Author: Emma Lou Thornbrough

*Emma Lou Thornbrough was a professor of history at Butler University and historian of the African American in Indiana. Photo courtesy Butler University.*

Because of our love for history, we start the author category with someone a little different. Not an author who penned fiction or poetry but rather one who wrote about history. Emma Lou Thornbrough (24 Jan 1913 –19 Dec 1994) was born in Indianapolis, the first child of inventor Harry C. Thornbrough and Bess Tyler (both buried in Crown Hill). Emma attended Shortridge High School and then Butler University.

She began a career teaching history at Indianapolis’s George Washington High School, but in 1946, she decided to further her education by attending the University of Michigan, where she would earn her Ph.D. in history.

Her sister, Gayle, who is buried beside her, was an editor and director of the Indiana Historical Society. The Society recognizes the best article published in their magazine each year with the annual “Thornbrough Award” as a tribute to them both. They are buried in Section 98, Lot 79; GPS (39.8154199, -86.1693670).

With her doctorate, she began her professorial career at Butler University. During her tenure at Butler, she was appointed the McGregor Chair in History in 1981, and awarded an honorary doctorate in 1988. She also received prestigious awards including the 1965 Outstanding Professor Award, given to “faculty members who excelled in all areas of their professional responsibilities,” and the Butler Medal, which recognizes Butler University Alumni who have provided “a lifetime of distinguished service to either Butler or their local community while at the same time achieving a distinguished career in their chosen profession and attaining a regional or national reputation.” She also held visiting professor appointments at Indiana University and Case-Western Reserve University during her career.

Thornbrough was a pioneer in her profession, both as an established female academic in history during the mid-20th century and as a scholar of African-American history. Her dissertation entitled “Negro Slavery in the North: Its Legal and Constitutional Aspects” led to the still respected and used The Negro in Indiana before 1900. She wrote biographies on prominent African Americans like New Yorker Timothy Thomas Fortune and educator and author Booker T. Washington. She received a commission from the Indiana Historical Society to write Indiana in the Civil War Era 1850-1880. As a follow-up to her groundbreaking The Negro in Indiana before 1900, she wrote Indiana Blacks in the 20th Century, published posthumously in 2000.

She tried her hand at politics, running as a Democratic candidate for the General Assembly in 1952, but after losing that, she continued to be active in civic affairs through being on the executive boards of both the Indiana Civil Liberties Union and the Indianapolis NAACP.