A History of Westfield, Indiana: The Promise of the Land

by Tom Rumer

Overview

Founded in 1834 by a small group of Quakers protesting human slavery in the South, Westfield and Washington Township served as an important home station on the Underground Railroad. Shortly after black emancipation, residents rallied to promote racial equality and harmonious living, helping to curtail the clout of the Ku Klux Klan. Van Camp Company, once the largest local employer, provided pork and beans for thousands of troops entrenched in World War I, and the community's strong agricultural tradition sustained the town through the Great Depression. Author and historian Tom Rumer chronicles the challenges of growth and change in this history of Westfield and Washington Township.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781625849335
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	01/21/2015
Series:	Brief History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Author, historian, and former teacher and director of a state historical society rare book and manuscripts library, Tom Rumer (B.S., M.A., M.L.S.) has written on a variety of topics, time periods and regions in American history, including emigration (on the Oregon Trail, the Quaker Migration from the South to the Midwest), environmental, labor, agricultural, genealogical, veterans" and Native American and Black history, as published in trade books, journals, magazines, newspapers and in TV.

Table of Contents

Preface 7

Introduction 9

1 The Founders Assemble in the Wilderness 13

2 Read It in the Paper 25

3 The 1840s: The Promise Up Close 35

4 The 1850s: The Promise on Display 41

5 The 1860s: The Recent War 47

6 The 1870s: It Comes With the Promise 65

7 An Informative Entry into the 1880s 75

8 The Turn into the Twentieth Century 95

9 Growing Up from the Early 1900s 103

10 The Late 1930s: The Shamrock Times 117

11 The 1940s: Close to Home 127

12 The 1950s: Looking Ahead 143

13 The 1960s and '70s: Still the Community 147

14 The 1980s: True Modernity 165

15 The 1990s: New Promise, New Scale 177

16 The New Millennium 191

17 The Spoken History Perspective 199

Afterword: The Bread Bowl 205

Bibliographical Essay 207

Index 213

About the Author 223