John Mellencamp, James Dean, Benjamin Harrison, Larry Bird, David Letterman, Jane Pauley, Orville Reddenbacher, Dan Quayle…
Wyoming checking in. Known for Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Devil’s Tower, and more antelope than people. Famous people: Dick Cheney, Curt Gowdy, Senator Alan Simpson.
A really good college fight song? How about the Green Bay Packers?
The Articles of Confederation - the first time the country was called “The United States of America” - was signed in York, Pennsylvania. As was the treaty with the French that pretty much guaranteed we’d win the war. History-minded folks will probably think of the Johnstown Flood.
::cough, cough, Cuyahoga catching fire/Cleveland as the archetypical depressed impoverished hellhole, cough::
Hey, I’m a native of the city, and I don’t like it either, but it’s what people still think about Ohio. Although maybe nowadays they think of Detroit as the American Beruit.
And lately, Portland, wouldn’t you say?
And Rulon Gardner.
Mostly just filmed here. I just saw Ant Man last weekend, and saw no indication that it was set in Atlanta.
Although parts of it were filmed here. Thanks to the busiest airport in the US, non-union labor, a generous tax incentive, and enough variety to find pretty much any type of setting, from urban decay to suburbia to small-town to mountain wilderness, within two hours of the city, dozens of movies have been shot in Atlanta. Most are not set here.
Ohio:
Amish
Cedar Point
THE Ohio State University
7 Presidents
Wright Brothers
Astronauts
Thomas A. Edison
LeBron James
Paul Newman
Steven Spielberg
Halle Berry
What is Portland famous for? As far as I can tell, it is little more than a Podunk stage-stop along the way. Now, Pendleton, that is what you call famous.
*Alabamians
Hank Aaron, Hank Williams, Paul “Bear” Bryant (lots more, like Truman Capote, but I picked these three in addition to those mentioned above)
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
U.S. Space and Rocket Center (Huntsville)
Gulf Coast beaches
Indiana is proud of her sons:
John Dillinger
Jim Jones (People’s Temple; source of the literal ‘Drink the Kool-Aid’*)
Charles Manson
I moved.
- yes, I know it was actually the much cheaper Flavor-aid. Stuff it.
What I’m finding interesting about these posts is what residents think their state is known for, as opposed to what I as an outsider think their state is known for (or assume a majority of other outsiders would generally know.) Some of these lists impress me as a little long. I read them and generally think, “Oh yeah,” but they aren’t things I would have come up with on my own.
I’m also finding it curious to trace the sources of my perceptions. I think my first impressions are geographic, big cities, major universities, followed by major historical events/personalities. To what extent are they impacted by what I learned in school, my personal travels, travels of friends and relatives, what I’ve read in books/seen in movies, or references in the news?
I could probably come up with a list of 5 or so solid facts/anecdotes about most states, but for some - like Rhode Island, Delaware or Connecticut - I’d have a hard time getting beyond “It’s that little teeny place out there along the coast in between the REAL states.”
In my mind, there is a bit of a difference between “What do people know about your state” vs “What is your state known for?” Pick any state and I could likely tell you the capital, a major geographic feature or 2, a couple of cultural/historical factoids, the major college… But I couldn’t say a state like Nebraska or Kansas really means much to me other than a shape on a map., and a general impression “plains, a whole lotta nothing, college sports.”
I also find it curious how many states I think of as a group. Just yesterday I was trying to remind myself which of Kentucky or Tennessee was to the north. Of course I knew, and I think of the 2 states differently, but in some respect they are essentially conjoined in my mind. Mississippi and Alabama? Aren’t they really mirror images of each other? Same for New Hampshire and Vermont? Which is which? All those hot dry states in the SW w/ straight edge borders? Is there really a difference between N and S Dakota - and Montana? Washington and Oregon? I’d imagine non-Midwesterners would think of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin as one big cornfield. The only thing that makes Illinois stand out is Chicago, O’Hare, and corruption.
Filmed there, mostly, using the settings described.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I doubt one person in a hundred (outside New Mexico) would associate New Mexico with the shuttle.
I’ve lived in Northern California my whole life. I don’t know anyone who thinks of San Francisco as being in Southern California.
Missouri films - Gone Girl, Winter’s Bone
Establishing shot - The Arch.
Yeah, people think that about Cleveland, but not about all of Ohio. If anything, the recent success of the football team in Columbus is probably more on people’s minds than the depression of Clevelanders.
I think about all of Ohio that way. Impoverished cities slowly dying off following the death of the US manufacturing economy. Except Oxford. Miami University was gorgeous and bizarrely full of hot chicks, even in the middle of summer. And that’s coming from somebody who lives in Florida.
Surprisingly, there is a big difference between N and S Dakota. In fact, that is the reason the two were separated. S Dakota is all about growing corn, whereas the climate in N Dakota favors the growing of wheat. If you happen to do any traveling along the border between the two states, the difference is visually evident.
Where Eastern Montana meets Western N Dakota, you go from the severe flatness of the great plains to the rolling beginnings of the Rockies. So while this border isn’t as marked as that between N and S Dakota, it definitely marks a change.
Detroit itself is hard to ignore when Michigan comes up. A good part of that is Motown music. A bad part is Kid Rock. Another bad part is ex-mayor (and federal prisoner) Kwame Kilpatrick, who was in the news incessantly until his federal conviction just a couple of years ago.
Colorado seems to be almost entirely mountains in the public mind. Not counting the pancake-flat eastern half, of course.