Source: News-Journal, October 12, 2011

Center For History To Host Exhibit Featuring World War II Photographs of Hoosier Photographer John A. Bushemi

American GIs who participated in invasions during World War II could always depend on their efforts being documented for their fellow soldiers and folks back home by a good-natured, talented photographer from Gary, Indiana: John A. Bushemi.

Experience reproductions of the photographs in the exhibit, "One Shot": The World War II Photography of John A. Bushemi, opening October 18, at the Center for History, 124 E. Main Street, North Manchester, Indiana.

Assigned to Yank, the weekly magazine written by and for enlisted men, Bushemi specialized in "photography from a rifle's length vantage point," according to his colleague Merle Miller.

Visitors to the exhibition will be immersed in Bushemi's views through numerous magazine covers and personal photographs including those of the soldiers he was traveling with. One series of photographs show soldiers training at Ft. Bragg, what Bushemi's friend and colleague Marion Hargrove calls the "Hardening Process." Another series includes cole-up portraits of soldiers who were featured in a YANK article about the battle for New Georgia.

Another image features soldiers on the beach of Eniwetok Island in the Marshalls. The soldiers had just been landed and were awaiting the order to attack when they were photographed by Bushemi.

Bushemi died February 19, 1944, when he and other correspondents became the target for a series of Japanese knew-mortar shells during the invasion of Eniwetok. Shrapnel from the shells hit and mortally wounded the photographer. As navy surgeons frantically attempted to save Bushemi's life, the photographer gave his epitaph, telling Miller "Be sure to get those pictures back to the office." Images of both his battleship funeral service and his funeral service back home in Gary are included in the exhibit.

Since 1970, the North Manchester Historical Society has been North Manchester's storyteller, connecting people to the past by collecting, preserving, interpreting and disseminating the town's history. A nonprofit membership organization, the NMHS maintains the town's archives on the history of North Manchester and the surrounding area. The NMHS also provides support and assistance to the Center For History and provides youth, adult and family programming. Visit the NMHS at nmanchesterhistory.org or on Facebook.

Source: News-Journal, July 20, 2011

Historical Society Exhibit Examines Indiana Maps

The way maps can be viewed, both as documents and as mirrors of their times, are explored in the Indiana Historical Society exhibition, Indiana through the Mapmaker's Eye, which opens July 22, 2011, through August 18, 2011, at the Center for History 122 E. Main Street, North Manchester.

The exhibition, drawn from approximately 1,500 maps and atlases of Indiana and the Midwest dating from 1577 to the present, examines four ways people have used maps through the years, including: as documents, as tools, as political images and as art.

"Because of the way we use them, we assume maps to be complete and accurate. No map, however, can show all aspects of reality, so the mapmaker chooses the information that will best convey his message, and sometimes slants information to serve his purposes," said Leigh Darbee, of the Indiana Historical Society.

From the beginning of the mapping of the Indiana region, mapmakers were concerned with documenting the land. Maps showed the expansion of European settlement, with a simultaneous decrease in the presence of Native Americans. Also maps documented legal boundary lines in the region, state and individual counties, and showed increasingly complex road, canal and railroad networks.

Some of the maps displayed in the exhibition include: an 1833 tourist's Indiana pocket map; a 1913 Sanborn Company fire insurance map for Bloomington; Thomas Kitchin's 1747 map of French settlements in North America; an 1881 bird's eye view of Mount Vernon, Indiana; and a circa 1880 scale-model map of the University of Notre Dame.

"Although most people today are familiar with using maps as tools--for locating a specific city or country, or for figuring out a route from point A to point B, maps are also a reflection of the society or time in which they are created," noted Darbee.

Since 1970, the North Manchester Historical Society has been North Manchester's storyteller, connecting people to the past by collecting, preserving, interpreting and disseminating the town's history. A nonprofit membership organization, North Manchester Historical Society currently maintains nearly 23,000 artifacts on the history of North Manchester and surrounding area. Along with the IHS exhibition, the North Manchester Center for History will create window displays including globes, roadmaps, and turn of the century Sanborn maps of North Manchester. Regular hours for the Center for History museum are Wednesdays and Saturdays 10a.m. - 2 p.m. Special hours and events are being planned for the North Manchester FunFest, August 11-13. The North Manchester Historical Society's website can be found at nmanchesterhistory.org.