Retired Indiana University professor honored for leadership in preservation
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One of Indiana’s most prolific academics in the field of folklore studies, Henry Glassie, is the 2024 recipient of the Williamson Prize awarded by Indiana Landmarks.
The not-for-profit is recognizing Glassie’s work in identifying and preserving historic buildings throughout his lifetime and specifically in Bloomington, where Glassie was the chair of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission and led the not-for-profit preservation group Bloomington Restorations.
Marsh Davis, president of Indiana Landmarks, said Glassie’s understanding of historic structures combines the practical as well as the artistic and cultural.
“More than anyone else, Henry has contributed to our knowledge of vernacular architecture and material culture, vastly broadening the scope of historic preservation,” Davis said in a release. “He understands buildings the way an anthropologist would, using clues in buildings’ forms to point to their cultural and geographic origins. Many historic buildings would have been otherwise lost if Henry had not taught us what they are and why they are important.”
In addition to his restoration and preservation efforts regarding buildings, Glassie has done much to advance folklore festivals and studies around the country, serving as president of the American Folklore Society.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton appointed Glassie to the board of the National Council on the Humanities.
“I have spent a life that has incorporated a lot of things but mostly I’ve spent my life with people of modest means in backcountry places, and my work in vernacular architecture has had some influence on historic preservation,” Glassie said in the release. “I take pride in this award being given to someone who has committed himself to that kind of work, attending primarily to forgettable buildings which are more creative to me from an artistic standpoint than big fancy buildings.”
Glassie taught folklore at Indiana University from 1970-1976. He left for the University of Pennsylvania but came back and taught at IU from 1988-2008.
Glassie will be honored as part of Indiana Landmarks annual meeting in Indianapolis on Sept. 7.