Booth Tarkington's Indianapolis

At the dawn of the twentieth century Indianapolis was a city in transition. Sprawling suburbs, booming industry, and increasing numbers of automobiles led to rapid changes in the city’s nineteenth-century core. Inspired by the people and places of his hometown, Pulitzer-prize-winning novelist Booth Tarkington chronicled this period of intense growth in three novels, The Turmoil (1915), The Magnificent Ambersons (1918), and The Midlander (1923), weaving together the rise and fall of great families, the excesses of nouveau-riche industrialists, the loss of local landmarks, and the effects of rapid industrialization and suburban expansion.
On May 7, architectural historian Benjamin L. Ross presents an illustrated talk at Indiana Landmarks Center using Tarkington’s work to explore Indianapolis, highlighting the real landmarks and neighborhoods the author used to show the city’s transformation from the neighborly town of Tarkington’s youth to the soot-stained industrial metropolis of the 1920s.
Tickets cost $5/general public and are free with RSVP for Indiana Landmarks members. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. with the program beginning at 6 p.m. at Indiana Landmarks Center (which is accessible to all) or online via Zoom.
Want to do more? On May 9, Indiana Landmarks hosts guided tours of Indianapolis’s historic Woodruff Place, a late nineteenth-century neighborhood that inspired Booth Tarkington’s novels.
Refund requests are approved on a case-by-case basis.

Image Credit: Pennsylvania and Washington streets in downtown Indianapolis, 1920. Bass Photo Co. Collection, Indiana Historical Society

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Indiana Landmarks Center, 1201 Central Avenue, Indianapolis, United States