- Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive
- About the IU Audio-Visual Center (IUAVC)
-
Agency for Instructional Television/Technology (A.I.T.)
- Inside/Out
- Wordsmith
- Self-Incorporated
- It Figures
- Bread and Butterflies
- Trade-Offs
- ThinkAbout
- Teletales
- Your Choice Our Chance
- Give & Take
- Amigos
- On The Level
- Geography in U.S. History
- Math Wise
- Math Works
- All About You
- Arts Alive
- The Heart of Teaching
- Readit
- In Other Words
- Global Geography
- Drawing With Paul Ringler
- Watch Your Language
- Looking From the Inside/Out
- Applied Communication
- Just For Me
- Understanding Taxes
- Alan Lewis Collection
- Bosustow Family Film Collection
- CBS Quad Tapes
- Educating America: Inside the World of NET
- Growing Pains: Victory Gardens and Agriculture on the WWII Home Front
- Herman B Wells Home Movies
- Holland Family Home Movies
- International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) Historical Audiotapes
- The Lori Marion Home Movies
- Making Ripples and the Emergence of National Instructional Television (N.I.T.) 1969-1973
- The March of Time
- McRobbie-Gair Family Home Movies Collection
- Photochemical Film Lab List
- Promoting the U.S. Oil Industry
- The Rootie Kazootie Club
- Social Guidance Films
- The World We Want-Herald Tribune World Youth Forum
- WSJV Reports on Ryan White, 1985-1993
- OCIAA Films
- Soundies: The Music Videos before Music Videos
- Problems in Supervision: Educating a Changing World War II Workforce
- House of Dreams
- Excavating Forgotten American Folk Film: Tall Tales
Herman B Wells Home Movies: Presented by University Archives and the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive
Presented by the University Archives with the assistance of the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive.
Herman B Wells, Indiana University President from 1937-1962, is remembered for his friendly demeanor, his desire to form meaningful connections with students, and his crucial role in realizing change for the University. He loved to travel, and he often used his time abroad to recruit international faculty and students. Domestically, his fierce promotion of academic freedom attracted professors from all over the country. At the local level, with the help of like-minded students, he cracked down on discrimination during his time as President, desegregating housing and dining on campus and promoting the recruitment of nonwhite athletes; these actions had ripple effects in lessening discrimination in downtown Bloomington as well. It is due in large part to his efforts that IU became recognized as a top-tier public university.
This collection contains twenty-three home movies filmed by Wells between the late 1930s and early 1950s. The films provide a kind of insight into Wells' life that even his detailed autobiography, Being Lucky, did not. Although his written reflections upon his career at Indiana University are of course extremely valuable, the visual record he left behind should not be perceived as any less valuable. Nonwritten sources add depth of understanding to a historical narrative. Wells' films can be thought of as a different type of autobiography, one that details his personal, rather than solely his professional, interests. What he deemed worth capturing helps us better understand him as a person and gives us more information about the motives behind his professional decisions.
Wells was very interested in the people and the culture of every place he visited. Much of his footage depicts the ordinary citizenry conducting their everyday affairs. He also appears to have enjoyed the natural world immensely, as indicated by his frequent focus on the mountains, rivers, lakes, plants, and animals of the particular place he was in. There are also numerous shots of the local architecture in most of the places he chose to record; one may therefore conclude that this was of interest to him, too. And then there is his evident love for his family. His mother was often his traveling companion, and as a result, she appears in many of his films. Wells' home movies provide further evidence of his people-focused personality and cultural and scientific curiosity, and help to further explain his desire to hire more international faculty, promote study abroad programs, encourage academic freedom, and create an inclusive campus community during his time as University President. Click on any of the section headings to the right to access the digitized home movies by category.
Further readings
Capshew, James H. Herman B Wells: The Promise of the American University. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012.
Wells, Herman B. Being Lucky. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980.
Credits
Created by Jennifer A. Tucker. Many thanks to Dina Kellams, Andy Uhrich, Rachael Stoeltje, John Summerlot, Jason Baird Jackson, and Eric Sandweiss for their guidance and support!