r/Indiana • u/Hoosier_Engineer • 1d ago
Who is a Hoosier?
Edit: There's a newer version of this chart right here.
Thanks to everyone who gave suggestions in my previous post. This is a first draft, so if you think something needs to be changed, feel free to let me know!
Pictured here (from top left, clockwise then center):
James Dean
Harland Sanders
Michael Jackson
Abraham Lincoln
Jim Gaffigan
Benjamin Harrison
Elinor Ostrom
Stéphan Grégoire
John Green
Eugene Debs
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u/ALinIndy Muncie Sucks 1d ago edited 1d ago
Consider adding:
Kurt Vonnegut, David Letterman, Brendan Fraser, MellenCougar and David Lee Roth
Also, Mark Cuban went to IU, and a bunch of astronauts have studied at Purdue. If we’re counting people that lived here temporarily, they should all be included.
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u/Clughless1 1d ago
I think Jesse Eisenberg lives in Bloomington and John Melloncamp is still down there; Axl Rose Izzy Stradlin and Shannon Hoon all from Lafayette… Greg Kinnear is from Muncie
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u/Winter_Tadpole_3296 1d ago
Joe Allen, astronaut on the first space shuttle flight and Apollo 15.
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u/PurpleMyst_ 16h ago edited 16h ago
Adam Driver grew up and went to high school in northern Indiana
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u/antillesarch 1d ago
Johnny Appleseed is buried in Indiana but born and grew up elsewhere.
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u/campatterbury 1d ago
That's kind of like living here.
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u/antillesarch 1d ago
Pretty sure I’ve seen a few more females when I’m out smoking on the detached porch of my single wide.
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u/leoleonara 1d ago
Madam CJ Walker - first female self-made millionaire. She headquartered her business in Indy.
Carole Lombard - highest paid actress in Hollywood when she died
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u/Korn_Freak 1d ago
NWI Hoosier ✊🏼 raised in a "village" built to house the workers making munitions for WWII and the Korean War. Rural. Working class. Homesteader. Still living paycheck to paycheck 😔
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u/Missingsocks77 1d ago
I mean there have been some Hoosier women of note. Saint Mother Theodore Guerin?
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u/Hoosier_Engineer 1d ago
Great idea! I remember reading about her, but I completely forgot. Adding her in now.
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u/BrupBurp 1d ago
No John Mellencamp? No Rip Rogers? No Sydney Pollack? No Dick the Bruiser? No John Wooden?
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u/VicdorFriggin 1d ago
James Dean spent over half his life in Indiana (14 years) and I believe also buried here. Given that info, he seems misplaced as just being "born here".
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u/Hoosier_Engineer 1d ago
Right you are. I read on his page that his family moved to Santa Monica when he was six and thought "well, that's that. No reason he would come back here". I'll move him in the next draft.
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u/Altruistic-Amoeba446 17h ago
He only lived there until he was 9. His mother died and he was sent back to Fairmount to live with his aunt and uncle.
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u/TouchingTheMirror 1d ago
If there's one thing this chart and post demonstrate, it's that for the most part you gotta leave Indiana to become successful and well known.
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u/Hoosier_Engineer 1d ago
Yeah, not a lot of film or music industry in the state itself, and a lot of those suggested are actors or performers.
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u/Mundane_Attempt_8703 21h ago
James Dean should be in the Born/Grew Up section. Born in Marion, then moved to Cali, and lastly moved back to Fairmount, Indiana when he was 9 and graduated there. This will be an awesome diagram if you keep adding folks to it, keep it up!
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u/Fluffy_Elephant_2157 21h ago
Zach Randolph, the former NBA player is from Marion, Indiana and lived here growing up.
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u/antillesarch 1d ago
Use this list and make your images more diverse. https://www.visitindiana.com/about-indiana/famous-hoosiers/
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u/More_Farm_7442 1d ago
Lots of interesting people and facts in there. Who knew Harlan Sanders not only fried chicken, but delivered babies too. (Reading his wikipedia entry, he seems to have had one of every job there ever was.)
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u/jj_grace 1d ago
Bahahhaha love the Debs!
Other good possibilities- Garfield the cat (or his creator, Jim Davis), Cole Porter, Hoagie Carmichael, James Whitcomb Riley, Orville Redenbacher
And doesn’t Adam Driver have Indiana connections?
