Middletown, or Muncie, is one of the most studied communities in the United States. Since the initial research was begun in 1924, the community has learned to endure the probing of many investigators, and the many reports have reflected the tensions and concerns of scholars searching for clues to the American urban experience. One might well trace the course of 20th-century American studies through the Middletown experience. In a limited way, that is what this effort purports to do.
Ironically the community was chosen largely by accident, studied by a person unqualified to do so, and the results were not what the sponsoring organization had wanted. When published, however, the report titled Middletown was an immediate success; it has remained in print since first issued, and has inspired many successors.
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18. Lynds, , Middletown, p. 708Google Scholar. Later in life, Lynd claimed in a letter to a sociology professor that he had erred in choosing Muncie because he had underestimated the impact of Ball State on the community. Earlier, in Middletown in Transition, he implicitly admitted that Muncie was a one-industry town, an admission that would have invalidated another of his criteria.
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145. A local book store featured an autograph party for Caplow when the book was published. Only sixteen copies were sold. On the other hand, the news of the film series appeared almost daily in both the morning and evening newspapers.
146. For accounts of the history of the series by participants, see Hill, C. Warren Vander, “The Middletown Film Project: Reflections of an Academic Humanist,” Journal of Popular Film and Culture 10 (Summer 1982): 48–65Google Scholar; Hoover, Dwight W., “The Middletown Film Project,” Journal of Film and Video 39 (Spring 1987)Google Scholar; Hoover, Dwight W., “The Strange Case of ‘17,’” in Visual Explorations of the World: Selected Papers from the International Conference on Visual Communications, ed. Ruby, Jay and Taureg, Martin (Aachen, Germany: Edition Herodat, 1987)Google Scholar; Hoover, Dwight W., “Censorship or Bad Judgment? An Example from American Public Television,” Historical Journal of Film and Video 7 (06 1987)Google Scholar; and Hoover, Dwight W., “The ‘Second Time Around’ as compared to Middletown Families,”Google Scholar paper read at the Biennial meeting of the American Studies Association, Philadelphia, Pa., November 2, 1983.
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149. Both Davis and Grossman blamed each other. See TV Guide, 03 13, 1982, p. A–1Google Scholar; Washington Post, 03 24, 1982, pp. B1, B15Google Scholar; and Davis, Peter, Letter to Demott, Joel and Kreines, Jeff, 10 11, 1984.Google Scholar
150. The station tried unsuccessfully to interest several other commentators in being the host before Wattenberg agreed.
151. Janis, Ralph, “Middletown Revisited: Searching for the Heart of Mid-America,” Indiana Magazine of History 78 (12 1982): 349.Google Scholar
152. Winston, Brian, “Hell of a Good Sail … Sorry, No Whales,” Sight and Sound (Autumn 1983): 240.Google Scholar
153. Janis, , “Middletown Revisited,” p. 347Google Scholar. John J. O'Connor makes a similar point in his “When a Documentarian Tries to Play Sociologist,” New York Times, 04 4, 1982Google Scholar. Only a month earlier, he had been enthusiastic about the series. See his “‘Middletown’ in Video Verité,” New York Times, 03 24, 1982.Google Scholar
154. See my “Stereotypes in the Middletown Film Series.”
155. Winston, , “Hell of a Good Sail,” p. 238.Google Scholar
156. Winston, , “Hell of a Good Sail,” p. 240Google Scholar. The criticism of Winston is echoed by a number of other critics. See Covino, Michael, “Missing: The Strange Case of Seventeen,” Los Angeles Express, 04 13, 1984Google Scholar, for example. These critics, however, rely quite heavily upon the attacks on Davis by DeMott and Kreines who, after being disaffected with the withdrawal of “Seventeen,” found him to blame.
157. Winston, , “Hell of a Good Sail,” p. 238.Google Scholar
158. Gilligan, J. Herman and Harris, C. C., “Community and Community Studies: Studying Local Social Life,” in Investigating Society, ed. Burgess, R. G. (London: Longman, 1987), p. 6.Google Scholar
159. Gilligan, and Harris, , “Community and Community Studies,” p. 7.Google Scholar
160. Gilligan, and Harris, , “Community and Community Studies,” p. 8.Google Scholar
161. Gilligan, and Harris, , “Community and Community Studies,” pp. 9–10.Google Scholar