The intent of this study was to analyze the geographical and social mobility patterns of Muncie's population within the 1850-1880 period utilizing the "new urban history" methodology. The subject of urban history has assumed a prominent position in the present curricula of many colleges and universities. A major component of urban history is titled "new urban history." Historians working under this rubic have adopted a research methodology distinct from that used in the past. This is a social science methodology which emphasizes the manipulation of quantitative data. It is this methodology which has distinguished the "new urban history" and the urban historians who utilize this approach.Stephan Thernstrom was one of the first "new urban historians" to use social science methodology in the study of large masses of urban dwellers. His purpose was to examine systematically the lives of those people who had previously gone unrecorded, but who, in the past, had automatically been included in commonly held assumptions about Americans. Thernstrom's study of the unskilled laborers in Newburyport, Massachusetts from 1850-1880 (Poverty and Progress: Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century American City, 1850-1880) represented the initial effort in cataloguing the experiences of the common man in an urban setting.Thernstrom's use of social science methodology allowed him to discern the geographical and social mobility patterns of Newburyport's laborers. The results from his analysis did a great deal to dispell the myth that the "rags-to-riches" ideology of the nineteenth century was operative in American society for men regardless of their status.Since Thernstrom's study several other communities and their residents have been similarly examined in terms of geographical and social mobility patterns. The results have not always coincided with the Newburyport example. Dean Esslinger, in a study of the immigrant population of South Bend, Indiana from 1850-1880, (Immigrants and the City: Ethnicity and Mobility in a Nineteenth-Century Midwestern Community) discovered that significant upward social mobility occurred for this group. The development of South Bend as an industrial center did not block the opportunity for upward occupational and economic mobility among the city's foreign-born residents.I discovered in this dissertation that Muncie's population was very physically unstable, but that general upward social mobility was the reward for those who stayed. Less than one-half of Muncie's residents recorded on the federal census in 1850, 1860, and 1870 remained in Muncie for ten years. For the minority who did remain, however, improved status, both occupationally and economically, was the rule.One's place of birth had minimal affect on his ability to improve his job and economic status in Muncie. Muncie's foreignborn residents were able to enjoy nearly equal social mobility overtime as the native-born segment of the population. The unskilled foreign-born workers were the major exception to this pattern. They were not as successful in improving their status.Of major significance in the mobility studies of individual communities is the increased awareness which is gained of a broader, national perspective on population movement and status over time. More knowledge about the mobility patterns of America's urban dwellers leads to a more accurate determination of the nation's urban development and growth. The placement of Muncie in a broader urban context was one of the major accomplishments of this study. Direct comparisons were made between Muncie's mobility patterns and those of Newburyport, Massachusetts and South Bend, Indiana. The results show that Muncie was not unlike other communities in the same era.

This research focused on the gap in data and theory on occupational mobility between historians researching the nineteenth century and sociologists researching the twentieth century. City directory listings on Muncie, Indiana provided the source data for a re-assessment of the blocked-mobility thesis asserted by Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd in the Middletown (1928) study of Muncie. The Middletown Index of Association was developed to analyze rates and trends in intra-generational occupational mobility.The results showed that the rate of upward mobility varied on the basis of the rate of industrialization, and both phenomena declined in the period under study. Thus, while upward mobility was decreasing, as reported by the Lynds, that decrease occurred with the deceleration rather than the advent of industrialization.Out-migration significantly increased through time contributing to a decelerating rate of urbanization, but low-status laborers continued to migrate out of the labor force at a significantly greater rate than skilled and white-collar workers. The "floating prolitariat" continued as a phenomenon in Muncie into the twenties. As a city declining in regional dominance, Muncie served as a "stage" in the movement of rural populations into increasingly larger cities.The association of high status to persistence in the labor force was matched with significantly greater residential persistence by skilled and non-manual workers. Social control was found to be more plausible than affluence as an explanation of the strong individualistic faith of the Muncie working class.

Since the arrival of Robert and Helen Lynd to Muncie, Indiana, in the 1920s, Muncie has perhaps become the most studied city. The Lynds, who referred to Muncie as "Middletown," produced two studies on the city looking at sociological topics. In the 1970s, Theodore Caplow and a team of researchers reproduced the study with Middletown residents to create Middletown III. A recent, still unpublished, Middletown IV was conducted in the city again by Caplow's group in 1999.Yet in all of these years of studies and through all of the attention the studies received in various media, the human side of Muncie has been neglected. There have been no articles written about the people behind the statistics, the very citizens who make up Muncie. Nor has much elaboration been done concerning the geographic class divide that the Lynds first identified in the 1920s.For these reasons, four families were sought to be profiled in-depth concerning the same topics that were presented in the Middletown studies: work, education, family, religion, and leisure and community activities. They were also asked for their opinions on Muncie as a community. To characterize the existence or prove the nonexistence of the geographic class division in the city, two families were selected from each side of town using Indiana 32/Jackson Street as the division between north and south Muncie.Though the four families are only a very small part of the population in Muncie, together they fulfilled most of the Middletown studies' findings, including that there is indeed a division between north and south Muncie. / Department of Journalism

This study examines the lives of fifteen women from five families of Muncie, Indiana, women.. Each participating family has represented (in maternal decension), a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter. With one exception, all were born, raised, and are still living in Muncie, the "Middletown" of 1929, Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd's seminal study.The data determined what the persistent challenges were in the lives of these three generations of women, and what approaches they used to respond to them. Family relationships, attitudes toward women in the workplace, relationships between men and women, and an understanding and comparison of the attitudes of each generation are included in the study. Data were largely obtained by means of the ethnographic interview technique.Data indicated similar approaches to meeting challenges were used within a family, and approaches varied from family to family.A variety of approaches were used situationallyby all the women of all generations.The study supported prior research showing that religiosity strongly transfers from generation to generation. / Department of Educational Leadership

This study focuses on the Moore-Youse family in Muncie, Indiana, a medium size city in Delaware County, Indiana, as a microcosm of Victorian ideology and material culture using the methods of historical archaeology and social history. The following thesis examines material conditions among this middle-class, female-centered, lineal family during the Victorian period using gender theory. In this study, archaeological materials and historical documents are used to explore the priorities and choices that influenced Muncie's middle class in making material decisions during the Victorian period.The Victorian Period in America was marked by rapid social change, growing industrialization and the transformation of gender roles. These changes created an expanded middle-class in communities across America. For the middle class the home was a sanctuary and Victorian women were expected to devote themselves to the home and family. Thus began the "cult of domesticity". This thesis explores the influence of gender roles in 19th century Indiana. / Department of Anthropology