Shortridge High School is a public high school located in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Shortridge is the home of the International Baccalaureate and arts and humanities programs of the Indianapolis Public Schools district (IPS).[2] Originally known as Indianapolis High School, it opened in 1864 and is Indiana's oldest free public high school. New Albany High School (1853) was Indiana's first public high school, but was not initially free.
Author Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Shortridge class of 1940, said that Shortridge was:
"... my dream of an America with great public schools. I thought we should be the envy of the world with our public schools. And I went to such a public school. So I knew that such a school was possible. Shortridge High School in Indianapolis produced not only me, but the head writer on the I LOVE LUCY show (Madelyn Pugh). And, my God, we had a daily paper, we had a debating team, had a fencing team. We had a chorus, a jazz band, a serious orchestra. And all this with a Great Depression going on. And I wanted everybody to have such a school."[3]
History
19th century
Indianapolis High School (renamed Shortridge High School in 1896) opened in 1864 as the state of Indiana's first free public high school. Its original location (1864-1867) was in the former Ward 1 Elementary School at Vermont and New Jersey Streets.
The second location (1867-1872) was in Circle Hall on the northwest quadrant of Monument Circle. The third location (1872-1885) was the former Baptist Female Seminary at Michigan and Pennsylvania Streets. This building was deemed unsafe and torn down to make way for a fourth building (1885-1928) on the same site. (Classes met in area churches while the new building was under construction.) Due to population shifts in Indianapolis in the 1920s, Indianapolis Public Schools decided to build a fifth building at the northeast corner of 34th and Meridian Streets.
Construction began in 1927, and the school opened in 1928. This fifth iteration is the school's current building.[4]
Abraham C. Shortridge was recruited to become school superintendent in 1863. Shortridge was a strict educator when it came to drilling students and faculty alike. However, he was also innovative in many ways, including the hiring of female teachers and the admission of African-American students.[5]Sarah D. Allen Oren Haynes, who taught at the high school from 1869 to 1873, later became the first female state librarian of Indiana and the first female professor at Purdue University.[6] By 1878, Shortridge High School served 502 students.[5]Roda Selleck, who began teaching art at the school in the 1880s, soon won acclaim for introducing "craftwork" – leather, pottery, jewelry, and metalwork – to the curriculum,[7] and later developed a line of pottery, "Selridge Pottery", designed by students. She remained at the school until her death in 1924.[8]
In 1876, Mary Alice Rann was the first African-American student to graduate from Shortridge High School.[9] There was a push for either integration in schools or the building of a new school for African-American students. Abraham Shortridge, who had become the superintendent of IPS schools at the time, fought against the arguments from white parents, asking if they wanted to pay the taxes to build a new school just for her.[10] She was the first of a number of black students to graduate from Shortridge prior to the opening of Crispus Attucks High School.[11]
Announcement of an upcoming Senate meeting, from The Daily Echo (1903-09-25)
The Shortridge Senate was created in 1887 by Laura Donnan.[12] High school juniors and seniors would meet at 2:30 every Friday afternoon. The senate was created in order to teach students about public speaking and politics. Based on the annual Shortridge yearbook of 1918,[13] the talking points included: daylight saving time, workmen's compensation, women's suffrage, amendments to abolish jury trials, eight-hour law, the metric system, and many others.
Found in senate records located at the Indiana Historical Society. Written in 1914-1915 by the senate of Shortridge. September 18, eight female students were instated into the senate. The senate was made up of a majority of young women.[14] Senators are actually students representing each actual Senator. In the case of women's suffrage, the debates the students had involved included arguments that were happening in the real debates and spanned three days, from September 25 to October 9, 1914.[15]
Early 20th century
Shortridge High School in 1904
In a 1903 football game against Wabash College, Wabash College coach Tug Wilson substituted an African-American left tackle by the name of Samuel Gordon, and the Shortridge captain "made a scene",[16] forfeiting the game.
Shortridge students and faculty were involved in relief efforts for World War I. Faculty in charge included Flora Love, Rosa M. R. Mikels, Mary E. Sullivan, and Virginia Claybough. Their jobs were typing, filing, and clerical work. Under direction from Red Cross, both students and teachers also knitted socks, hats, and helmets. They also purchased War Bonds. The students and teachers also provided money for the war efforts and marched in parades. Laura Donnan even had a motto in her class that was, “A penny in France is worth two pennies in your pants.”[17]
Although minority students attended Shortridge from its opening, the majority of Shortridge High School students were white. This changed in 1927, when Indianapolis opened its first purposely-segregated all-black school, Crispus Attucks High School; up until then, the city had only followed school segregation by custom and not by law. Notably, the creation of Crispus Attucks was in large part due to the influence of a branch of the Ku Klux Klan led by D.C. Stephenson, on the city's school board[citation needed]. Regardless, those who lived in an area where they could attend either Crispus Attucks High School or Shortridge High School were allowed to choose which school they wanted to attend; many of these students chose to attend Shortridge.
