Ruth Lilly Special Collections and Archives accepted the records of the Athenaeum Turners in 1978. The University’s connection to the Turners through the School of Physical Education, which had previously been the Turners’ Normal College of the American Gymnastic Union, made the Turners records a good fit. The collection expanded to include several other Turner-related collections in subsequent years.
We are no longer seeking new materials for the German American Collections, although we will accept additional materials created by the following organizations represented in our collections, including:
- American Turners
- Athenaeum Damenverein
- Athenaeum Foundation
- Athenaeum Turners
- Deutsches Klub
- Fort Wayne Turners
- Freethinkers
- Independent Turnverein
- Maennerchor
- Musikverein
- Socialer Turnverein Stock Association
- South Bend Turners/Michiana Turners
- Southside Turners
- Turner publications that are not duplicates of current holdings
All non-Turner German publications were transferred to the Lilly Library on the IU Bloomington campus in 2017. This transfer reflects the development of a more restrictive collection policy regarding German-American materials.
We firmly believe that collections of primarily local and regional significance should reside in the communities in which they were created. We are happy to recommend repositories for such collections when they do not fit our collection policy.
The Indiana Historical Society retains an active interest in collecting archival material relating to German-Americans in Indiana and may be interested in collecting materials that fall outside of the scope of the IUPUI policy.