“Black Harry” Hoosier: The Story Behind Indiana’s Namesake
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:14.0 | This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. |
| 0:21.9 | To search for the American Stories podcast, go to the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your |
| 0:28.1 | podcasts. |
| 0:29.7 | How did Indiana get its nickname as the Hoosier State? |
| 0:33.3 | And how did people from Indiana come to be known as Hoosiers? |
| 0:42.3 | Here to answer these questions and to tell the story is Dr. Steven Flick, head of the Christian Heritage Fellowship. |
| 0:45.3 | Let's take a listen. |
| 0:48.3 | One such individual that has so deeply influenced our nation |
| 0:53.3 | and one state in particular, |
| 0:56.6 | is a black man, a black Methodist preacher |
| 0:59.9 | by the name of Harry Hoosier. |
| 1:05.9 | John Wesley, the well-known evangelist and father of Methodism |
| 1:11.2 | at one of his conferences in the British Isles in 1771 |
| 1:17.0 | called for his itinerant ministers |
| 1:21.1 | to volunteer to go to America. |
| 1:25.3 | Among those who volunteered was a young man by the name of Francis Asbury. |
| 1:33.3 | In a few short years, Francis Asbury would rise to the highest office of Bishop in America. |
| 1:41.3 | Having traveled thousands upon thousands of miles, |
| 1:45.0 | his face was more readily recognized |
| 1:50.0 | than the father of our nation, George Washington. |
... |
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