things tricky for Faut. Though Winsch reportedly never talked baseball with her at home, teammates were hesitant to confide in her during disputes with him, thus isolating Faut.

Despite these challenges, the Blue Sox started the 1952 season strong; [crowd noise] it looked like it would be a Hoosier battle through and through while they sought to fend off the Fort Wayne Daisies. Faut looked past the strained relationships and her husband’s inability to connect with his players and continued her dominance on the mound. But small fissures pulled at the team’s seams. In early June, Winsch let frustrations get the best of him and benched Charlene “Shorty” Pryer [background booing], the second baseman, and then abruptly suspended first baseman Janet “Pee Wee” Wiley for supporting Pryer and allegedly talking back to him. [crowd noise with spectator yelling, “Oh, come on!”] Winsch himself was suspended later that month when he challenged a call on the field and got into a brawl with the umpire. Some Blue Sox joined the melee, underscoring the physical aspect that was common in both male and female professional leagues. It was another distraction for the team during their close race with Fort Wayne.

Winsch continued to make changes to the lineup as the season progressed, much to the dismay of the team. These were experienced ballplayers who understood the strengths and weaknesses of their roster and weren’t afraid to question his calls. Finally, in late August, tensions erupted. Winsch called on Shorty Pryer to pinch run in the ninth inning of a close game against the Kalamazoo Lassies. Pryer, who had already taken off her spikes, took some time getting out to the base. The delay angered the short-tempered Winsch, who suspended her with just days left in the regular season. Several Blue Sox players appealed to Winsch to reconsider, stating that they needed the leading base-stealer and star-hitter in the lineup. Winsch refused to change his mind and challenged those who questioned him. Siding with their teammate, five additional players walked off the team. It was a devastating blow to a group that had struggled down the stretch and led to a reporter dubbing those remaining “The Dutiful Dozen.” South Bend ended the season in second, losing the league championship to their Hoosier rivals, Fort Wayne.

Reduced to twelve players, few fans gave the Blue Sox any chance at winning it all for a second consecutive year. Still, the team quickly defeated Grand Rapids in the first round and met Rockford again in the championship series. The Blue Sox lost the first two games, but played the latter under protest, arguing that Rockford had shortened the distance to the right field fence below the league requirement. The protest proved to be a crucial point in the series, and the final ruling went in the Blue Sox favor. While clinching a win in game three, South Bend learned that the two teams would replay the previous one, thus evening the series at one a piece. Another Rockford win gave the Peaches the edge. Once again, South Bend found itself in a must-win position. [crowd noise] Winsch decided to save Faut for the deciding game and went with Janet Rumsey on the mound against Rockford’s ace Rose Gacioch, already a two-time All-Star by this point. It was a nail-biter that saw the determined Blue Sox prevail 2-1 in ten innings. The South Bend Tribune reported:

Clark [using old time radio voice and effects]: “Out-hit, out-fielded, out-pitched, but never out-fought. That’s the Blue Sox story as the defending American Girls Baseball league champions trek off to Freeport, Illinois today for the final game of 1952.”

Clark: The Blue Sox handed the ball to Faut and let her work her magic. [crowd cheers] With a 20-2 record on the regular season and a stunning .93 ERA, she again demonstrated that she was among the best to ever play in the League. [bat hitting ball and crowd cheering] The Sox gave her an early lead with a run in the first, but it was a three-run third that helped tip the odds in the Blue Sox favor for the first time in weeks. Faut, a former batting champion, assisted not only on the mound, but at the plate too – belting out two triples, tallying two RBIs, and scoring a run herself after stealing home. [crowd cheers] Down 6-1 in the ninth inning, Rockford made one last push and rallied for a couple runs before Faut notched the last out. [crowd cheers] With the 6-3 win, the Blue Sox unexpectedly brought another championship title home to South Bend and showed the country that women possessed the same drive to compete and succeed as men in the pro leagues.

Clark [using old time radio voice and effects]: “Today the Blue Sox again reign as league champions. There is no attempt here to say that this South Bend team of a dozen players is the best in the league, or that girls’ baseball is the world’s greatest sport. But there is space here for a tribute to Winsch and his girls, who won the league playoffs on just one basis alone – determination, the will to win. These are but the trite phrases of athletic banquet speakers, but nonetheless apt and fitting in describing the success story of the Blue Sox.”

