Indiana Historical Society - Manuscripts & Archives
User information
Biographical sketch
Scope and Content note
Box and folder listing
Cataloguing information
Processed by
Charles Latham
16 April 1992
VOLUME OF COLLECTION: 18 manuscript boxes
COLLECTION DATES: 1933-1977
PROVENANCE: Richard W. Guthrie, Indianapolis IN, and Ruth M. Patterson, Cleveland, OH, 16 June 1978
RESTRICTIONS: None
COPYRIGHT: Held by Indiana Historical Society, except for articles in Indianapolis News
ALTERNATE FORMATS: None
ACCESSION NUMBER: 78.0610
Robert Wayne Guthrie (1896-1977), Hoosier newspaperman, was born in Nashville, Indiana, and graduated from Columbus High School in 1915. He entered Indiana University, but his studies were interrupted by World War I, during which he served as a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery. After the war he attended the University of Chicago, but returned to Indiana University to receive a law degree in 1920.
In 1921 Guthrie joined the staff of the Indianapolis News. What was intended as a stopgap job for a budding lawyer turned into a fifty-six-year career as a newspaper man. Guthrie's first big story was his eyewitness account of an interurban train wreck at Alfonte, Indiana, in February 1924. He became assistant city editor of the News in 1926 and city editor in 1933. After fourteen years in the latter job, he began writing the column "Ringside in Hoosierland," which continued until a few months before his death thirty years later.
Guthrie's column dealt with Indiana and its folklore and history: how places got their names, how long people had been doing their jobs, how to make things like vinegar pie. There was a good deal of reader response; sometimes this produced material for future columns; sometimes it turned into a campaign. Two successful campaigns resulted in naming a state park after Col. Richard Lieber and changing the name of the Indianapolis baseball park from Victory Field to Bush Stadium. An unsuccessful campaign in the 1950s tried to rename 38th Street in Indianapolis after General Douglas MacArthur.
Guthrie was a very active Mason (Scottish Rite), and edited the lodge magazine.
Guthrie became a popular public speaker. In 1946, after witnessing the nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, he gave a speech called "Ringside at Bikini," which he was called on to repeat 854 times. His speech on "Americanism" was given 250 times.
Guthrie was active in Kiwanis International, serving as international chairman in four different years between 1952 and 1962. He was a longtime member of the American Legion, and was president of the Indianapolis Press Club in 1966. He was twice named a Sagamore of the Wabash, and in 1973 was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.
Sources: Indiana Biographical Series, Vol. 81 pp. 60-61; Vol. 87 pp. 17, 18
Indiana University Alumni Magazine, Vol. 40 no. 4, December 1977
This collection, filling seventeen manuscript boxes and three small photographic boxes, contains notes, correspondence, photographs, and clippings, spanning the period 1933-1977. It is arranged alphabetically and chronologically.
Boxes 1-3 contain Guthrie's notes for his column "Ringside in Hoosierland," along with some correspondence. This is a working file, arranged largely as Guthrie had it; material for a given subject might include notes, a clipping or so, a letter from a reader, and a snapshot.
These notes are arranged in two series. First, there is a series by county, filling Box 1 and half of Box 2; second, a file by subject, in Boxes 2 and 3; each series is arranged alphabetically (see box and folder listing). Guthrie was greatly interested in the origin of place names, and notes on this subject fill Folders 2-6 of Box 3.
The remainder of the collection is a file of Guthrie's columns during its thirty years. In Box 4 are articles about towns and place names, arranged alphabetically. There are also two folders of collected verse.
Box 5 begins with a scrapbook of congratulatory letters received by Guthrie at the inception of his column in 1947. The next twelve boxes contain the column as it appeared year by year. As noted in the biographical sketch, the column was a homey mixture of history, reminiscence, and give-and-take with readers about various aspects of Hoosier history and folklore.
The collection ends with three and a half boxes of photographs. Perhaps the most notable are twenty-eight shots of the celebration of V-J Day in Indianapolis in 1945 (Box 17 Folder 11) and a number of pictures of newspaper carriers, including several early ones with descriptions on the back telling how hard the work was (Box 17 Folder 10).
In Box 21 are ten folders of correspondence. Perhaps the most interesting is in Folders 2-3, concerning Guthrie's work as city editor; this is amplified by some teletype releases which deal largely with censorship during World War II. There are also articles by Guthrie and others; booklets; documents; and clippings.
