Ralph L. Holsinger World War II training notebook and letters, 1942-1945
A Guide to the Papers at the Indiana University Archives
Electronic finding aid encoded by Donald C. Force
Summary Information
Repository
Indiana University Archives
1320 East Tenth Street
Herman B Wells Library E460
Bloomington, IN 47405-7000
Phone: 812-855-1127
Email: archives@indiana.edu
http://www.libraries.iub.edu/archives
Creator
Holsinger, Ralph L.
TitleRalph L. Holsinger World War II training
notebook and letters, 1942-1945
Collection No.
C315
Extent
.6 cubic feet
Language
Materials are in English.
Abstract
Ralph L. Holsinger served as an Army
infantryman during World War II. After his war service, Holsinger was a journalist for
several years before coming to Indiana University in 1965, where he was a professor in
the School of Journalism until his retirement in 1989. Collection consists of
Holsinger's training notebook from the Army radio repair school he attended during World
War II as well as letters sent to his parents during his war service. Included in the
training notebook are journal-like entries and stories Holsinger wrote throughout his
travels. The bulk of the letters are those to his parents but there are also letters
sent to his friend Joe Augustine which were given to Holsinger's hometown newspaper, the
Covington, OH Stillwater Valley News, for publication. These were clipped and placed in
a scrapbook.
Access Restrictions
This collection is open for research.
Advance notice is required.
Biographical Note
Ralph L. Holsinger was born in 1918 in Covington, Ohio. Shortly after graduating from
Ohio Wesleyan University where he majored in economics and political science, Holsinger
served as an Army infantryman in World War II. After the war, he returned to Ohio, where
he began his career in journalism working for the
Piqua Daily
Call
. He quickly moved up in the newspaper world, serving as the Washington
correspondence for the
Dayton Journal-Herald and managing
editor of
The Cincinnati Enquirer. In 1965 his interests
turned to teaching, and it was then that he came to the Indiana University School of
Journalism.
At IU, Prof. Holsinger taught courses in reporting and editing, and for three years
served as the adviser of the student newspaper, the
Indiana Daily
Student
. It was under Holsinger’s guidance that the student paper became an
independent operation in 1969. Discovering he had a fascination for communications law,
Holsinger became a self-taught student of the discipline and literally wrote the book on
the topic – his Media Law was first published in 1985 and is currently in its 4th
edition.
Holsinger had a very successful career at IU and during his tenure was awarded the
Distinguished Teaching Award of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School
Alumni Association, was selected by the students for the Brown Derby Award, which is
given to the most popular professor on campus, and was elected to the Indiana Journalism
Hall of Fame in 1989, the same year he retired.
Prof. Holsinger died on Dec. 8, 2004, at Brooke Grove Nursing Home in Sandy Spring,
Maryland.
Arrangement
Collection is organized into two series: Training notebook and Letters.
Scope and Content Note
The Ralph L. Holsinger World War II training notebook and letters spans 1942-1945 and
comprises .6 cubic feet. The collection is organized into two series: Training notebook
and Letters.
The first series, Training notebook, consists of a single folder containing a spiral
notebook with Prof. Holsinger’s notes from the Army radio repair school he attended in
Kansas City, Missouri, from October through December 1942. After the school, he took the
notebook with him to North Africa, where he continued to log his thoughts until 1944.
Included in the folder are 9 pages of transcripts from the notebook’s journal entries,
typed up by Prof. Holsinger a few years prior to his death.
The Letters series is the larger series of the collection, and consists primarily of
Holsinger’s letters to his parents describing life in the Army from August 1942 through
December 1944. However, there is also a large scrapbook containing clippings of
Holsinger’s letters that were published in his hometown paper, the
Stillwater Valley News (Covington, OH). Most of these letters were addressed
to his friend Joe Augustine, and were written by Holsinger with the knowledge that they
would be printed in the paper. Because of this, these letters seem a bit more “literary”
in nature, and he focuses more on storytelling than he does in those letters to his
parents. These letters span the period from May 1943 through October 1945.
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Indexing Terms
-
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
IUCAT, the IU Libraries' online
catalog. Materials about related topics, persons or places can be found by searching the
catalog using these terms.
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Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
Papers presented to the Archives in November 2005 by Prof. Holsinger’s wife, Margie
Holsinger; Accession 2005/124.
Usage RestrictionsThe donor(s) of this collection have not transferred their copyrights for the materials to the Trustees of Indiana University.
For more information, please contact the Indiana University Archives staff.
The Indiana University Archives respects the intellectual property rights of others and does not claim any copyrights for
non-university records, materials in the public domain, or materials for which we do not hold a Deed of Gift. Responsibility
for the determination of the copyright status of these materials rests with those persons wishing to reuse the materials.
Researchers are responsible for securing permission from copyright owners and any other rights holders for any reuse of these
materials that extends beyond fair use or other statutory limitations.
Digital reproductions of archival materials from the Indiana University Archives are made available for noncommercial educational
and research purposes only. If you are the copyright holder for any of the digitized materials and have questions about its
inclusion on our site, please contact the Indiana University Archivist.
Preferred Citation
[Item], Ralph L. Holsinger World War II training notebook and letters, Collection C315, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington.
Processing InformationProcessed by Dina Kellams.
Completed in 2006.
Series:
Training notebook, 1943-1944
Box 1
Training notebook, 1943-1944
(Note: folder includes Holsinger’s transcriptions and memories of the
training, circa 2000)
Series:
Letters, 1942-1945
Box 1
Aug.-Dec. 1942
Jan. 1943,
Sept.-Dec. 1943
Letters to parents from North Africa, Feb. 1943-Aug.
1943
Jan.-May 1944
June-Sept. 1944
Oct.-Dec. 1944
Scrapbook containing Holsinger’s letters that were published in his
hometown paper, the
Stillwater Valley News,
Covington, OH, May 1943-Oct. 1945
(Note: most letters were originally sent to his friend Joe Augustine)