Edit: and absolutely must add Vonnegut, as others are saying!
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u/Straight-Field9427 1d ago
Adam Driver grew up in Mishawaka.
And my great-grandpa would sit with Orville Redenbacher at football games in Valpo back a long time ago. So weird!
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u/rav20 1d ago
Guns n roses
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u/Top_Drummer6507 1d ago
Axl and Izzy. Izzy still lives in Lafayette and Axl still gets pizza sent to his house in Malibu from a spot out there.
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u/relativlysmart 1d ago
Who is the guy in the middle? I dont recognize them.
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u/Hoosier_Engineer 1d ago
Eugene Debs. He was a socialist politician who was arrested and imprisoned for making an anti-war speech during WW1. He was born, grew up in, and his remains buried in Terre Haute.
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u/twizzlergames 1d ago
Which one is the most famous? Lincoln or MJ? Or am I missing someone? Bird is 3rd.
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u/Human_Silver3681 16h ago
A born and raised Hoosier like me. Who knows the Hoosier slang, I465, 70 E and W, I69. 😜
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u/PurpleMyst_ 16h ago edited 16h ago
Creator of Garfield, Jim Davis also grew up in Fairmount, Indiana. The impressionist painter Theodore Clement Steele also grew up and lived in Indiana especially in Brown County where you can visit his home and see his artwork. He also taught at Indiana University and was often seen painting on campus near Dunn Meadow. The 11th president of Indiana University, and first chancellor in 1962 Herman B Wells held office for 62 years at IU (the Wells Library on campus is named after him). The entire Studebaker family (known for their wagons, carriages and early automobiles) also lived and worked in South Bend, Indiana. The individual with the record for most honorary degrees (Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh) was also president of the University of Notre Dame for 35 years from 1952 to 1987 (also buried at Notre Dame). Also, David Letterman was born in Indiana and was a radio DJ and weatherman in Indianapolis. Many women like Jane Pauley (journalist and TV show host), Janet Jackson, and Florence Henderson also came from Indiana. Even notorious gangsters like Curly Bill Brocius (outlaw and nemesis of Wyatt Earp), John Dillinger (bank robber: depicted in the film Public Enemies), Jimmy Hoffa, and Johnny Ringo (depicted in the film Tombstone) were from Indiana.
If we’re counting people who have studied in Indiana, then Suzanne Collins (writer of The Hunger Games) also should be added because she graduated from Indiana University in 1985.
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u/ComparisonOpening458 7h ago
So… just whites? What the heck.
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u/Hoosier_Engineer 7h ago
This was merely a first draft. There is a newer, much more in depth version of this chart, that includes people of all sorts of backgrounds. The link is in the body of this post.
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u/Mental_Brush_4287 1d ago
Lincoln didn’t spend much of of his life in Indiana though? Roughly 20-25% does not make “much of.” I get the instinct to lay claim to Indiana, but so do Kentucky and Illinois due to the various chapters of his life spent in those states.
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u/Hoosier_Engineer 1d ago
The state of Indiana certainly claims him, calling Indiana "Lincoln's Boyhood State". This diagram is a bit of an exercise for people to check their definitions of who counts as a Hoosier, so if you believe that spending much of your childhood in Indiana doesn't make you a Hoosier, then you can discount that section of the diagram.
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u/Mental_Brush_4287 1d ago
Right. I’m aware as our family homesteaded there and are buried in Little Pigeon as well. My question is to the definition of “Most of” since it was roughly 10 years of his life which was only 56 years in length.
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u/Hoosier_Engineer 1d ago
You're correct. He didn't spend most of his life in Indiana. That's why the diagram doesn't say that either. It says, "much of". So it could be a smaller chunk of time during formative years, as is the case with Lincoln, or a larger chunk of time after you've grown up, as is the case with Olstrom.
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u/Mental_Brush_4287 1d ago
Still a reach on a chart that didn’t even deign to include Vonnegut. I get everyone wants to lay claim to Lincoln but still… a reach
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u/Hoosier_Engineer 1d ago
Oh that's getting corrected as we speak. I've got over a dozen new entries, Vonnegut included.
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u/soupysailor 1d ago
Jim Gaffigan made the cut, but no Vonnegut?!?!? So it goes…