Founders Series – serie

William Carol Latta was the 13th member of the Purdue faculty. He became the driving force behind Purdue's world-famous School of Agriculture and initiated extension services that have lasted for more than a century. In 1890, he laid out the first permanent soil fertility field experiments, inaugurating a system of research considered one of the best in the country at that time. He administered Purdue's School of Agriculture until 1907.

In the most comprehensive biographical study of John Purdue (c. 1802-1876) to date, Purdue's great-great-grandniece describes her travels to the diverse places where Purdue had lived in order to learn about the mysterious relative known in her family as Uncle. Using fresh, unpublished source materials-including Purdue's personal correspondence, business ledgers, and the family oral histories-the author examines Purdue's beginning among illiterate, immigrant, Pennsylvania mountain-hollow folks. Uncle challenges a commonly held belief that Purdue was a cold-hearted business mogul. Instead the author shows Purdue as a human being and as a generous family man with a visionary nature.

In the most comprehensive biographical study of John Purdue (c. 1802-1876) to date, Purdue's great-great-grandniece describes her travels to the diverse places where Purdue had lived in order to learn about the mysterious relative known in her family as Uncle. Using fresh, unpublished source materials-including Purdue's personal correspondence, business ledgers, and the family oral histories-the author examines Purdue's beginning among illiterate, immigrant, Pennsylvania mountain-hollow folks. Uncle challenges a commonly held belief that Purdue was a cold-hearted business mogul. Instead the author shows Purdue as a human being and as a generous family man with a visionary nature.

Dave Ross (1871-1943) and George Ade (1866-1944) were trustees, distinguished alumni and benefactors of Purdue University. Their friendship began in 1922 and led to their giving land and money for 1924 construction of Ross-Ade Stadium, now a 70,000 seat athletic landmark on the West Lafayette campus. Their life stories date to 1883 Purdue and involve their separate student experiences and eventual fame. Their lives crossed paths with U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Ford, Amelia Earhart, and Will Rogers among others. Gifts or ideas from Ross or Ade lead to creation of the Purdue Research Foundation, Purdue Airport, Ross Hills Park and Ross Engineering Camp. They helped Purdue Theater, the Harlequin Club and more. Ade, renowned author and playwright, did butt heads with Purdue administrators at times long ago, but remains a revered figure. Ross' ingenious mechanical inventions of gears still steer millions of motorized vehicles, boats, tractors, even golf carts the world over.

The process of industrialization that began over two hundred years ago is continuing to change the way people work and live and doing it very rapidly in places like China and India. At the forefront of this movement is the profession of industrial engineering that develops and applies the technology that drives industrialization. What began in factories and helped build today's global industries is also used to plan many of the commercial and social services that are part of everyday life. This book describes how industrial engineering evolved over the past two centuries developing methods and principles for the planning, design, and control of production and service systems. The story focuses on the growth of the discipline at Purdue University where it helped shape the university itself and made substantial contributions to the industrialization of America and the world. The story includes colorful and creative people like Frank and Lillian Gilbreth of ""Cheaper by the Dozen"" fame. Lillian was the first lady of American engineering as well a founder of Purdue's Industrial Engineering.

In the early 1900s, Mary Matthews and Lella Gaddis forged trails for women at Purdue University and throughout Indiana. Mary was the first dean of the School of Home Economics. Lella was Indiana’s first state leader of Home Demonstration. In 1914, Mary hired Lella to organise Purdue’s new Home Economics Extension Service. According to those who knew them, Lella was a “sparkler” who travelled the state instructing rural women about nutrition, hygiene, safe water, childcare, and more. “Reserved” Mary established Purdue’s School of Home Economics, created Indiana’s first nursery school, and authored a popular textbook. Both women used their natural talents and connections to achieve their goals in spite of a male-dominated society. As a land grant institution, Purdue University has always been very connected to the American countryside. Based on extensive oral history and archival research, this book sheds new light on the important role female staff and faculty played in improving the quality of life for rural women during the first half of the twentieth century. It is also a fascinating story, engagingly told, of two very different personalities united in a common goal.

