What Does Hoosier Mean? The Origin of Indiana’s Nickname
“The word is two centuries old, at least. In the early days, it sometimes meant an uncouth person, a kind of wild and crazy guy out here in pioneer Indiana,” says James Madison, Professor Emeritus of History at Indiana University and author of Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana.
However, by the 1830s, the word began to take on a new, more flattering meaning.
“We see it in print in 1833, a poem called 'The Hoosier’s Nest,' which is a wonderful poem,” Madison describes. “It's a very positive statement of the Hoosier’s nest, the log cabin in which these so-called uncouth people actually build a good life, a family, a work ethic, and all the other values that we want to adore.”
By the mid-1800s, ‘Hoosier’ was a common term for Indiana's upstanding residents. But where did this term come from in the first place?
Madison states, “The answer is nobody knows. Lots and lots of people, over a century plus, spent a lot of time trying to find the origin of the word, and we failed and failed and failed.”
Theories About the Origin of Hoosier
There are many theories, though, such as early pioneers answering a knock on the cabin door with “who’s here?” Poet James Whitcomb Riley wrote a story about spectators of a frontier brawl picking up a severed ear and asking, “who’s ear?” A recent Indiana House bill claimed that the state got its nickname from 18th-century Methodist minister Harry Hoosier.
“None of them are verifiable. None of them have documentation that a scholar or a historian would accept,” says Madison.
But how in the Hoosier is it possible that we don't know where such a widely used word comes from?
“If we knew, we could make $1 million. From urban legends to historical legends, they just pop up, and sometimes they're based in fact. Someone tells a story and it's true, and it just gets passed on and people forget the actual events, and they only remember the history,” explains Jon Kay, director of Traditional Arts Indiana and interim executive director of Arts & Humanities at Indiana University.
The word Hoosier stuck around because it filled a need.
“We were trying to make a cohesive group of people. I think that's what the word Hoosier does for us. We're going to come together, we're going to be calling ourselves as one unified name,” Kay describes. “It's no longer the hyper local; it becomes the coming together as a state.”
When Hoosier Became the Official Demonym
Despite all that history, ‘Indianan,’ and not Hoosier, was the state's official demonym right up until 2016. That's when Indiana Senator Joe Donnelly and then-state representative Todd Young convinced the U.S. Government Publishing Office to make ‘Hoosier’ the official term for all Indiana residents.
Representative Young ran for and won a United States Senate seat in 2016. He is currently serving his second term as a Hoosier Senator. He says, “It was important, candidly, because we wanted to make sure that the language used to describe the people of Indiana was reflective of the language that Hoosiers actually use. I'm always asked, ‘but what is it?’ It’s somebody from Indiana. Drop the mic. End of story. That's all you need to know.”
And that's likely all that we’ll ever know. Hoosiers are Hoosiers. That's just how it is.
“I like the mystery of the meaning of the word Hoosier. If anyone tells you they know, you ought to count your spoons because they're up to something. We don't know, and I think that mystery makes us special. I think that mystery is wonderful,” concludes Madison.
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The above video is a clip from Journey Indiana from WTIU. You can watch more segments and full episodes at pbs.org/show/journey-indiana/
