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IUB Archives

Happy Birthday, Indiana University!

“It shall be the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as circumstances will permit, to provide by law for a general system of education ascending in a regular gradation from township schools to a State University, wherein tuition shall be gratis, and equally open to all.”

Dear Indiana University,

Baynard Rush Hall, Indiana University's first professor

It’s your birthday today! Wow, 191 years. Do you think the framers of the state constitution could have ever imagined what you would become when they wrote the lines above? From humble beginnings of two buildings – one, housing for the lone professor, Baynard Rush Hall, the other, classroom and chapel space – you now have “Eight Front Doors through which children from all corners of the world have passed. You have touched them all in your own way and given them the tools to succeed in life, as any good mother would.

And on this day, your 191st, the Indiana University Archives presents you with a gift we hope will please you: this blog, through which we will reach out to those you have touched and will continue to teach them about your traditions and family. We will show them the letters, reports, photographs and records (and heck, probably a juicy diary or two) that sustain you and change you. We’ll ask for their help from time to time and we know they’ll respond, because you are Indiana University and those you touch bleed cream and crimson.

This is Blogging Hoosier History.

Happy Birthday, Indiana University!!!


4 Comments

  • Dina Kellams says:

    Hi Carole! I sent Dixie a note and let her know about your comment! Hopefully she will reach out to you!

  • Carole MacKay says:

    Dixie,
    I have recently become interested in local history and have started a blog.Just finished your excellent book about Baynard R Hall. I have some questions about his life in Bloomington. How do I contact you?

  • Dixie Kline Richardson says:

    Learn more about IU history and its founding professor,
    Baynard Rush Hall by reading his only biography BAYNARD RUSH HALL: HIS STORY, by Dixie Kline Richardson and see photographs
    pertaining to his life and work on Facebook: Dixie Kline Richardson

  • Doug Ellis says:

    Wow, I share my birthday with IU, and I was born in Bloomington. No wonder I have always been such an IU geek.

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