Based on extensive interviews and archival research, this book traces the career of Orville Redenbacher, the “popcorn king,” from his agricultural studies at Purdue University to his emergence as an American advertising icon. Born in Brazil, Indiana, in 1907, Orville began his lifelong obsession with the development of new strains of seed at Purdue where he earned a degree in agronomy while also playing in the All-American Marching Band. After experimenting with thousands of varieties, Orville and his business partner Charlie Bowman launched Orville Redenbacher’s gourmet popping corn in 1970. Through a combination of shrewd marketing and a notably superior product, the partners controlled a third of the market for popping corn by 1976, when their “Chester Hybrids” business was sold to Hunt Wesson Foods. Orville Redenbacher continued to prosper as a larger-than-life brand spokesperson and a symbol of wholesomeness and fun until his death in 1995. Based on interviews conducted in the last few years of Orville’s life, this book paints a fascinating picture of a deeply serious agricultural pioneer and marketing genius, whose image can still be found in almost every North American home.

From the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade to its annual appearance at the Indianapolis 500 auto race, Purdue University’s “All-American” Marching Band has been at the heart of celebrations across the United States (and the wider world) since 1886, less than twenty years after the University itself was founded in central Indiana. While the marching band is the musical flagship of the University, the Department of Bands also includes jazz and concert ensembles as well as a symphony orchestra. Every year, hundreds of young men and women are welcomed into this community of music, and alumni range from astronaut Neil Armstrong to popcorn legend Orville Redenbacher.Celebrating 125 years of Purdue Bands, this beautifully-illustrated book traces the history of Purdue University’s Department of Bands from its humble origins as a drum unit for the student army training corps to the 2010 appearance of the “All-American” Marching Band as leader of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, seen by over fifty million television viewers. It follows the lives of the organisation’s members and legendary directors, such as Paul Spotts Emrick and Al G. Wright, and highlights some of the band’s iconic features, such as the “World’s Largest Drum” and its legendary twirlers; the Golden Girl; the Girl in Black; the Silver Twins; and the Goldusters. Beyond the glitz, the story includes tragedy, such as the Halloween day train collision that claimed the lives of seventeen people in 1903, as well as groundbreaking success. But, through it all, the beat of one of the Midwest’s great treasures goes on, bringing fulfillment to its members as well as inspiration to its myriad fans.

A University of Tradition is a fascinating compilation of history, customs, pictures, and facts about Purdue University from its founding in 1869 to the present day. Covering all aspects of Purdue, from the origin of the nickname of its students and alumni'Boilermakers'to a chronological list of all buildings ever constructed on the campus of West Lafayette, Indiana, this book presents the ultimate insider's guide to one of the world's great universities. It contains a wealth of facts about student, academic, sporting, and campus traditions, as well as biographical information on all the University presidents and other members of Purdue's family, including David Ross, Neil Armstrong, Eliza Fowler, Jack Mollenkopf, Helen Schleman, and Amelia Earhart.A University of Tradition spotlights many items that will spark the memories of any Purdue alumnus or fan. No matter if you were in the All-American Marching Band, lived in the Quad, participated in Grand Prix, wrote for the Purdue Exponent, or were on campus when the Boilermakers won the 1967 Rose Bowl, you will appreciate and enjoy this book. The second edition is fully updated for 2012 and includes information about new landmarks, new traditions, and the incoming twelfth president of the University.

Bridges and More takes the reader from the early years of Civil Engineering when Purdue's campus consisted of a smattering of red brick buildings surrounded by grassy meadows and roads flanked by white, wooden fences to today's state-of-the-art facilities such as the Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research and the online hub for the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES).The highly illustrated book touches on major milestones in Purdue Civil Engineering history from Road School, to the Ross Summer Surveying Camp, to Purdue's involvement in world landmarks such as the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Tower of Pisa. Often, Purdue Civil Engineers are public servants, evolving research that helps to prevent disasters like building collapses and bridge failures. Bridges and More honors Purdue's School of Civil Engineering with historic images and an appealing account of 125 years of education, research and a profession that is, as the title suggests, about so much more than bridges.