In 1928, Shortridge High School moved from downtown Indianapolis to a new building at its current location at 34th and Meridian Street on the north side of Indianapolis.[18]
The environment in the school in the 1950s was described in the novel Going All The Way by Shortridge High alumnus Dan Wakefield (published in 1970 and adapted to film in 1997). In 1957, a Time Magazine article named Shortridge High as one of the top 38 high schools in the United States. At the same time, however, the school began to lose students to other schools, notably the newly opened North Central High School on the city's far-north side.
Civil Rights Movement
Due to the changing racial makeup of the neighborhoods that fed Shortridge, some parents on the school's Parent-Teacher Association supported redrawing the Shortridge district to find a more even racial balance. By 1964, some felt that the school had reached a crisis. A protest march that fall from the school to Indianapolis Public Schools offices was supported by 200 students.
In 1965, the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners turned Shortridge into an all-academic high school. Beginning in the 1966–67 school year, an entrance examination was required for enrollment. In the 1966–67 school year only 272 freshmen enrolled, 46% of whom were black. Though efforts were made over the next four years to increase enrollment, they were not effective. The 1966 elections saw the school board change, including the loss of Richard Lugar, a Shortridge High graduate and academic plan supporter, who ran for, and was elected as, mayor of the city of Indianapolis. By 1967, the new school board voted 5–2 to abolish the short-lived ‘Shortridge Plan’.[citation needed]
As the 1960s progressed, so-called "white flight" in the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the school led to a predominantly-black student body. During the 1950–1970 period, the racial demographics of the Shortridge district began to change rapidly. As an example, the Mapleton-Fall Creek neighborhood, a part of the Shortridge district, changed from 82% white to 20% white).[citation needed]
The United States Department of Justice filed a suit in 1968 charging de jure segregation in Indianapolis. IPS responded with a desegregation plan which addressed only one of the three underlying charges. In 1971, U.S. District Judge S. Hugh Dillin found the IPS Board of School Commissioners to be guilty of de jure segregation.[19]
Many large and small protests and causes occurred at Shortridge during the late 1960s. This was a trend seen at other local high schools, colleges, and American society in general.[citation needed] One in particular is sometimes referred to as "The Shortridge Incident."
In February 1969, Shortridge student Otto Breeding was arrested for "disorderly conduct" after a disagreement with school officials over appropriate clothing. He had been asked to not wear a T-shirt advertising a radical black organization. Students who felt this was unfair attempted to disrupt the school, pulling fire alarms, and chanting “Black Power” in the halls. The next day, an ad hoc group of students presented the assistant principal with four demands. The response to the petition did not satisfy them. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra was scheduled to present a concert the next day in the school's historic auditorium, Caleb Mills Hall. Approximately twenty students rose and left as the orchestra played "The Star-Spangled Banner". The protesters then congregated at a youth project run by the Reverend Luther Hicks. Reverend Hicks calmed the students and helped them to plan a non-violent protest. The students returned to Shortridge and gathered in front of the building and shouted various protest chants (e.g. “Say it loud! I’m black and I’m proud.”). As the protest continued, the police were called, and thirty students and adults were taken to the Marion County Jail. Most were charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. One civil rights leader, Griffin Bell, was charged with inciting a riot. Marion County Prosecutor Noble Pearcy attempted to have the minor students declared "incorrigible" in an attempt to stop school unrest. This caused mixed reactions within the community, leading some of the city's religious leaders to side with the students. While the charges wound their way through the courts, a "freedom school" was set up to help the suspended students keep up with their academic work. The case eventually reached the Indiana Supreme Court to decide jurisdiction. Eventually, all charges against the students were dismissed and three civil rights leaders were given fines, with one receiving six months at the Indiana State Prison Farm.[19]
Late 20th century
Shortridge High School was closed for several years beginning in 1981. Following a major renovation, Shortridge was then reopened in 1984 up as a junior high school for grades 7 and 8. In 1993, grade 6 was added to make Shortridge a middle school.
21st century
In 2009, a high school magnet program for grades 9 to 12 that was focused on law and public policy was added. The middle school grades were later dropped. In 2015, the law and public policy magnet program was moved to Arsenal Technical High School and the International Baccalaureate (IB) program was moved from Gambold Preparatory High School to Shortridge High School.
In 2018, the entire Indianapolis Public Schools district was reorganized so that all high school students would choose which school they would attend. Several schools were closed in order to strengthen the four remaining high schools: Shortridge, Crispus Attucks, Washington, and Arsenal Tech.
