Object Details
Artist
Margaret Bourke-White
Date
1937 (negative), ca. 1965 (print)
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image: 13 3/4 × 19 3/8 inches (35 × 49.2 cm)
Mount (Matted): 22 1/16 × 27 15/16 inches (56 × 71 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of the artist, Class of 1927, and LIFE Magazine
Object
Number
65.555
Muncie, Indiana, was an entirely different American story from boomtown Wheeler, Montana. While Whee(…)
Muncie, Indiana, was an entirely different American story from boomtown Wheeler, Montana. While Wheeler was created solely due to federal work relief projects, Muncie flourished thanks to homegrown business acumen. Sociologists Helen and Robert Lynd profiled Muncie as the epitome of “Middletown U.S.A.” in the 1920s, returning in 1937. LIFE sent Bourke-White to cover the story with them. What she found was a thriving, formerly Republican town that voted Democratic for the first time in 1936, for the re-election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. (“Margaret Bourke-White: From Cornell Student to Visionary Photojournalist,” curated by Stephanie Wiles and presented at the Johnson Museum January 24 – June 7, 2015)