The key role that farming plays in the economy of Indiana today owes much to the work of John Harrison Skinner (1874–1942). Skinner was a pioneering educator and administrator who transformed the study of agriculture at Purdue University during the first decades of the twentieth century. From humble origins, occupying one building and 150 acres at the start of his career, the agriculture program grew to spread over ten buildings and 1,000 acres by the end of his tenure as its first dean. A focused, single-minded man, Skinner understood from his own background as a grain and stock farmer that growers could no longer rely on traditional methods in adapting to a rapidly changing technological and economic environment, in which tractors were replacing horses and new crops such as alfalfa and soy were transforming the arable landscape. Farmers needed education, and only by hiring the best and brightest faculty could Purdue give them the competitive edge that they needed. While he excelled as a manager and advocate for Indiana agriculture, Skinner never lost touch with his own farming roots, taking especial interest in animal husbandry. During the course of his career as dean (1907–1939), the number of livestock on Purdue farms increased fourfold, and Skinner showed his knowledge of breeding by winning many times at the International Livestock Exposition. Today, the scale of Purdue’s College of Agriculture has increased to offer almost fifty programs to hundreds of students from all over the globe. However, at its base, the agricultural program in place today remains largely as John Harrison Skinner built it, responsive to Indiana but with its focus always on scientific innovation in the larger world.

Imagine Indiana farms at the turn of the last century. What comes from the land sustains us. Our farms and families depend on it. Having a good or bad year can mean the difference between prosperity and your family going hungry. Farmers knew how to provide. Throughout the 1800s, parents had passed their best knowledge on to their sons and daughters, who in turn taught their children tried-and-true methods for managing a farm—methods that provided consistency in a world of droughts, disease, and fluctuating markets. Before they abandoned a hundred years of proven practices or adopted new technology, they would have to be convinced that it was in their best interest.Enter county extension agents. Indiana county extension agents took up their posts in 1912, at a crucial juncture in the advancement of agriculture. The systematic introduction of hybrid seed corn, tractors, lime, certified seed, cow-testing associations, farm bureaus, commercial fertilizers, balanced livestock diets, soybeans, and 4-H clubs were all yet to come. Many of the most significant agricultural innovations of the 1900s, which are commonplace today, were still being developed in the laboratories and experimental fields of land-grant colleges like Purdue University.Compiled from original county agent records discovered in Purdue University’s Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections Research Center, Enriching Hoosier Farms and Families includes hundreds of rare, never-before-published photographs and anecdotal information about how county agents overcame their constituents’ reluctance to change. They visited farmers on their farms, day after day, year after year. They got to know them personally. They built trust in communities and little by little were able to share new information. Gradually, their practical applications of new methodologies for solving old problems and for managing and increasing productivity introduced farmers and their families to exciting new frontiers of agriculture.

Today, Purdue Extension delivers practical, research-based information that transforms lives and livelihoods. Tailored to the needs of Indiana, its current programs include Agriculture and Natural Resources, Health and Human Sciences, Economic and Community Development, and 4-H Youth Development. However, today’s success is built on over a century of visionary hard work and outreach.Scattering the Seeds of Knowledge: The Words and Works of Indiana’s Pioneer County Extension Agents chronicles the tales of the first county Extension agents, from 1912 to 1939. Their story brings readers back to a day when Extension was little more than words on paper, when county agents traveled the muddy back roads, stopping at each farm, introducing themselves to the farmer and his family.These Extension women and men had great confidence in the research and the best practices they represented, and a commanding knowledge of the inner workings of farms and rural residents. Most importantly, however, they had a knack with people. In many cases they were given the cold shoulder at first by the farmers they were sent to help. However, through old-fashioned, can-do perseverance and a dogged determination to make a difference in the lives of people, these county Extension agents slowly inched the state forward one farmer at a time. Their story is a history lesson on what agriculture was like at the turn of the twentieth century, and a lesson to us all about how patient outreach and dedicated engagement—backed by proven science from university research—reshaped and modernized Indiana agriculture.