[Audio Clip of AAGBPL “Victory Song”]

Clark: Within the long history of women’s sports, there is also a long history of society demanding apologetic behavior. Women athletes have consistently done whatever it takes to compete—whether that’s playing baseball in a skirt with lipstick on or participating in a beauty contest at half-time of a basketball game. They’ve had to engage in this behavior—willingly or not—because American society has deemed femininity and athleticism at odds. Female athletes, amateur or professional, have had to constantly negotiate these components of their identities to make the case that they too deserve an equal chance to play. Because sports like baseball have been part of the masculine realm, men never have to justify their masculinity in the same way.

Gains for women have been made since the AAGPBL players’ time, particularly with the passing of Title IX in 1972 and the subsequent boom in women’s sports at the high school and collegiate levels, but sporting equality continues to evade women athletes. Professional women athletes are not paid anywhere near equal to male professional athletes, they do not get the same media coverage or endorsement deals, and as the most recent NCAA March Madness basketball tournament highlighted, access to facilities and equipment remain vastly inequitable. Despite this, women athletes continue to achieve greatness and sometimes even perfection.  Just as Faut excelled at the mound with her two perfect games for the South Bend Blue Sox, Hope Trautwein, a pitcher for the softball team from North Texas University, pitched the first-ever truly perfect game in NCAA D-1 history in April 2021, striking out every single batter that stepped to the plate over the course of seven innings. Just as in 1952, women athletes come to play. They continue to fight for the right that one day it’ll be on a level-playing field.

Once again, I’m Justin Clark, and this has been Talking Hoosier History.

Talking Hoosier History is a production of the Indiana Historical Bureau, a division of the Indiana State Library. To view the historical sources, a full transcript, and links to the articles mentioned in this episode, visit blog.history.in.gov and click “Talking Hoosier History” at the top.

This episode of Talking Hoosier History was researched and written by IHB historian Casey Pfeiffer and IHB Deputy Director Dr. Michella Marino. Production and sound engineering by IHB historian Jill Weiss Simins. Quotations for this episode were read by Casey Pfeiffer, Michella Marino, and [old time radio voice] yours truly.

We’ll be back in two weeks with an episode of Giving Voice. In the meantime, find us on Facebook and Twitter at the Indiana Historical Bureau and remember to subscribe, rate, and review Talking Hoosier History wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening!

[Blooper take ending: To the Blue So– . . . [jumbles words] . . . to the Blue Sox team. That’s hard to say!]

Show Notes

Books

Jim Sargent and Robert M. Gorman, The South Bend Blue Sox: A History of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Team and Its Players, 1943-1954, Forewords by Betsy Jochum, Sue Kidd, and Jean Faut, Jefferson, NC:  McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012.

Merrie A. Fidler, The Origins and History of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, Foreword by Jean Cione, Jefferson, NC:  McFarland & Company, Inc., 2006.

W.C. Madden, The Dutiful Dozen, Noblesville, IN:  Madden Publishing Co. Inc., 1997.

Newspapers

Cindy Boren, “North Texas pitcher throws a perfect game with a twist, striking out all 21 batters,” The Washington Post, April 12, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/04/12/hope-trautwein-perfect-game/

“Faut to Hurl in Final Tilt at Freeport,” South Bend Tribune, September 11, 1952, Accessed via Newspapers.com.

“Girl Softballers Hope to Develop Major League,” Associated Press, Ludington Daily News, June 9, 1943, Accessed via Newspapers.com.

“Girl Softball Players Stir Fans’ Interest,” United Press, South Bend Tribune, May 28, 1943, Accessed via Newspapers.com.

Joe Doyle, “According to Joe Doyle,” South Bend Tribune, September 12, 1952, Accessed via Newspapers.com.

Mina Costin, “Boys Have Gone to War; Now It’s the All-American Girl,” South Bend Tribune, May 27, 1943.

Paul Neville, “Sox Subdue Rockford Nine by 2-0 Score,” South Bend Tribune, July 22, 1951, Accessed via Newspapers.com.

Paul Neville, “On the Level,” South Bend Tribune, September 14, 1951, Accessed via Newspapers.com.

“Same Old Story! Jean Faut to Hurl Crucial Game for South Bend Sox,” South Bend Tribune, September 11, 1951, Accessed via Newspapers.com.