In addition to providing a typical high school curriculum, each high school now offers a concentrated program in a specific field. Shortridge retained its International Baccalaureate program and added the system's Arts and Humanities program that had been previously hosted at the former Broad Ripple High School. Out of 374 public high schools in Indiana, Shortridge ranked 130th in U.S. News & World Report's 2022 ranking.[20]
Front page of The Daily Echo from February 13, 1902.
In 1898, the school established a daily newspaper, The Shortridge Daily Echo. It was the first daily high school newspaper in the United States.[21] It continued its daily status until the 1970s, when it was converted to a weekly publication. Kurt Vonnegut and Don Mellett are two notable alumni who served as editors of the Echo.[5]
The paper won many awards over the years[example needed]. In 1981, its final year of its initial run, a much-abbreviated Echo still won the second place overall award from the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association. Michael N. Selby and Edie Cassell were the last co-editors-in-chief, and Chris Keys was the last sports editor of the Shortridge Weekly Echo when it ceased publication with the school's closure in 1981. When Shortridge was reopened as a high school in 2009, students brought back the Echo as well and has been published as either a daily or weekly.
Sports
In a state where basketball is king, Shortridge High had its moment in the sun in the 1967–68 season. The Blue Devils ran up a 17-4 record, reaching the final game of the Indiana state championship, only to lose by eight points; they finished the season at 25-5 (.833). However, over the years Shortridge High won state championships in golf (five titles, three times runners-up), wrestling (twice), track and field (twice, and runners-up twice), and cross country (twice, and runners-up twice).[22]
Late in the 1970s the Blue Devils began to emerge as baseball power in the city. The Blue Devils reached the sectional finals in 1979, despite fielding a team of mostly sophomores. Notably Eric Johnson, a sophomore transfer from southern California, set a school record in 1979 by posting 12 Runs batted in, in a single game against Arsenal Technical High School.
William Afflis – professional player (Green Bay Packers) and professional wrestler known as "Dick the Bruiser", attended but transferred before graduation[4]
Lloyd "Skip" Martin – jazz musician, played in the Shortridge band, and went on to write for Count Basie, Duke Elligton and to play with many big bands such as Glenn Miller and Charlie Barnett; class of 1934
William E. McAnulty Jr. – attorney, first African American justice on the Kentucky Supreme Court; class of 1965[28]
Don Mellett – journalist, editor, Pulitzer Prize winner (posthumous); class of 1909
Honor Moore – poet and non-fiction writer whose works include The Bishop's Daughter, memoir of relationship with her father, Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore; class of 1963[29]
William H. Riker – political scientist, Public Choice formal theorist, elected to National Academy of Sciences (1974), the American Academy of the Arts & Sciences (1975), president of the American Political Science Association (1983);. class of 1938[34]
Maurice E. Shearer – Brigadier General, Marine Corps, led Marines in World War I Battle of Belleau Wood, France; awarded Navy Cross, Army Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star, French Legion of Honor, aide to Secretary of the Navy Fleet, used USS Indianapolis as his normal flagship, US Ambassador
Sharon E. Watkins – general minister and president of Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); delivered sermon at National Prayer Service in Washington, D.C., on January 21, 2009, at invitation of President Barack Obama, class of 1972[36]
Lebbeus Woods – experimental architect and artist; class of 1959
John Morton-Finney was an American civil rights activist, lawyer, and educator who earned eleven academic degrees, including five law degrees. He spent most of his career as an educator and lawyer after serving from 1911 to 1914 in the U.S. Army as a member of the 24th Infantry Regiment, better known as the Buffalo soldiers, and with the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I. Morton-Finney taught languages at Fisk University in Tennessee and at Lincoln University in Missouri, before moving to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he taught in the Indianapolis Public Schools for forty-seven years. Morton-Finney was a member of the original faculty at Indianapolis's Crispus Attucks High School when it opened in 1927 and later became head of its foreign language department. He also taught at Shortridge High School and at other IPS schools. Morton-Finney was admitted as a member of the Bar of the Indiana Supreme Court in 1935, as a member of the Bar of the U.S. District Court in 1941, and was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972.
Madelyn Pugh, sometimes credited as Madelyn Pugh Davis, Madelyn Davis, or Madelyn Martin, was a television writer who became known in the 1950s for her work on the I Love Lucy television series.
Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) is the largest school district in Indianapolis, and the second largest school district in the state of Indiana as of 2021, behind Fort Wayne Community Schools. The district's headquarters are in the John Morton-Finney Center for Educational Services.
Crispus Attucks High School is a public high school of Indianapolis Public Schools in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S. Its namesake, Crispus Attucks, was an African American patriot killed during the Boston Massacre. The school was built northwest of downtown Indianapolis near Indiana Avenue and opened on September 12, 1927, when it was the only public high school in the city designated specifically for African Americans.