Like pearls threaded one-by-one to form a necklace, five women successively nurtured students on the Purdue University campus in America’s heartland from the 1930s to the 1990s. Individually, each became a legendary dean of women or dean of students. Collectively, they wove a sisterhood of mutual support in their common—sometimes thwarted—pursuit of shared human rights and equality.Dorothy C. Stratton, Helen B. Schleman, M. Beverley Stone, Barbara I. Cook, and Betty M. Nelson opened new avenues for women and became conduits for change, fostering opportunities for all people. They were loved by students and revered by colleagues. The women also were respected throughout the United States as founding leaders of the Coast Guard Women’s Reserve (SPARs), frontrunners in the National Association of Women Deans and Counselors, and as pivotal members of presidential committees in the Kennedy and Nixon administrations.While it is focused on changing attitudes on one college campus, The Deans’ Bible sheds light on cultural change in America as a whole, exploring how each of the deans participated nationally in the quest for equality. The story rolls through the “picture-perfect,” suppressive 1950s, the awakening 1960s, women’s liberation, Title IX, 1980s AIDS and alcohol epidemics, the changing mores for the disabled, and ends in the twenty-first century.As each woman succeeded the other, forming a five-dean friendship, they knitted their bond with a secret symbol—a Bible. Originally possessed by Purdue’s first part-time Dean of Women Carolyn Shoemaker, the Bible was handed down from dean to dean with favorite passages marked. The lowercased word “bible” is often used in connection with reference works or “guidebooks.” The Deans’ Bible serves as a guidebook, brimming with stories of courageous women who led by example and lived their convictions.

The former Purdue Power Plant (HPN) with its iconic smoke stack and the attached Engineering Administration Building (ENAD) at the very heart of campus played important roles for most of the twentieth century. To many Purdue students and alumni, the smoke stack not only symbolized the emphasis at Purdue on technology but also provided a visible marker for the Purdue campus. The smoke stack was lovingly referred to by many as “Purdue’s finger to the world.” Amid controversy, the smoke stack was demolished in the early 1990s when the Purdue Clock Tower was constructed to locate the campus on the landscape.A Purdue Icon: Creation, Life, and Legacy is an edited volume that speaks to the history of the Power Plant, from the initial need for increased power and heat to meet a growing campus demand and its Romanesque architecture that allowed it to fit contextually on the campus, to the people who worked to bring heat and power to the campus by keeping the boilers up and the students who experienced the principles and applications of mechanical engineering through active learning. This book tells the story of the transition to alternative power and heat sources at the University, the decommissioning of the Power Plant, the controversy about what was to be done with this important site at the heart of the campus, and the challenges associated with the Power Plant’s potential reuse or demolition. The unique problems faced with demolishing a contaminated building in the middle of a major research university campus are insightfully explored before introducing the Thomas S. and Harvey D. Wilmeth Active Learning Center—a potential new Purdue icon.

In 1869 the State of Indiana founded Purdue University as Indiana’s land-grant university dedicated to agriculture and engineering. Today, Purdue stands as one of the elite research and education institutions in the world. Its halls have been home to Nobel Prize- and World Food Prize-winning faculty, record-setting astronauts, laurelled humanists, researchers, and leaders of industry. Its thirteen colleges and schools span the sciences, liberal arts, management, and veterinary medicine, boasting more than 450,000 living alumni. Ever True: The First 150 Years of Purdue University by John Norberg captures the essence of this great university. In this volume, Norberg takes readers beyond the iconic redbrick walls of Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus to delve into the stories of the faculty, alumni, and leaders who make up this remarkable institution’s distinguished history. Written to commemorate Purdue University’s sesquicentennial celebrations, Ever True picks up where prior histories leave off, bringing the intricacies of historic tales to the forefront, updating the Purdue story to the present, and looking to the future.

