The Real Indiana

When you think of Indiana, what comes to mind: a plow or a machine press?

Some folks in Indiana are steamed that the Postal Service, in its depiction of the Hoosier State in the upcoming Flags of Our Nation stamp series, has decided to feature a farm tractor pulling a chisel plow through a field with a cityscape in the distance.

The Fort Wayne Daily News editorializes: "The Hoosier state hosts the nation’s 15th-largest economy, but only the 28th-largest agricultural sector. Indiana’s share of U.S. agriculture has declined from 2 percent in 1997 to 1.4 percent in 2006 ... A better representation of Indiana would be from manufacturing, which is 33.4 percent of Indiana’s GDP, compared to just 15.6 percent in the U.S. We rank first in the nation for specializing in manufacturing."

Farming? Manufacturing? Come on, folks! For most of us, neither of these come to mind when we think of Indiana. It's this.