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The
History of American Indian Studies at Indiana University
Historically, Indiana
University has been preeminent in American Indian studies,
tracing back to the 1930s when archaeologist Glenn A.
Black and bioanthropologist Georg Newmann actively pursued
research in Indiana prehistory. During that same period,
Stith Thompson, who founded folklore studies at Indiana
University, was the recognized leader in the field of
American Indian folklore. Thompson brought Carl F. Voegelin,
an anthropological linguist, to Bloomington in 1941
to develop the study of American Indian languages and
cultures.
In 1946, Voegelin founded the Department
of Anthropology to consolidate American Indian studies
in the four fields of anthropology. Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin,
who eventually joined the Department of History, applied
anthropological methods to the study of historical documents
and was instrumental in defining a new field of study
known as ethnohistory. In 1948, George Herzog came to
Bloomington and founded the Archives of Traditional
Music, which, together with the Library of Congress,
houses the premier collection of recorded American Indian
music.
From this beginning, American Indian
studies flourished at Indiana University as students
contributed their talents and more faculty joined the
university. Their collective legacy to Indiana University
today consists of invaluable archival, library, and
museum collections that form the basis for on-going
research projects, making Bloomington one of the richest—yet
least well known—centers for source material in
American Indian studies.
Resources at Indiana University
These resources include:
- Glenn A. Black Laboratory, which
has extensive archaeological collections
- Georg Newmann collection of American
Indian osteological material
- Ohio Valley-Great Lakes Ethnohistorical
Archives assembled by Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin
- Archives of Traditional Music,
which has the wax cylinder recordings of American
Indian music and speech brought together by George
Herzog
- Archives of the Languages of the
World (now consolidated with the Archives of Traditional
Music), which comprises the sound recordings of American
Indian language materials compiled by Carl and Florence
Voegelin and their students
- William H. Mathers Museum, which
contains the Wanamaker collection of American Indian
photographs and the Richard S. Ellison collection
of American Indian artifacts, printed material, and
manuscripts
- Lilly Library, which has large
collections of rare Western Americana and American
Indian books and manuscripts
In addition to these resources, there
are the departments of Anthropology and Folklore, as
well as the American Indian Studies Research Institute.
Scholars from around the world come to Bloomington to
use these collections, although their existence has
not been well publicized and their potential for fostering
research has only begun to be appreciated.
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