Purdue at 150: A Visual History of Indiana’s Land-Grant University by David M. Hovde, Adriana Harmeyer, Neal Harmeyer, and Sammie L. Morris tells Purdue’s story through rare images, artifacts, and words. Authors culled decades of student papers, from scrapbooks, yearbooks, letters, and newspapers to historical photographs and memorabilia preserved in the Purdue University Libraries Virginia Kelly Karnes Archives and Special Collections. Many of the images and artifacts included have never been published, presenting a unique history of Purdue University from the student perspective.Purdue at 150 is organized by decade, presenting a scrapbook-like experience of viewing over 400 rare photographs, documents, and artifacts alongside critical contextual information. Each chapter provides a decadal historical sketch of Purdue University, offering insight into the institution’s unique culture while incorporating campus responses to major national events such as world wars and the Great Depression. Spotlight sections highlight Purdue firsts, including the first graduates of programs, the growth and development of the international student population at Purdue, the creation of significant student organizations, and the foundations of both old and new campus traditions.This curated journey through the personal experiences,spaces, and events of Purdue’s history not only celebrates major accomplishments and acknowledges the contributions Purdue has made to society, but it also explores some of the challenges and tragedies that shaped Indiana’s land-grant university. As a result, Purdueat 150 connects the identity and character of the University of 1869 to the University of 2019 and beyond, as told through the stories of its students. Running throughout this journey is the enduring vision of the land-grant institution and its impact on society, as seen through the material culture of Boiler makers from around the world.

John Calvin Allen, professionally known as J. C., worked as aphotographer for Purdue University from 1909-1952, and operated his own photography business until his death in 1996. The J. C. Allen photographs represent a historical account of the transition from pioneer practices to scientific methodologies in agriculture and rural communities. During this major transitional period for agriculture, tractors replaced horses, hybrid corn supplanted open-pollinated corn, and soybeans changed from a novelty crop to regular rotation on most farms. During this time, pure bred animals with better genetic pedigrees replaced run-of-the-mill livestock, and systematic disease prevention in cattle, swine, and poultry took place.Allen'sphotographs also document clothing styles, home furnishings, and the items people thought important as they went about their daily lives. Looking closely at tractors, livestock, wagons, planters, sprayers, harvesting equipment, and crops gives one a sense of the changing and fast-paced world of agriculture at that time. This volume contains over 900 picturesque images, most never-before-seen, of men, women, and children working on the farm, which remain powerful reminders of life in rural America at theturn of the twentieth century. As old farmhouses and barns fall victim to age, Allen photographs are all that remain. While those people and times no longer exist today, they do remain ""alive"" because of the preservation of that history on film. A camera in his hands and an eye for photography allowed Allen to create indelible visual histories that continue to tell the story of agriculture and rural life from long ago.

This biography details Hovde's life and times from his birth at Erie, Pennsylvania, through his boyhood at Devils Lake, North Dakota, and includes his student days at the University of Minnesota and in England and Europe as a Rhodes scholar. In addition, it outlines his career from the time he returned to the United States from England in 1932, as well as when he went back again in 1941 as the United States secretary for American-British scientific research and development exchange efforts. Principally, it covers his twenty-five years as president of Purdue University, his impact on higher education generally, and his retirement in 1971. The book depicts Hovde the president and Hovde the man. It focuses on the growth of Purdue University from the post-World War II years through the tumultuous times of the late 1960s and Hovde's own comments on those periods.

Richard Dale Owen was born in 1810 in Scotland to a wealthy textile manufacturer and philanthropist. The youngest of eight children, Richard grew up at the family estate of Braxfield House, where he received his early education from private tutors. He would later go on to study chemistry, physics, and natural sciences, among other subjects, traveling between Scotland and Switzerland for his schooling.Owen arrived in the United States in 1828 to teach in New Haven, Indiana, where his father was running an experimental utopian community of happiness, enlightenment, and prosperity. He would later go on to be Indiana's second state geologist before enlisting in the army during both the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War. Colonel Owen took command of 4,000 Confederate prisoners at Camp Morton in Indianapolis, where he established new daily routines and rules for supervision of the prisoners. Under Owen's command, prisoners were allowed to read books and form glee clubs, theatrical groups, and sports teams. He also created a camp bakery staffed by prisoners that proved to be a substantial cost savings, allowing for above-average rations for the prisoners under his watch.After his military service came to an end, Owen continued to serve as a state geologist as well as becoming a professor at Indiana University, teaching chemistry, language, and natural philosophy. After failing to help secure IU as Indiana's land-grant school, Owen was recruited to help establish Purdue University, west of Lafayette. The board of trustees selected him to serve as the University's first president on August 13, 1872. However, Owen and the trustees disagreed on many early initiatives, including his focus on agriculture and push for more comfortable living arrangements for students.After less than two years serving as president, where he never drew a salary, Owen resigned his position and returned to teaching at Indiana University, until hearing problems caused him to retire in 1879. He spent his remaining years in New Harmony, where he conducted research and published several scientific papers until his tragic death caused by an accidental poisoning at the hand of a local pharmacist.

