News Release

SOUTH BEND — Michiana residents can experience a unique piece of Indiana history that’s more than 160 years in the making when the documentary “The Diary of Henry J. McBride” airs on local Public Broadcasting Station WNIT-TV in South Bend, Channel 34, at 9 a.m. Friday, July 26; and 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5.

This true story was produced and shot entirely by Indiana documentary filmmaker Peter Matsoukas. Told through interviews, pictures and footage, the story begins in the 1860s when a Civil War Union soldier wrote his thoughts down in his diary before dying in Indiana at age 23. In 1913, the soldier’s descendant rescued the diary from a great flood that swept her home away. Then, in the 1950s, two Marian University student reporters began researching the diary; their work is picked up by a Marian University English student in 2021, who unlocks a Civil War mystery.

“When this project was first brought to my attention, I knew that this was something that could make a great documentary film,” said Matsoukas. “It’s historical but also incredibly modern. It spans space and time and couldn’t have happened without many small decisions that brought a singular object to a university where it wouldn’t be properly analyzed until decades later. It speaks to the story in a diary and how that story can profoundly impact people the writer will never meet. It shows that we all have an interesting story to tell and we all leave a mark on this earth, whether we know it or not.”

Through interviews, pictures, footage and voiceovers, the filmmakers will capture the journey from Henry J. McBride’s diary in 1862 to Emily Parson’s English project in 2021.