Online

Becky Sullivan, “Under Fire, The NCAA Apologizes And Unveils New Weight Room for Women’s Tournament,” NPR, March 20, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/03/20/979596524/under-fire-the-ncaa-apologizes-and-unveils-new-weight-room-for-womens-tournament

Chad Campbell and James Doubek, “Pitcher Hope Trautwein Throws a Perfect Game of All Strikeouts, NPR, April 13, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/04/13/986724329/pitcher-hope-trautwein-throws-a-perfect-game-of-all-strikeouts

Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Hon. Kenesaw M. Landis, January 15, 1942, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/spring/greenlight.html.

Gerald Balzer and Steven Culbertson, “When FDR Said ‘Play Ball’: President Called Baseball a Wartime Morale Booster, Prologue Magazine, Spring 2002,  https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/spring/greenlight.html.

“Ladies of the Little Diamond, TIME Magazine, June 14, 1943, Vol. 41, Issue 24, pg. 73-74, Accessed via Inspire Database.

“Rules of Conduct,” https://www.aagpbl.org/history/rules-of-conduct.

Music Credits

Former State Legislators Agree: Politics Has Changed

Indiana General Assembly, no date, courtesy of the Indiana State Library.

For many former Indiana lawmakers, the legislative and technological world feels quite different from the one in which they began their political careers. Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported that statistically the U.S. is the only democratic nation in the world where social trust has seen a major decline, suggesting political polarization is the major driving force.[1] Luckily, history provides us with perspective in these contentious times, reminding us of an age when things were once different and that there is always hope for change.

According to former legislators of the Indiana General Assembly (IGA), politicians have generally collaborated well and operated in an atmosphere where, despite political disagreements, most worked congenially across party lines. This is not to say that political polarization is as tense as it appears at the federal level, but Indiana Legislative Oral History Initiative (ILOHI) interviews indicate that bipartisanship is harder in Indiana than it once was. As ILOHI’s oral historian, I found myself hearing over and over again from legislators who began their careers in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s that state politics have changed, that the current political climate is less collegial. This belief was echoed by former legislators of both major political parties.

Rep. Choice Edwards (R), “History of the IBLC,” accessed indianahousedemocrats.org.

When asking former Republican legislators about their impressions of bipartisan cooperation during their service compared to today, I was given the following responses. Former Republican Rep. Ned Lamkin, who served in the House of Representatives from 1967 to 1982 and was crucial in creating Unigov legislation (which merged Marion County and the City of Indianapolis), stated: “ bipartisan groups would go to lunch together every day . . . so we had really good . . . collegial relationships with one another unlike it is today . . . we really did say ‘only 10% of this is political.’” Lamkin’s African American colleague, Representative Choice Edwards, served during the 1969 session and helped pass Unigov into law. In an ILOHI interview, Edwards recounted his experience in the IGA, saying “So it went from very serious kinds of things to jovial . . . you know I believe to quote the philosopher Mencius if you ain’t laughing you ain’t living. So, I believe in . . . trying to ease tensions with laughter.”

Edwards’ predecessor, Republican Van Smith, who served in the Indiana House of Representatives in 1961 and was chairman of former Vice President Mike Pence’s successful 2012 gubernatorial campaign, echoed these same thoughts. He reflected:

There’s not deep bipartisan political respect that there once was. I don’t know I would have as much enjoyment in the legislature as I had before. I don’t know if I would have as much fun running for public office as I had before. There is this tendency to really build extreme vitriol positions against personalities, rather than have a good discussion of issues. It saddens me, because it’s a magnification in both parties, it’s a magnification of the bitterness, the attractiveness of being bitter. . . I am a staunch Christian and it just ain’t good.

Rep. Charlie Brown (left), accessed NWI Times.

Former Democratic legislators, like Rep. Charlie Brown, who served from 1982 to 2018, too observed increasing political polarization. Brown contended:

It’s just over the last six years, that what you see at the federal level was at the local level here. It used to be that we’d fuss and fight on the floor or in committee, but then go out and have a drink or have dinner together. That changed drastically over the last six or eight years. It was a total separation and isolation of the parties as it is at the federal level. I don’t know what brought that on. We just do not have that camaraderie any longer.

Democrat Lindel Hume, who served in the House of Representatives from 1974 to 1982 and the Senate from 1982 to 2014, echoed this, stating

It’s a tale of two legislatures . . . Whether you were Democrat or Republican you had friends on both sides of the aisle and you would kid around together . . . A much better relationship across party lines and one of the reasons I decided to retire from the legislature was that it just wasn’t the same.

