Warren envisioned a living history museum of rural Indiana life of the pre-Industrial period modeled after the Norwegian museums, and he set about creating it. Backed by legendary Indiana University President Herman B Wells, Professor Roberts hoped to create an outdoor museum of Indiana life, and with the able assistance of many students, he located, acquired, and transported to Bloomington, often log by log and plank by plank, the barns, bridges, houses, and other items that would populate the outdoor museum.

Unfortunately, the funds to build the outdoor museum never materialized. Warren was an assiduous fieldworker who took photographs, kept notes on odd pieces of paper that came readily to hand, and drew rough and more finished sketches of floor plans; these field materials, along with the entire store of his professional papers, were graciously donated to the Folklore Archives, an integral unit of the Indiana University Archives, by his wife, Barbara Roberts. From these records, we have created this virtual rendition of the museum, an exhibition that we hope captures something of the flavor of the outdoor museum Professor Roberts envisioned, even if here you are obliged to scroll about rather than stroll about as originally intended.

This website is designed to feature the Outdoor Museum of Early Indiana Life, but also serves, we hope, as an introduction to the larger Warren E. Roberts Collection in the Folklore Archives.