author
Sarah A. Finley Wrigley
A writer and longtime librarian from Richmond, Indiana, she is remembered for preserving family and local history tied to the famous word “Hoosier.” Her name appears on a notable study of the term, and her life connected literature, public service, and Indiana memory.
1 Audiobook
The Word Hoosier; John Finley Indiana Historical Society Publications, Volume IV, Number 2
by Jacob Piatt Dunn, Sarah A. Finley Wrigley
About the author
Born in 1830, she was the daughter of John Finley, the Richmond poet often linked with the early popularization of the word “Hoosier.” Later sources describe her as the oldest daughter in the Finley family, and her own work helped preserve material connected to her father and to Indiana history.
She spent much of her life in Richmond, Indiana, where she became an important figure in the city’s library history. Local historical accounts say she began work at the Morrisson Library in 1878 and went on to serve there for 39 years, a remarkably long tenure that made her one of the institution’s defining early librarians.
Readers are most likely to encounter her through The Word Hoosier, a work associated with Jacob Piatt Dunn that also credits her because she preserved a manuscript copy of her father’s poem and helped keep that literary history alive. She died in 1920, but her legacy still stands at the meeting point of books, archives, and Indiana’s cultural identity.