Talking History: December 19, 2024
Historic New Harmony is hosting a free social gathering for local history lovers, Talking History, at the New Harmony Working Men's Institute at 407 Tavern Street, New Harmony, Indiana, on Thursday, December 19, 2024, at 10:30 a.m. Central Time.
The idea behind Talking History is to provide opportunities for people to meet to share and discuss historical topics of interest related to the town of New Harmony. Though each informal meeting will be guided by a pre-announced theme, participants are free to go "off script" and take the conversation in different directions. Historic New Harmony staff plan to share a variety of selected objects and other materials from the HNH collections to spark discussions. These items will relate to the monthly theme.
The theme for December 2024 is Community Memories. University of Southern Indiana archivist Jennifer Greene will be there to share and discuss historical photos of New Harmony from the university archives on the screen in the WMI's Room for the Dissemination of Useful Knowledge. Could you help her identify people, buildings, events, and other things shown in the photos? Do you have any questions about your own collections that Jennifer Greene and other people in the group could help answer?
We welcome community members, visitors, and anyone else interested in New Harmony's history to this FREE event. For more information, contact Heidi Taylor-Caudill at hltaylorca@usi.edu or 812-682-6133.
Talking History Archives
In February 2024, Historic New Harmony launched a new social gathering for local history lovers to meet monthly to share and discuss historical topics of interest related to New Harmony, Indiana. This program, Talking History, uses objects and other materials to inspire conversation. Below are summaries of each month's gathering and promotional posters.
The first Talking History gathering took place at Black Lodge Coffee Roasters in New Harmony, Indiana, on Saturday, February 24, 2024. 18 people attended the event. That month's theme was Family. Objects shared included three items from Historic New Harmony's artifact collection (a child's toy sweeper from the early 20th century, a 19th-century cast iron sad iron, and a medicine bottle) and two photograph albums related to a participant's family history. Another participant played a recording of an oral history interview for the group.
The second Talking History gathering took place at the New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art in New Harmony, Indiana, on Thursday, March 21, 2024. 15 people attended the event. That month's theme was Seasons. Objects shared included one item from Historic New Harmony's artifact collection (the early 19th century board game, The Pleasures of Astronomy) and reproductions of photographs from the Don Blair Collection at University of Southern Indiana Archives. Participants also had the chance to see the gallery's exhibition, Totality, which was on view through April 20, 2024.
The third Talking History gathering took place at the Murphy Auditorium in New Harmony, Indiana, on Saturday, May 25, 2024. Six people attended the event. That month's theme was Schools. Objects shared included New Harmony High School yearbooks, a children's pageant program from the 1914 New Harmony Centennial Celebration, and a 19th-century spelling game. Historic New Harmony's collections manager, Heidi Taylor-Caudill, also demonstrated the organization's new online collections database.
The fourth Talking History gathering took place at the Atheneum Visitors Center in New Harmony, Indiana, on Saturday, June 22, 2024. 30 people attended the event. That month's theme was Getting to Know New Harmony. Besides conversation, participants screened the three orientation films that have been shown to thousands of visitors to New Harmony since the late 1970s.
The fifth Talking History gathering took place at the Schnee-Ribeyre-Elliott House in New Harmony, Indiana, on Thursday, August 15, 2024. 10 people attended the event. That month's theme was Art in New Harmony. Objects shared included two original watercolor portraits by folk artist Jacob Maentel, an original watercolor, ink, and pencil drawing of mice by naturalist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, an engraving of "New Harmony on the Wabash" by Karl Bodmer, and reproductions of photos of New Harmony art exhibitions from 1900-1991 from the University of Southern Indiana Archives and Special Collections.
The sixth Talking History gathering took place at the Schnee-Ribeyre-Elliott House in New Harmony, Indiana, on Thursday, September 19, 2024. 11 people attended the event, including three relatives of Helen Elliott who lived in the SRE House until her death in 1982 and bequeathed her home to Historic New Harmony. That month's theme was New Harmony, Then and Now. Objects shared included a road sign featuring an image of Father George Rapp, a reproduction of the New Harmony map drawn around 1825 by Eusebius Bohm, tourism brochures and advertisements from the 1960s and 1970s, and photos of New Harmony buildings from the University of Southern Indiana Archives.
The seventh Talking History gathering took place at the Schnee-Ribeyre-Elliott House in New Harmony, Indiana, on Thursday, October 24, 2024. 11 people attended the event. The theme for that month was New Harmony Ghostlore. We were excited to welcome Joni Mayhan to the program. Joni is an author, paranormal investigator, and operator of the popular Haunted New Harmony ghost walks. She recently published a new book, "New Harmony Ghost Stories."
We invite participants to bring their own stories and learn more about this fascinating aspect of New Harmony's local history. The object shared was the Schnee-Ribeyre-Elliott House, which is often talked about on the Haunted New Harmony tours and in one of Joni's books.
The eighth Talking History gathering took place in the Clowes Theater of the Atheneum Visitor Center in New Harmony, Indiana, on Thursday, November 21, 2024. 22 people attended the event. The theme for that month was Community Memories. We were pleased to welcome Jennifer Greene and Mona Meyer from University of Southern Indiana Archives and Special Collections to the program. They shared dozens of photographs from the Historic New Harmony Slide Collection on the large theater screen. These were images that held little information for researchers without context and identification of people, places, and events. Using their memories of New Harmony, participants worked together to put names to faces and recall locations, buildings, houses, and events portrayed in the photos. USI Archives and Special Collections will use this information from the New Harmony community to improve image descriptions in their digital catalog.
