MUNCIE, Ind. - Interviewers are needed to assist with a follow-up study to the famous book "Middletown," that identified Muncie as the typical American community.

An important part of the original 1920s Middletown project was a community survey conducted with mothers of children in Muncie schools. The process will be duplicated in May.

Interviewers will be paid $35 for each completed interview with a selected Muncie family. Each interviewer will be responsible for traveling to the families’ homes and conducting the approximately 45-minute interviews.

Interviewers work independently and must provide their own transportation. Experience in interviewing is helpful, but not necessary. Training is provided.

Muncie has been known as Middletown, U.S.A. since Robert S. and Helen Lynd came here as young sociologists in 1924 to study the community. As a result, Muncie became the first American city to be systematically examined.

In the 1970s, a team of sociologists led by Theodore Caplow of the University of Virginia and Howard Bahr of Brigham Young University completed a follow-up study.

Caplow and Bahr are now overseeing the 1999 study that more closely follows the research methods used in the original study. The results will be incorporated into "The First Measured Century," a six-part documentary produced by PBS.

Anyone interested in becoming an interviewer for this project should contact Christine Totten at (765)286-5086 or Bruce Geelhoed, director of the Center for Middletown Studies, at (765)285-8037.