The Indianapolis Public Schools Athletic Conference was an athletic conference consisting of high schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools district. The demise of the conference came in 2018, as four of the seven remaining schools closed in a span of two years, leaving only three schools left, one of which (Howe) is a charter school, and another (Manual) under state control. Instead, those two schools joined the Greater Indianapolis Conference, leaving George Washington as an independent.
The Pioneer Conference is an IHSAA-sanctioned athletic conference formed in 2009. It is made up of ten small private, military, laboratory, and/or charter schools from Delaware, Hamilton, Johnson, Madison, Marion, and Wayne counties. All schools are Class 1A or 2A IHSAA members, aside from the much larger Indianapolis Shortridge Charter School, which is a 4A member.
Vonnegut & Bohn was an architectural firm in Indianapolis, Indiana in the United States.
Kurt Vonnegut Sr. was an American architect and architectural lecturer active in early- to mid-20th-century Indianapolis, Indiana. A member of the American Institute of Architects, he was partner in the firms of Vonnegut & Bohn, Vonnegut, Bohn & Mueller, and Vonnegut, Wright & Yeager. He designed several churches, banks, and became the in-house architect for Indiana Bell and Hooks Drug stores, practicing extensively in the Art Deco style. He was the father of chemist Bernard Vonnegut and author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Bernard Vonnegut I, WAA, FAIA, was an American lecturer and architect active in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Indiana. He was a co-founder of the locally renowned Indianapolis architectural firm of Vonnegut and Bohn, and was active in a range of residential, religious, institutional, civic, and commercial commissions. He is the namesake and grandfather of scientist Bernard Vonnegut, father of the architect Kurt Vonnegut Sr., and grandfather of author Kurt Vonnegut.
Junius Alexander Bibbs, nicknamed "Rainey", was an American infielder in baseball's Negro leagues from about 1933 to 1944.
The Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library is dedicated to championing the literary, artistic, and cultural contributions of the late writer, artist, and Indianapolis native Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. It opened in January 2011 and was located in The Emelie, a structure on the National Register of Historic Places at 340 North Senate Avenue in Indianapolis, Indiana, until January 2019. Funding for a new building at 543 Indiana Avenue was secured, and the library reopened to the public on November 9, 2019.
Ray Province Crowe was a basketball coach, educator, school administrator, and Republican politician in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was the head basketball coach of Crispus Attucks High School from 1950 to 1957, after which he served another decade as the school's athletic director. His teams won the Indiana state basketball championship in 1955 and 1956, becoming the first all-black school to win a state championship in the country, and the first Indianapolis team to win the Hoosier state title. Crowe coached numerous Indiana All-Star players, including Oscar Robertson, Hallie Bryant, and Willie Meriweather, and was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1968.
Anna Margaret Ross Alexander (1913–1995) was a philanthropist, who organized the first mental health fund drive in Marion County, Indiana. She was elected to the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners in 1966 during the desegregation and integration period. Under her administration as president in 1970, Indianapolis developed their desegregation plan. She was honored as Woman of the Year in 1970 by Theta Sigma Phi for her service in implementing integration and for being the only woman to have served on the board. She also served on the Tax Review Board and Historic Landmarks Foundation. She had a lifelong commitment to education and has had numerous awards named in her honor.
Washington Street–Monument Circle Historic District is a national historic district located at Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, covering the first two blocks of East and West Washington and Market streets, the south side of the 100 block of East Ohio Street, Monument Circle, the first block of North and South Meridian Street, the first two blocks of North Pennsylvania Street, the west side of the first two blocks of North Delaware Street, the east side of the first block of North Capitol Avenue, and the first block of North Illinois Street. In total, the district encompasses 40 contributing buildings and 2 contributing structures in the central business district of Indianapolis centered on Monument Circle. It developed between about 1852 and 1946, and includes representative examples of Italianate, Greek Revival, and Art Deco style architecture.
Nerissa Brokenburr Stickney, born Nerissa Lee Brokenburr, was an American pianist and music educator at Florida A&M University from 1935 to 1940.
Crispus Attucks Museum is a museum inside Crispus Attucks High School located in Indianapolis, Indiana. The museum is operated by the Indianapolis Public School (IPS) system and features exhibitions on local, state, national, and international African American history.
Graham E. Martin was an officer in the United States Navy and one of the Navy's "Golden Thirteen."
1 2 3 I4647 G38 1985, Laura S. Gaus, "Shortridge High School 1864–1981 In Retrospect" (1985)
↑ "Story of an interesting life". Clinton Republican. May 2, 1907. p.1 – via Ohio History Connection.; reprinted from the Sault Ste. Marie Times, April 22, 1907
1 2 Judith Vale Newton and Carol Ann Weiss (2004). Skirting the Issue: Stories of Indiana's Historical Women Artists. Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN0-87195-177-0.
↑ Charles Latham Jr. (February 1993). "Henry J. Richardson Papers: Historical Sketch". Black History News and Notes (51). Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society: 1.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
