Jacob Piatt Dunn - Early Career

Early Career

After Dunn returned permanently to Indianapolis in 1884, he resumed his law practice and completed Massacres of the Mountains: A History of the Indian Wars of the Far West, 1815–1875 using research he had begun in Colorado. Harper and Row published the book in 1886. Dunn's work helped him earn a master's degree from Earlham College. Relying heavily on government documents, Dunn analyzed the subject in detail, creating the first scholarly look at the subject and a "minor classic" that is "still used and respected" by scholars of American history. At the same time, Houghton, Mifflin, and Company was working on its American Commonwealths series and invited Dunn to write the Indiana volume, Indiana: A Redemption from Slavery, published in 1888. Using resources from the Library of Congress, the Bureau of American Ethnology, the Canadian archives, Indiana State Library, and the Indianapolis Public Library, Dunn considered the question of slavery in the Indiana Territory. Dunn further supported himself by writing political editorials for local newspapers, including work for the Indianapolis Sentinel, which he also edited for a time.

In 1886 Dunn joined fellow Hoosiers, including William H. English, Daniel Wait Howe, Major Jonathan W. Gordon, and other Indianapolis historians to "revitalize" the languishing Indiana Historical Society. Dunn was selected as its recording secretary in 1886 and held the post until his death. Dunn was instrumental in forming the IHS into an active organization. In addition, Dunn secured funds from the Indiana legislature to improve the Indiana State Library's resources and served two terms as the Indiana state librarian, from 1889 to 1893. A strong supporter of free public libraries, Dunn was also one of three people appointed to the newly created Indiana Public Library Commission, where he served from 1899 to 1919 (from 1899 to 1914 as its first president). In addition to his position as state librarian, Dunn's other jobs included two terms as the Indianapolis city controller, from 1904 to 1906 and from 1914 to 1916, and two years as chief deputy to the Marion County treasurer, Frank P. Fishback, from 1910 to 1912. Dunn ran for Indiana's Seventh Congressional District in 1902 as a Democrat, but lost to the Republican incumbent, Jesse Overstreet.