Background
Roscoe Carlyle Buley was born on July 8, 1893 in Georgetown, Indiana, the son of David Marion Buley and Nora Keithley.
Roscoe Carlyle Buley was born on July 8, 1893 in Georgetown, Indiana, the son of David Marion Buley and Nora Keithley.
Roscoe received a B. A. (1914) and an M. A. (1916) from Indiana University, and then served for a year during World War I in the United States Army Signal Corps.
After teaching for eight years in the public schools of Indiana and Illinois, Buley did graduate work at the University of Wisconsin, from which he was awarded a Ph. D. in 1925.
Buley taught history at Indiana University from 1925, after 1944 as full professor, until his retirement in 1964.
Buley's writing was characterized by sensible, artistic organization and interesting narrative. In the book, as in his articles in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, he included long extracts from the primitive literature of the times.
After two decades of extensive research, Buley found that his manuscript on the Old Northwest frontier from 1815 to 1840 would require at least two volumes for its 1, 314 pages.
The cost of publishing a book of this length by a scholar not yet widely known would be excessive for commercial publishers and questionable for university presses. Compression was unthinkable; the work's strong point was its very abundance and depth of detail. Even the footnotes, in which Buley expressed his views on conflicting evidence, were informative and useful.
The J. K. Lilly Foundation and the Indiana Historical Society concluded that the work should be published regardless of its cost. Their enthusiasm resulted in a lavish edition with many maps and illustrations of early prints, pen and watercolor drawings, and contemporary sketches.
Published in 1951, the book was distributed free to all members of the Indiana Historical Society. The Old Northwest: Pioneer Period, 1815-1840 was praised by scholars for its emphasis on the details of social and family life of the pioneer settlers, their customs, beliefs, habits, food, health and illnesses, and medical practices. Others held that it lacked interpretation, theoretical discussions, and evaluation but was nevertheless a valuable contribution to historical scholarship.
Like many university publications, it was not reviewed in the New York Times, which, in its May 6, 1951, feature story announcing the Pulitzer Prize winners for 1951, had sparse information about the author and no photograph of him.
Buley died in Indianapolis, Indiana.
His writings were based on extant original documents and on the company's journals, these books naturally reflect a company and conservative point of view toward business legislation. Critics found them unduly discursive, descriptive, and weak on analysis. Yet, with their excellent indexes, as with The Old Northwest, readers could find details they needed.
He was a member of the Indiana Historical Society.
His lectures were dotted with humorous, down-to-earth anecdotes, and he became one of the most popular members of the Indiana faculty.
At Wisconsin Roscoe Buley came under the influence of Frederic Logan Paxson, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924 for History of the American Frontier. Paxson opened to Buley the possibilities for research and writing on the history of the Old Northwest and emphasized the usefulness of local newspapers.
On June 21, 1919, he married Esther Giles, who died in 1921; on August 3, 1926, he married Evelyn Barnett. He had no children.