On this episode of Our American Stories, Indiana did not choose its nickname so much as grow into it. The term Hoosier appeared in jokes, travel accounts, and frontier banter, yet no one ever agreed on where it started. Despite the uncertainty, the name kept rising to the surface until it became part of the state's character.

What survives is a word tied closely to the people who shaped Indiana in its earliest years. Dr. Stephen Flick explains how a bit of regional language became a lasting identity.

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