Julia L. Dumont and Catharine Merrill 89 CHAPTER IV AN EXPERIMENT IN SOCIALISM New Harmony 98 Robert Dale Owen and William Maclure 101 Thomas Say and the Scientists 104 CHAPTER V THE HOOSIER INTERPRETED Edward Eggleston 134 James Whitcomb Riley 156 CHAPTER VI CRAWFORDSVILLE “The Hoosier Athens” 177 Lew Wallace 180 Maurice Thompson 199 Mary H. Krout and Caroline V. Krout 212 CHAPTER VII “OF MAKING MANY BOOKS THERE IS NO END” Indiana a Point of Departure 214 Fiction 217 History and Politics 226 Miscellaneous 237 CHAPTER VIII AN INDIANA CHOIR Early Writers 244 Forceythe Willson and Elizabeth Conwell Willson 256 Later Poets 265 The Hoosier Landscape 269 INDEX 273 THE HOOSIERS CHAPTER I INDIANA AND HER PEOPLE The rise of Indiana as an enlightened commonwealth has been accompanied by phenomena of unusual interest and variety, and whatever contributions the State may make to the total of national achievement in any department of endeavor are to be appraised in the light of her history and development. The origin of the beginners of the State, the influences that wrought upon them, the embarrassments that have attended the later generations in their labors, become matters of moment in any inquiry that is directed to their intellectual history. It is not of so great importance that a few individuals within a State shall, from time to time, show talent or genius, as that the general level of cultivation in the community shall be continually raised. Where, as in Indiana, the appearance of artistic talent follows naturally an intellectual development that uplifts the whole, the condition presented is at once interesting and admirable. Owing to a misapprehension of the State’s social history, an exaggerated importance has been given to the manifestations of creative talent perceptible in Indiana, the assumption being in many quarters that the Hoosier Commonwealth is in some way set apart from her neighbors by reason of the uncouthness and ignorance of the inhabitants; and the word “Hoosier” has perhaps been unfortunate as applied to Indianians in that it has sometimes been taken as a synonym for boorishness and illiteracy. The Indiana husbandmen, even in the pioneer period,