This page lists diversity related resources from the Wylie House Museum. If you have any questions about the resources listed on this page, or any suggestions for this page, please email libdiv@Indiana.edu.
Resources from the Wylie House Museum
Exhibitions:
Call and Response: Creative Interpretations of Wylie House:The Call and Response: Creative Interpretations of Wylie House exhibition is an artistic extension of the Wylie House Museum’s commitment to share the lesser-known histories of people associated with the 1835 Indiana home. Sponsored by the Arts & Humanities Council at Indiana University, Call and Response is part of Indiana Remixed, the Council's program celebrating the arts and ideas that shape Indiana today. In pursuit of narratives that tell all of our stories, the Wylie House is continuing its interpretive journey through the transformative power of contemporary art. Eight professional Indiana artists created new pieces for this exhibition, which opened on March 5, 2020. Thanks to Indiana University's Advanced Visualization Lab, there is now a virtual tour of this exhibition. Enjoy!
Elizabeth Brekenridge, 1843-1910: What was life like for Elizabeth “Lizzie” Breckenridge (1843-1910), an African-American woman who spent most of her life living with and working as a domestic servant for the Theophilus Wylie family? Pulling from a variety of primary sources, this exhibit pieces together her life experience in the second half of the 19th century in Bloomington, Indiana.
Elizabeth Bishop Letters, 1925-1950: One of the Wylie House’s more notable and surprising archival collections consists of letters to Louise Bradley, great-granddaughter of Theophilus A. Wylie, from Elizabeth Bishop, Pulitzer Prize winner and one-time Poet Laureate. These letters, which span 25 years, paint a unique picture of Bishop’s development from precocious adolescent to accomplished writer and preserve a friendship that played an important role in both women’s lives.
Louise Bradley, 1908-1979: If anyone recognizes Louise Bradley’s name today, it is probably due not to her own talent as a writer, but to her connection with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Elizabeth Bishop. This great-granddaughter of Theophilus and Rebecca Wylie had a creative life of her own, however, and the diary she kept in the early 1930s sheds light on her writing, her time in college and after graduation, and her career as a research worker during the Great Depression and World War II.
Three Wylie Women: A Generation of Late Nineteenth-Century Mothers: The Wylie Women reflect contradictions between the maternal ideal, represented in women’s advice literature, and the complex realities of Midwestern, middle-class childrearing in the late nineteenth-century. This generational study of Elizabeth Louisa Wylie Boisen, Margaret Wylie Mellette, and Sarah Seabrook Mitchell Wylie examines the effect of social and economic factors on mothering experiences, revealing a shared struggle to uphold the expectations of nineteenth-century women.