More than 20,000 engineering students at Purdue University have been touched in some way by the ides or the warm personality of Andrey A. Potter, who served for 33 years as dean of the Schools of Engineering at Purdue, the world's largest engineering institution. Awarded the honorary title of ""Dean of the Deans of Engineering Universities"" in 1949 by his alma mater, MIT, Potter has been a teacher for 48 years and a dean for 40. Among his thousands of colleagues at Kansas State, Purdue, and the professional societies he has headed, he is known with respect and affection simply as ""the Dean."" This book, illustrated with photographs, traces his life from his boyhood in Russia and his journey at age 15 to America where, he contends, his life really began. We see him as a student cutting lab classes to attend an afternoon concert of the Boston Symphony, as a young man growing a van Dyke beard to make himself look older for his first job as an engineer with General Electric, and as a new assistant professor at Kansas State, courting his schoolteacher-sweetheart in a horse and buggy. His contributions to the engineering profession are many. He was president of the leading professional societies, prepared an exhaustive state-of-the-art study of engineering, and enhanced the public service aspects of his field by participating in government advisory boards. Greatly admired for his work with the National Patent Planning Commission, where he protected the right of the inventor to the fruits of his ingenuity, he is also respected for his publications in his own area of research, power generation and super-critical steam. A selected bibliography lists his writings. At Kansas State and Purdue, he organized curricula to emphasize study that could be used by engineers to solve problems in agriculture and industry; this brought farmers and businessmen closer to the campus and more aware of the university's service to their state. He found deepest pleasure, however, not in these accomplishments, but in the personal contacts he established with students and colleagues. In his own words, ""the secret of success is to love one's fellow men.

A study of the 50-year career of Edward Charles Elliott is a study of the development of American education. Elliott had experience as a high school and college teacher, school system superintendent, state college system chancellor, and president of a Big Ten university, all during a period of change in American attitudes toward public schooling and rapid growth in education institutions. As president of Purdue University from 1922 to 1945, Elliott steered the school through years of expansion in size, prestige, and service. Student enrollment, staff, course offerings, buildings, and campus acreage more than doubled; the total value of the physical plant increased more than five-fold, and the schools of pharmacy, home economics, and graduate study were opened under Elliott's leadership. This book shows not only how Elliott helped make Purdue University what it is today, but documents educational trends from 1900 to 1950 and includes a lengthy bibliography of Elliott's writings to assist the student of higher education.

