Service-learning projects help students make connections to their community and help them to think about civic participation. The projects can range from very simple short-term philanthropy to very complex direct involvement by the students across multiple years. Students learn both social problem-solving skills and academic knowledge through…

Traced is the history of the Muncie (Indiana) police department from the "gas boom" days of the 1890's through the pre-World War I "dry" years, the Klan-haunted twenties, and the depression years. Events in the community that played a major role in charting the development of the police department are chronicled. (RM)

Attempts to develop a "baseline understanding" of the nature of female criminality and its control during the first two decades of the twentieth century, using data from the court system of Muncie. The analysis of such historical data, though not necessarily representative of contemporary times or more urban settings, provide essential…

The purpose of this research was to study a school district in a small American city to understand who controls school curriculum in the local community. The research approach used was reputational analysis, a survey method whereby the reputed influence of leaders is measured rather than taken for granted. Also used was a technique developed by…

The history of Muncie's religious life in the 1920's and 1930's is examined as an illustration of what happened regarding churches and religion in the "typical" U.S. town. The ethnic and denominational mix and the changes in each are discussed. (RM)

In 1920 Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd published the results of their exhaustive study of everyday life in Muncie, Indiana, dubbing the city "Middletown" as a symbol of the typical American community. Salient conclusions of the study are summarized, and significant recent literature on Middletown is assessed. (RM)

Reproductions of 19 photographs that document some of the families and history of the African-American community in Bloomington, Indiana, from about 1870 to 1920, are contained in this paper. The paper discusses the use of photographs in historical inquiry, and posits that the photographic image carries the power of witness to past peoples and…

This handbook for secondary teachers contains activities, exercises, and strategies designed to make more obvious and concrete the opportunities local communities and states provide for students to learn about and to participate in global affairs. A major objective is to help high school students develop the competencies needed to identify and to…

Known as Middletown since Robert and Helen Lynd studied it in 1924, Muncie, like every other U.S. community studied during that period, turned out to be obsessed with the idea of social class. Recently researchers have found in Muncie some tendency toward the disappearance of a preoccupation with social class. (RM)

A replication of the 1920 Lynd study of everday life in Middletown, a typical America community, is presented. Data reveal that while Middletown did experience rapid change between 1890 and 1920 as the Industrial Revolution swept through middle America, there has been a significantly slower rate of change since then. (Author/RM)

This grade 3 interdisciplinary resource unit uses Evansville, Indiana and the Ohio River as its focus for social studies, language arts, mathematics, and science lessons. Text, pictures, and maps are provided to teach social studies lessons in history, geography, and map skills, and the student exercises include tests on vocabulary words and map…