[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 196 (Thursday, November 20, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S8270]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     RECOGNIZING THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF 
                              INDIANAPOLIS

 Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the 100th 
anniversary of the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.
  Towards the end of the 1920s, a Canadian newspaper took note of a 
collection in America's Midwest. One of its reporters marveled, ``In 
Indianapolis, Indiana, there is a unique institution called the 
Children's Museum. . . . ''
  Today, a century later, that institution is no less unique. It is now 
the largest museum for children in the entire world and the fourth 
oldest. But to describe it as solely a museum for children is a 
misnomer. In the era of the museum's founding, opportunities for young 
people to learn and grow beyond the classroom were sometimes rare, and 
the museum provided them. This is what Mary Stewart Carey--the 
businesswoman who founded the institution--and the numerous 
Indianapolis civic and leaders who helped it grow, intended.
  In the museum, children were not just guests, but directors and 
curators. They formed clubs to boost enrollment in the museum; first 
prize for most students enlisted was a goldfish aquarium. They sat on a 
junior board of directors. They examined and wrote reports on the 
exhibits and went on field trips across the country to find objects to 
help fill them. The Children's Museum of Indianapolis was a museum by 
children, a place where they were encouraged to think and dream, to 
both study and reach for the stars. It still is.
  This year, the museum celebrates its centenary. It is not simply a 
commemoration of a building and its exhibits--though those, from the 
Dinosphere to the Fireworks of Glass, to the Treasures of the Earth to 
The Liberty Bell 7, are remarkable. Nor is it exclusively an 
opportunity to commend the museum and its leaders for their 
contributions to Indiana's economic and cultural life, which are 
considerable. It is also, importantly, a chance to reflect on all the 
memories created within and beyond its walls, the interest in natural 
history, archaeology, and science cultivated inside and the many young 
lives touched by this museum.
  A century on, in Indianapolis, that unique institution once remarked 
upon by a visitor still stands and still astonishes. Long may it do 
both.

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