He was twice the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction: in 1919 for The Magnificent Ambersons and in 1922 for Alice Adams. His play Clarence launched Alfred Lunt on his distinguished career and provided Helen Hayes with an early successful role. His Penrod books continued the American boy-story tradition which started with the works of Mark Twain. Early in this century, through his novel The Turmoil, he warned of sacrificing the environment to industrial growth. Yet, since his death in 1946, Booth Tarkington–this writer from the Midwest who accomplished so much–has faded from the memory of the reading public, and many of his works are out of print.But his memory is fresh and vivid in the mind of his grandniece Susanah Mayberry, and her recollections of him leap from the pages of her book. She recalls that as a small child, before she was aware of her uncle’s fame as a writer, he emerged as the one figure whose outline was clear among the blur of forms that made up her large family.“No one who met Booth Tarkington ever forgot him,” says his great-niece. So, she introduces the reader to this multifaceted individual: the young man-about-town, the prankster, the writer of humorous letters (who drew caricatures in the margins), the bereaved father, the inspiration of the affection of three women (simultaneously), and the lover and collector of art objects and portraits.The author of this volume draws primarily upon her own personal experiences, family lore, and letters (some never published before) to portray her amiable uncle. She tells of the pleasure it gave him to entertain his young nephews and nieces at his Tudor-style winter home in Indianapolis – where they played a spirited form of charades. She recalls vacations which she, as a college student, spent at his light-filled summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine – where she met his famous neighbors. During all of those times, Uncle Booth was the keen observer of youth, who created Penrod and friends from his observations, and the teacher o f youth, who transmitted his own love of art to his young relations. While recapturing memories of the unforgettable Tarkington, Mayberry recreates an era of elegant and leisurely living, when on the dining table “in the fingerbowls . . . were nosegays of sweet peas and lemon verbena or geranium leaves.”Susanah Mayberry shares with the reader a treasure of family photographs including Tarkington at various ages; interiors and exteriors of his homes; her father and uncles as children (the models of Penrod); the writer’s indomitable sister who championed his early work; and his devoted second wife, a “gentle dragon,” who kept his day-to-day life running smoothly.Indiana residents will feel “at home” with the frequent references to the state and its people. Indianapolis of the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries influenced Tarkington and his work. The city was his birthplace and his death place. He spent a year at Purdue University where he met such “brilliancies” as George Ade and John McCutcheon. Other famous and not-so-famous Hoosiers became a part of Tarkington’s life, and they—along with international literary, theatrical, and political luminaries—reappear in Susanah Mayberry’s recollections of her amiable uncle.

Some of them were grown men going to college on the new G.I. Bill, and some were boys -- eighteen years old, straight out of high school. There were also young women coming to campus, rich in the traditions of their mothers and grandmothers. These women didn't know it, but the seeds of the modern women's movement had been planted during the war and in their generation. There were African-Americans who came to campus and found segregation and racial stereotypes, even after some of them had fought a war for freedom. This mixture of students blended together on the college campuses of America in the late 1940s and exploded into the world in 1950. Journalist John Norberg's illuminating oral history allows members of Purdue University's Class of 1950 to tell their stories in their own words. ""(This is) a narrative that will hold special interest for those with Purdue or West Lafayette ties, but its scope is broad enough to interest a wider population"".

Pledge and Promise documents the important historical significance of fraternity, sorority, and cooperative life at Purdue University. Featuring more than 250 photos, this pictorial volume tells the fascinating stories of how Greek and cooperative organizations have evolved, while honoring their core values since 1875. Pledge and Promise also highlights a sampling of the people who have contributed and benefited from their associations with these student groups. Featuring heartfelt, inspiring, humorous, and even disheartening accounts, this narrative reveals successes and setbacks.Greek and cooperative organizations have always offered valuable, life-affirming opportunities and powerful traditions that foster personal growth and lasting career skills. With this attractive, richly illustrated book, Boilermakers who once called a fraternity, sorority, or cooperative "home" will be reminded of the spirit of fun and the enduring bonds nurtured throughout their formative years at Purdue University.

WBAA: 100 Years as the Voice of Purdue documents the fascinating history of WBAA, Indiana's first radio station founded at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, on April 4, 1922. Richly illustrated with more than 150 photos, the book chronicles the station's evolution over the years, while highlighting the staff, students, and volunteers significant to WBAA's success. WBAA began as a lab experiment conducted by Purdue electrical engineering students in 1910. Later, the station became a vital method for Purdue's Cooperative Extension Service to broadcast the knowledge of the university, particularly agricultural news, to the people of the state. From the 1960s to 1980s, WBAA aired Purdue basketball and football games, with station manager John DeCamp as the "Voice of the Boilermakers." In 1971, WBAA became a member station of National Public Radio (NPR), offering popular programming such as All Things Considered and Morning Edition. Listeners tuned into WBAA to hear classical, jazz, and international music, along with in-depth news reporting. Mayors and Purdue presidents aired weekly programs. WBAA gave a voice to arts and community organizations.Read about the invention of the first all-electronic television by pioneering Purdue scientist Roscoe George; WBAA's long-running School of the Air educational program deemed the "invisible textbook"; and the Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction (MPATI), an airplane that transmitted videos to schools while flying over six Midwestern states in the 1960s. Famous WBAA alumni include NBC sportscaster Chris Schenkel, comedian Durward Kirby, Today Show newscaster Lew Wood, Indiana State Representative Sheila Klinker, actress Karen Black, and actor George Peppard, among others.From the vacuum tube era to the digital age, this thoroughly researched book brings to light the intriguing backstories of the esteemed one hundred-year history of WBAA.

