Publisher's Synopsis
During the period of about three-quarters of a century in which the State of Indiana and its people have been designated by the word "Hoosier," there has been a large amount of discussion of the origin and meaning of the term, but with a notable lack of any satisfactory result. Some of these discussions have been almost wholly conjectural in character, but others have been more methodical, and of the latter the latest and most exhaustive-that of Mr. Meredith Nicholson -sums up the results in the statement "The origin of the term 'Hoosier' is not known with certainty." Indeed the statement might properly have been made much broader, for a consideration of the various theories offered leaves the unprejudiced investigator with the feeling that the real solution of the problem has not even been suggested. This lack of satisfactory conclusions, however, may be of some value, for it strongly suggests the probability that the various theorists have made some false assumption of fact, and have thus been thrown on a false scent, at the very beginning of their investigations.
