The Lynds wrote that "the aim of the field of investigation recorded in the following pages was to study the interwoven trends that are the life of a small American city." They examined the following areas: "Getting Living," "Making a Home," "Training the Young," "Using Leisure," and "Engaging in Religious Practice." They admitted that "a typical city, strictly speaking does not exist, but the city studied was selected as having many features common to a wide group of communities."

Robert Lynd updated the study in Middletown in Transition, published in 1937. These works were just the beginning of a continuing series of articles, books, documentaries, and other examinations that would make Muncie as Middletown one of the most studied communities in America. Middletown III was a research project funded by the National Science Foundation from 1976 to 1981, and Middletown IV was done in 1999-2000. A six-part documentary series titled Middletown was filmed in the early 1980s and broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service. The Center for Middletown Studies was established in 1980 to collect materials and support research on Muncie. It became a unit of Ball State University in 1984.

Archives and Special Collections of the Ball State University Libraries collects, preserves, and makes available for use materials documenting Muncie as Middletown. The records collected fall into two categories:

Records of Middletown Research, which consist of materials that come through the Center for Middletown Studies and scholarship that is generated on Middletown; and collections on Muncie in the Stoeckel Archives of Local History Collections that support Middletown research.

For information on Middletown resources, contact the Archives and Special Collections, Bracken Library 210, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, telephone, (765) 285-5078, or e-mail libarchives@bsu.edu.