BOX 1: Articles on Counties
FOLDER
1-33 Bartholomew County - Monroe County
BOX 2: Articles on Counties; Notes by subject A to L
FOLDER
1-25 Montgomery County - Whitley County
26 George Ade prayer
27 ASCAP
28 "Babes in the Woods" score
29 Bald Headed Glee Club
30 Circus street parade
31 Claypool Hotel
32 Schuyler Colfax
33 Covered bridges
34 Dr. Hiel Crum, naturopathic physician
35 English Hotel, Michigan at Meridian Streets--demolition
36 Hypnotism
37 Indianapolis News
38 News 75th anniversary program
39 Interurban-- T. H. I & E.
40 "A Knight of the Golden Circle"
41 Henry C. Lawrence
42 Legal
43 Lincoln in Indianapolis
44 Lindbergh
45 Lockefield Gardens
BOX 3: Subject file M to Z
FOLDER
1 Maple sugar
2 Abe Martin Lodge
3 Masonic orders
4 Memorial Day
5 Peoples Bank and Trust Company
6 Group photo, 1899
7 Peace symbol
8 Place names I
9 Place names II
10 Place names III
11 Place names IV
12 Place names V
13 Place names-- articles
14 "Red Sails" (horse)
15 Sachems
16 Margaret Schindler
17 Senators and governors
18 D. C. Stephenson
19 Tanneries
20 Wabash, Ind.
21 Wabash College
22 Victoria Evans Wagner-- articles
23 E. P. Whallon
24 Whitewater Canal
25 Earl Williams
26 Wood carving
BOX 4: Articles on towns; Verse
FOLDER
1-16 Towns
17-18 Verse
BOX 5: "Ringside in Hoosierland" Aug. 1947-June 1949
BOX 6: "Ringside in Hoosierland" July 1949-Dec. 1951
BOX 7: "Ringside in Hoosierland" Jan. 1952-Dec. 1953
BOX 8: "Ringside in Hoosierland" Jan. 1954-Dec. 1956
BOX 9: "Ringside in Hoosierland" Jan. 1957-June 1959
BOX 10: "Ringside in Hoosierland" July 1959-Dec. 1961
BOX 11: "Ringside in Hoosierland" Jan. 1962-June 1964
BOX 12: "Ringside in Hoosierland" July 1964-Dec. 1966
BOX 13: "Ringside in Hoosierland" Jan. 1967-June 1969
BOX 14: "Ringside in Hoosierland" July 1969-Dec. 1971
BOX 15: "Ringside in Hoosierland" Jan. 1972-Dec. 1973
BOX 16: "Ringside in Hoosierland" Jan. 1974-June 1976
BOX 17: Articles; photographs
FOLDER
1-4 Articles July 1976 - July 1977
5 (VC) Fountain County
6 (VC) Marion County-- Public School #3; State Capitol draped for Linclon's death
7 (VC) Noble County-- Samuel Wilson tombstone
8 (VC) Posey County-- New Harmony-- Workingmen's Institute
9 (VC) Stewart Donnelly (boxer)
10 (VC) Newspaper carriers
11 (VC) V-J Day
12 (VC) Electric trolleys
13 (VC) Fires
14 (VC) Miscellaneous
15 (VC) Emrichsville [?] Bridge
BOX 18: Photographs, 4" by 5"-- Allen County - Randolph County
BOX 19: Photographs, 4" by 5"-- Tippecanoe County - Whitley County; gravestones; portraits
BOX 20: Photographs, 5" by 7"-- Bartholomew County - Hendricks County; gravestones; unknown locations
BOX 21: Correspondence; Articles; Documents; Clippings
FOLDER
1 Correspondence-- 1920-1921
2 Correspondence as city editor
3 Teletyped news releases, 1945
4 Correspondence-- 1961-1962
5 Correspondence-- 1973
6 Correspondence-- 1974-1977
7 Correspondence-- Elizabeth Eitel Miesse
8 Correspondence-- "Sassafras Spencer"
9 Correspondence-- "Shrigley"
10 Correspondence-- general
11 Article-- Brown County
12 Article-- "Indiana"
13 Typescript of one column
14 Cartoon souvenir of 1917 Indiana General Assembly
15 Russell Webster
16 Printed booklets
17 Galley proofs
18 Documents
19 Articles by others
20 Bills, coupons, cards
21 Clippings
MAIN ENTRY: Guthrie, Wayne, 1896-1977
SUBJECT ENTRIES: Journalists--Indiana--Indianapolis
Journalism--Indiana--Indianapolis
Journalism--Social aspects--Indiana--Indianapolis
Feature writing
Folklore--Indiana
Newspapers--Sections, columns, etc.
Newspaper carriers--Pictorial works
Authors, American--Indiana--Indianapolis
Electric railroads--Indiana--Pictorial works
Names, Geographical--Indiana
World War, 1939-1945--Indiana--Indianapolis--Armistices--Pictorial works
World War, 1939-1945--Censorship
Sepulchral monuments--Indiana--Pictorial works
Indianapolis (Ind.)--History
Indiana--History
END