Moment of Indiana History
podcasts Archive
January 7, 2008
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Kurt Vonnegut
With the passing of 2007, Indianapolis completes its year-long commemoration of native son Kurt Vonnegut. When the irreverent author passed away in April, the city had already unveiled plans to christen 2007 “The Year of Kurt Vonnegut.” Ironically, the author had once joked that he would be remembered in his hometown only by virtue of his familial relation to a longtime Indianapolis hardware store chain.
December 31, 2007
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Mr Jingle Bell Rock
During the holidays, radio listeners around the nation get their fill of pop tunes about Santa, reindeer and Grandma, in no particular order. Secular holiday music with a rock-and-roll beat is so ubiquitous now that it’s hard to imagine the season without it.
December 24, 2007
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Jean Shepard
Jerry Seinfeld cites him as an influence, and named his third son after him. In his seminal text, Understanding Media , Marshall McLuhan tagged his work as innovative in its use of the medium of radio. But outside the context of the now-classic holiday flick A Christmas Story , the name Jean Shepherd may go unrecognized.
December 17, 2007
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A Christmas Story
Holiday rituals around the country often include tuning in for the 1983 film A Christmas Story . Although it wasn’t a hit at the box office, the MGM feature has assumed its place alongside such holiday classics as Miracle on 34 th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life , thanks to an extended life on TV.
December 10, 2007
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Too Many Santas
Many who bemoan the commercialism of Christmas consider the phenomenon to be a recent trend. In Indiana, however, corporate wrangling for holiday dollars goes back at least to the 1930s. A southern Indiana town has inspired entrepreneurs ever since town postmaster James Martin began promoting the Santa Claus, Indiana postmark in the 1920s.
December 3, 2007
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Holiday House Tours
On the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Oldfields – Lilly House and Gardens, is decorated in the style of Christmas in the 1930s, when the mansion was the new home of Indianapolis businessman and philanthropist Josiah Lilly.
November 26, 2007
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Tommy John Surgery
From Little Leaguers to professional baseball players, there’s hope after injuring an elbow. Increasingly and at a younger age, ball players are turning to a surgical procedure first performed in 1974. What physicians refer to as ulnar collateral ligament—or UCL—reconstruction is better known as Tommy John surgery.
November 19, 2007
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Colgate-Palmolive
In early 2006, Colgate-Palmolive announced that its toothpaste plant in Clarksville, Indiana would relocate to Morristown, Tennessee by 2008. Another indication of Indiana’s shift from a manufacturing-based economy, the news came as a blow to the plant’s 500 employees, along with economic forecasters in Southern Indiana.
November 12, 2007
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Orthopedics
In the last century and a half, Indiana has made been recognized worldwide for its leadership in a variety of industries—from limestone production to automobile manufacture. Advances in medical technology and the graying of the population have conspired to place a different Hoosier-based industry at today’s corporate vanguard.
November 5, 2007
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Edna Parker
In August 2007, a resident of Shelbyville earned global recognition for the central Indiana city. Upon the death of Japan’s Yone Minegawa that month, 114-year-old Hoosier Edna Scott Parker rose from the position of the nation’s oldest person to the world’s reigning supercentenarian.
