Middletown@100
Robert and Helen Lynd published Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture in 1929. They based their arguments in the book on historical, participant observation, and survey research conducted in Muncie, Indiana, between January, 1924 and June, 1925. Their success inaugurated a tradition of studying Muncie to assess broader patterns in American culture and society.
The Center for Middletown Studies is marking the centennial anniversary of both the original research and the publication of the Lynds groundbreaking Middletown investigation with several initiatives. Some are designed to highlight the extensive archive generated by the Lynds and their successors. Others examine some of the key questions about American society and culture originally raised by the Lynds. In all of these efforts, we aim to give the local community a role in shaping how Muncie–as Middletown–is portrayed. While nominally focused on Muncie, the Middletown@100 initiatives help us understand broad changes that have taken place across American society and particularly in the American Midwest over the past century.
The Middletown@100 Initiative includes:
- A set of ethnographic investigations of contemporary Muncie
- A pair of community-centered projects that enable local residents to offer their own visions of “Middletown”
- Publication of a book describing everyday life in Middletown
- The use of digital tools to make the extensive archive of Middletown research more accessible and usable
- A conference to mark the centennial of the publication of the Lynds book
Check back in the coming months for more details on these efforts.
Photo by Edward Strother, Ball State Digital Media Repository
Updated January, 2025