The Rocket Lab: Maurice Zucrow, Purdue University, and America's Race to Space focuses on the golden era of space exploration between 1946 and 1966, specifically the life and times of Purdue University's Dr. Maurice J. Zucrow, a pioneering teacher and researcher in aerospace engineering. Zucrow taught America's first university course in jet and rocket propulsion, wrote the field's first textbook, and established the country's first educational Rocket Lab. He was part of a small circle of innovators who transformed Purdue into the country's largest engineering university, which became a cradle of astronauts. Taking a chronological and thematic approach, The Rocket Lab weaves between the local and national, drawing in rival universities, especially Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Caltech. Also covered is Zucrow's role in the national project system of research and development through World War II and the Cold War. At Aerojet, he was one of the country's original project engineers, dedicated to scientific-technical expertise and the stepwise approach. He made vanguard power plant contributions to the Northrop Flying Wing, as well as the Corporal, Nike, and Atlas missiles, among others. Zucrow's work in propulsion helped to improve the country's arsenal of ballistic missiles and space launchers, and as a teacher, he educated the first generation of aerospace engineers. This book elevates Zucrow and the central role he played in getting the United States to space.

The Rocket Lab: Maurice Zucrow, Purdue University, and America's Race to Space focuses on the golden era of space exploration between 1946 and 1966, specifically the life and times of Purdue University's Dr. Maurice J. Zucrow, a pioneering teacher and researcher in aerospace engineering. Zucrow taught America's first university course in jet and rocket propulsion, wrote the field's first textbook, and established the country's first educational Rocket Lab. He was part of a small circle of innovators who transformed Purdue into the country's largest engineering university, which became a cradle of astronauts. Taking a chronological and thematic approach, The Rocket Lab weaves between the local and national, drawing in rival universities, especially Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Caltech. Also covered is Zucrow's role in the national project system of research and development through World War II and the Cold War. At Aerojet, he was one of the country's original project engineers, dedicated to scientific-technical expertise and the stepwise approach. He made vanguard power plant contributions to the Northrop Flying Wing, as well as the Corporal, Nike, and Atlas missiles, among others. Zucrow's work in propulsion helped to improve the country's arsenal of ballistic missiles and space launchers, and as a teacher, he educated the first generation of aerospace engineers. This book elevates Zucrow and the central role he played in getting the United States to space.

The Great Depression of the 1930s nearly brought the agricultural community to a standstill. As markets went into an economic freefall, farmers who had suffered through a post–World War I economic depression in the 1920s would now struggle to produce crops, livestock, and other commodities that could return more than the cost to produce them. In Indiana, the county agents of the Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service saw this desperation firsthand. As they looked into the worried faces of the people they were asked to assist, the trust they had worked to build in their communities during the previous two decades would be put to the test. Throughout the painful years of the Great Depression, the county agents would stand side by side with Hoosier farmers, relying on science-based advice and proven strategies to help them produce more bushels per acre, more pigs per litter, more gallons of milk per cow, and more eggs per chicken. Then, as the decade drew to a close, the start of World War II in Europe soon placed farmers on the frontlines at home, producing the agricultural commodities needed in the United States and in war-torn locations abroad. The federal government quickly called on county agents to push farmers to meet historic production quotas—not an easy task with farm machinery, tires, and fuel rationed, and a severe labor shortage resulting from farm workers being drafted for military service or opting for higher-paying jobs in factories. Using the observations and reports of county agents, Planting the Seeds of Hope offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to live through these historic events in rural Indiana. The agents' own words and numerous accompanying photographs provide a one-of-a-kind perspective that brings their stories and those of the agricultural community they served to life at a pivotal time in American history.