Staughton Lynd canceled his speaking arrangement at the fourthannual Small Cities Conferece because of family complications, anofficial said.
Lynd, the son of the Middletown Studies authors, Helen MerrellLynd and Robert S. Lynd, was scheduled as the keynote speaker onNov. 6 to give a presentation on the making of the MiddletownStudies, James Connolly, acting director of Ball State's Center forMiddletown Studies, said.
"He was going to talk about how his parents came to chooseMuncie," Connolly said. "Why they would choose a town with solittle diversity. He would also have discussed what assumptions andbiases they brought to the study and how this affected thestudy."
Lynd was scheduled to speak from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on Nov. 6 inthe Minnetrista Cultural Center. Instead, Lynd will send hisremarks, and they will be presented in some way, Connolly said.
The first Middletown Study in 1929 was created by a team ofsociologists to examine a representative American community,Connolly said.
The 1929 study was followed up by a study in 1937 to see thetypes of transition within the community, Connolly said.
"The studies were done to understand the roots of classconflict," Connolly said. "There was sharp labor agitation at thistime, conflict between businesses and workers. The MiddletownStudies allowed for an in-depth look at a single community."
The Lynds visited Muncie in the 1920s and 1930s and produced twobooks about the city based on their studies.
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