In the 1920s, Robert and Helen Lynd led a team of sociologists in a study of a typical middle-American community. The Lynds chose Muncie as the locale for their field research, although they never specifically identified it as "Middletown" the fictional name of the town in their study. Muncie received national attention after the publication of their book, "Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture" (1929). The Lynds returned to Muncie to re-observe the community during the Depression, which resulted in a sequel, "Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts" (1937). The Lynds' Middletown study, which was funded by the Rockefeller Institute of Social and Religious Research, was intended to study "the interwoven trends that are the life of a small American city."