African American teacher and Democratic legislator Earline Rogers served in the House from 1983 to 1990 and Senate from 1990 to 2016. She noted that despite differing races or parties, her statehouse colleagues respected and related to one another, adding that the public probably wouldn’t “recognize the camaraderie that’s there.” She also recalled that while caring for loved ones diagnosed with cancer, she and Republican colleague Tom Wyss, “went through something together. . . there’s a bond that political parties just can’t break up.”

The Herald (Jasper, IN), February 23, 1984, 3, accessed Newspapers.com.

While the legislators agreed that polarization had intensified, most did not attribute it to a specific source. One major factor exists today that did not in the early careers of former legislators: the internet. The Pew Research Center reported in early 2020 the results of a survey regarding how trustworthy Democrats and Republicans found 30 different news sources. The results found that Democrats trusted 22 of the sources and Republicans distrusted 20 of the sources, showing a deep divide.[2] The Wall Street Journal noted a few months back that mathematicians studying the role of social media in political polarization are seeing a disturbing trend, where social media sites appear designed to highlight the most contentious and extreme political posts.[3]

According to Facing History & Ourselves, online platforms “use algorithms to expose viewers to increasingly extreme content, which can lead them to fringe political views without their realizing it. . . . Spending time in a political echo-chamber can make it easier for negative feelings toward members of the other political party to develop.”[4] Information has become inherently political and it is harder than ever to discuss it, because so many have come to only trust information that fulfills their political biases. As a result, it is like throwing gasoline on a fire by reinforcing the idea that the other “side” is too extreme or untrustworthy to even interact with. In addition to “media bubbles,” Facing History cites “in-group bias,” or tribalism, and changing election policies like campaign finance reform and gerrymandering for increasing political polarization.

Indiana General Assembly, ca. 1948-1953, courtesy of the Indiana Historical Society.

The 2021 session indicated that the party divide among Indiana legislators isn’t likely to narrow any time soon, given the recent tension in the Assembly over a proposed bill regarding a South Bend school district. When Democrats belonging to the Black Legislative Caucus expressed concerns that the  bill would lead to racial segregation in South Bend, it was reported that a group of white Republican legislators booed and heckled them.[5] The conflict moved from the House floor to outside the chambers, and there, according to WFYI, a white male lawmaker had a confrontation with a black female legislator.[6] Democrats called for implicit bias training after the incident. While some legislators pushed back against this proposal, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agreed that the conflict exposed serious issues in the IGA.

Perhaps, if there is one thing we can learn from former legislators, it is that things don’t have to be this way, that political echo chambers can be dismantled. The Association of Retired Members of the Indiana General Assembly, a bipartisan group founded in 2016, is hoping to restore civility and bipartisanship among legislators. An Indy Star op-ed noted the group is “joined in fellowship of our common legislative and political experiences as well as our respect for the legislative process.”[7] Every two years, it awards legislators who demonstrate courtesy and respect for other members, are willing to find common ground, demonstrate self-discipline, and appreciate the rights of others. The op-ed’s author stated, and ILOHI interviewees confirmed, “Legislators are human and can be passionate. They can also be civil and work together for the good of our state.”

Sources:

[1] Kevin Vallier, “Why Are Americans So Distrustful of Each Other?,” The Wall Street Journal, accessed WSJ.com.

[2] Mark Jurkowitz, Amy Mitchell, Elisa Shearer and Mason Walker, “U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided,” accessed Pew Research Center.

[3] Christopher Mims, “Why Social Media Is So Good At Polarizing Us,” The Wall Street Journal, accessed Wall Street Journal.

[4] “Explainer: Political Polarization in the United States,” accessed Facing History & Ourselves.

[5] Brandon Smith, “Tensions Flare as Some Republicans Boo, Heckle Black Democrats on House Floor,” WBAA, February 19, 2021, accessed wbaa.org.

[6] Brandon Smith, “‘Nothing Was Normal’ About 2021 Legislative Session Amid COVID-19 Pandemic,” WFYI, April 26, 2021, accessed wfyi.org.

[7] Op-Ed, “Bipartisanship Group of Retired Indiana Lawmakers Encourages Civility,” Indianapolis Star, May 2, 2021, accessed IndyStar.com.