Search

After several years of efforts on the part of its founders, the Indiana Chapter of the Special Libraries Association was created in 1941 to address the needs of special libraries in the state, recruit new professionals to the field, establish standards and provide a venue for professional discussion and cooperation, and host programs and annual meetings for library professionals. This collection houses the records of the organization from its earliest beginnings in 1936, through its founding and operation into the late 1990s.

Harry Allen Davis, Jr., Indiana artist and Herron School of Art professor, was born in Hillsboro, Indiana in 1914 and moved to Brownsburg, Indiana in 1920. In 1938, he graduated from the John Herron Art Institute and won the Prix de Rome in Painting. After studying at the American Academy in Rome and briefly teaching at Beloit College, he joined the Army in 1942 and was a combat artist in Europe in World War II. When the war was over, Davis took a position teaching drawing and painting at the Herron School of Art. There, he met Lois Irene Peterson from LaPorte, Indiana and the two married in 1947. They had two children together. Harry Davis was a professor at the Herron School of Art until his retirement in 1983. As an artist, he was known for his series of paintings featuring older American and more specifically, Hoosier, buildings and structures. Harry Davis died in 2006. The Harry and Lois Davis Papers consist mainly of Harry Davis's correspondence and exhibition files, as well as scrapbooks and news clippings about Harry and Lois Davis and about Herron faculty and alumni. Also included are a journal and travel documents from his time at the American Academy and a memoir from the war.

World War I and World War II necessitated the expansion not only of the combat forces of the U.S. military but also of its medical services. To help meet this need, medical schools and the American Red Cross sponsored the creation of hospital units. The Indianapolis medical community followed this trend during both wars. In 1917, the Indianapolis Chapter of the American Red Cross established the unit eventually designated Base Hospital 32. Almost all of the doctors, nurses, and enlisted men originally assigned to the unit came from Indianapolis or central Indiana. In 1942, the Indiana University Medical Center set up the 32nd General Hospital. Named in honor of its World War I predecessor, this unit drew most of its original medical and nursing staffs from the IU Medical Center. Both units served in Europe. The records consist of photocopies of unit files of the 32nd General Hospital; unit histories, scrapbooks, and personal reminiscences compiled after the wars; records relating to reunions held by members of the 32nd General Hospital, photographs, an 8mm film of the 32nd General Hospital and two videotape copies of the film.