The Indiana State Museum recently selected two artifacts celebrating Butler University to include in its new exhibition “Indiana in 200 Objects,” which marks the state’s 200th anniversary.
The first object from Butler represents Sigma Gamma Rho, a predominantly black sorority that was founded at the university in 1922. The sorority, which promotes sisterhood, scholarship and service, is the only predominantly black sorority or fraternity not founded at a historically black college.
Additionally, Butler University’s archives
loaned the museum a set of Froebel Gift Blocks that were used by Eliza Baker,
who helped found the school’s College of Education and promoted early education
for all children.
“Eliza is one of the people most Hoosiers
don’t know about but are impacted by every day,” Butler University College
of Education Dean Ena Shelley said. “Every day you take a child to kindergarten, you
can thank Eliza Blaker for that…She started the whole idea of parent education
– teaching families the importance of nutrition, the importance of talking to
your child, the importance of reading to your child. We take that for granted
now, but that was saying to parents, ‘This is what you should be doing.’ That
was leading edge at that time.”
The Indiana State Museum’s “Indiana in 200 Objects” exhibition will run through Jan. 29, 2017.
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