Middletown, A study in American Culture and Identity from the 1920’s to the Modern Era

Ursulla Duruewuru

Middletown studies were mostly interactive sociological case studies of the City of Muncie in Indiana conducted by Robert Staughton Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd, husband-and-wife sociologists. The Lynds' findings were extremely detailed in Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture, published in 1929, and in Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts, published in 1937. Both of which went on to become very popular books and the basis of the Middletown studies. The named the town “Middletown” to guise the actual town that they were working on. "The city will be called Middletown. A community as small as thirty-odd thousand...[in which] the field staff was enabled to concentrate on cultural change...the interplay of a relatively constant...American stock and its changing environment" (1929: p. 8).
The word "Middletown" was meant to suggest the average or typical American small city. While there are many places in the U.S. actually named Middletown, the Lynds were mostly interested in an idealized conceptual American type, and concealed the identity of the city by referring to it by this term. Sometime after publication, however, the residents of Muncie began to guess that their town had been the sole subject of the book. They wanted to research over a long period of time, and to check up on how a town might change. They wanted a typical, small American city, and Muncie, Indiana presented itself as the perfect environment for them to conduct their research. The amazing part of the Middletown Studies is the presence it brought both into sociology and understanding social changes. It is also impressive that the study has been going on since the 1920’s. The Lynds and a group of researchers conducted an in-depth field research study of a small American urban center to discover key cultural norms and better understand social change. The first study was conducted during the prosperous 1920s, beginning in January 1924, while the second was written late in the Great Depression in the United States. The first book was primarily a look at changes in a typical, small American city between 1890 and 1925, which was a period of great economic change. The Lynds used existing documents, statistics, old newspapers, interviews, and surveys to accomplish this persistent study. The underlying goal of this study was to describe this small, urban center as a unit consisting of "interwoven trends of behavior" (p. 3). This all goes into the category of continuity. The main thing that the Middletown studies have concluded is that although the small city has gone through a lot of successes and hardships, the basic social structure and values are still the same. There were also minor changes in society such as the empowerment of women as shown by the quote: "Girls are far more aggressive today. They call boys up to try to make dates with them, as they never could have when I was a girl." When they returned in 1935 to write a second book, they saw that the social structure of Middletown was still relatively intact, even though its citizens were going through a horrendous economic depression. This study had such a huge impact that almost 50 years later in the late 1970’s people were interested in furthering this case study. In 1980, “The Center for Middletown Studies is established at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The Center aims to develop more research on Muncie as Middletown, and to study other modern American cities.”
The reason why all of this is important is because during the period of 1900’s to 1920’s, and every subsequent generation, America has been rapidly changing. A lot of people see this as a bad thing and say that there is a rapid decline in American values. This study acts as the perfect counterexample to this and as a bastion of continuity in the U.S. It shows that although the world may be changing economically and nationally, the good ol’ fashioned average American cities are still have similar social structure. In the midst of an economic boom, an economic bust, reconstruction, two world wars, racial equality movements, and feminism, the small city still held on to its social structure.
Although the studies had the most impact between 1920’s to 1940’s, they still extend to today as the studies are still being conducted and are consistently maintaining the notion that there is a strong continuity in socially accepted values. “The Middletown study was one of the first sociological analyses in the United States of social and cultural change in a modern, urban community. The Lynds’ book went on to become one of the most influential and most popular books of the twentieth century. The Middletown study is often quoted as an example of the adage, "nothing really changes." Despite being conducted in 1925, the description of American culture and attitudes has remained largely unchanged.” It’s extremely important to understand the significance of continuities in a fast-paced world of today. The studies aren’t trying to prove that over the past thousand years social structures haven’t changed, but that within the past 100 years in a small city of Muncie, Indiana there has been a strong contingency in their social structure, and that there is still hope for a pit stop in a time moving as fast as racecars.

Lynd, Robert Staughton, and Helen Merrell Lynd. Middletown, a Study in Contemporary American Culture,. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929. 8.

"Middletown Studies." Wikipedia. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middletown_studies.
"Middletown Studies." Wikipedia. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middletown_studies.

Lynd, Robert Staughton, and Helen Merrell Lynd. Middletown, a Study in Contemporary American Culture,. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929. 8.

PBS. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://www.pbs.org/fmc/segments/progseg4.htm.
"Middletown Studies Throughout the 20th Century." American RadioWorks. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/muncie/f1.html.

"Robert and Helen Lynd." - New World Encyclopedia. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Robert_and_Helen_Lynd.

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[ 1 ]. Lynd, Robert Staughton, and Helen Merrell Lynd. Middletown, a Study in Contemporary American Culture,. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929. 8.
[ 2 ]. "Middletown Studies." Wikipedia. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middletown_studies.
[ 3 ]. "Middletown Studies." Wikipedia. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middletown_studies.
[ 4 ]. Lynd, Robert Staughton, and Helen Merrell Lynd. Middletown, a Study in Contemporary American Culture,. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929. 8.
[ 5 ]. PBS. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://www.pbs.org/fmc/segments/progseg4.htm.
[ 6 ]. "Middletown Studies Throughout the 20th Century." American RadioWorks. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/muncie/f1.html.
[ 7 ]. "Robert and Helen Lynd." - New World Encyclopedia. Accessed March 6, 2015. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Robert_and_Helen_Lynd.