The open-access, digital archive of the Midwest Federation of American Syrian Lebanese Clubs (MFASLC) contains hundreds of items ranging from annual convention programs and legal documents to photographs and correspondence among Arab American leaders. The Federation, established in 1936 at the Syrian American Brotherhood Hall in Indianapolis, brought together hundreds of delegates from hundreds of local clubs and other voluntary associations in the Midwest. Along with the Eastern Federation and the Southern Federation, whose archives can be found in the National Museum of American History, the Midwest Federation served a community of over hundred thousand Arabic-speaking immigrants and their American-born heirs, most of whom had roots in the pre-World War I Levant, sometimes called Ottoman Syria. For two decades the group's official newspaper, also published in Indianapolis, was The Syrian Ark. While today's MFSLAC has a smaller footprint than it once it did, it remains active with an annual convention and a scholarship program, among other activities.
This archive was funded by the Arab Indianapolis Foundation, Inc. and was provided courtesy of MFASLC historian Thomas Tadros of Michigan City, Indiana, with coordination by Dr. Edward Curtis, the William M. and Gail. M. Plater Chair of the Liberal Arts and the Director of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Indiana University Indianapolis.