The Man Haters collection

In January 1994, through the efforts of Bill Barnett, Director of Library Business Services, the families of Bill Kirtley, his sister Jenny Leach and their spouses, donated a 1915 film entitled, The Man Haters to the Ball State University Libraries. The film, having an intrinsic value simply because it still existed, became even more valuable when it was learned that it was filmed in Muncie, Indiana, with a Muncie cast, the result of a newspaper popularity contest. Upon viewing the film, Michael Wood, Dean of the Ball State University Libraries (1979-2006), thought that it would make an excellent program for the upcoming Friends of the Bracken Library program in the Spring of 1995. His idea was to use the film as a centerpiece of a video, surrounding it with visual documentation gathered from detailed research about the producer, the cast members, and the scenes of Muncie, Indiana from 1915. He appointed Nancy Turner, Head of Archives and Special Collections in the Ball State University Libraries as Director of The Man Haters project. This collection is the direct result of that research project.