The Oxford Handbook of Midwestern History

by Lauck, Jon

• ISBN13: 9780190933012
• ISBN10: 0190933011
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-05-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Midwest region holds a pivotal place in the tapestry of American history. The Oxford Handbook of Midwestern History delves into this rich heritage with chapters on topics ranging from the early Native American and French Midwest to the impact of the Northwest Ordinance and the Great Lakes, the emergence of Midwest regional consciousness after the Civil War, and the role of the Midwest's natural resources in the region's economic success and later decline. It presents the newest research on race, ethnicity, culture, politics, and economic development. It also considers the role of religion, organized labor, the presence of a diverse population of Germans, Irish, Dutch, and Latinos, and the influence of sports, nostalgia, populism, and isolationism.

This handbook moves beyond the examination of traditional topics in Midwestern history to provide significant attention to matters such as architecture, literary realism, visual culture, and constitutionalism. This treatment of Midwestern history marks a major turn towards the history of the American interior. In many ways, The Oxford Handbook of Midwestern History marks the coming of age of what scholars and commentators are calling the New Midwestern History.

Author Biography

Jon Lauck is Professor of History and Political Science at the University of South Dakota. He is the author of several books, including The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History; From Warm Center to Ragged Edge: The Erosion of Midwestern Regionalism, 1920-1965; and The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest. He is editor-in-chief of Middle West Review and president of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature

Table of Contents

Introduction: Mapping the Contours of the New Midwestern History: Jon K. Lauck, University of South Dakota

The Formative Age

1) Native Middle Worlds to 1850: Gregory Dowd, University of Michigan
2) The French Midwest: Robert Michael Morrissey, University of Illinois-Champaign
3) The Northwest Ordinance and the Making of the Midwest: R. Douglas Hurt, Purdue University
4) U.S. Expansion and the Creation of the Middle West in the Nineteenth Century: Andrew Offenburger, Miami University

Foundations

5) The Unique Constitutional Development of the Midwest: Patrick Garry, University of South Dakota
6) Evangelism, Organization, and the Union: A Brief History of Christianity in the Antebellum Midwest: Douglas Montagna, Grand Valley State University
7) The Midwest as a Rural Region, in Reality and in the American Mind: David Danbom, North Dakota State University
8) Civic Engagement and Social Capital in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest: Adam Criblez, Southeast Missouri State University
9) Women of the Rural Midwest: Paula Nelson, University of Wisconsin-Platteville

The Midwest and the Civil War

10) Negotiating the Middle: The Coming of the Civil War in the Midwest: Diane Mutti-Burke, University of Missouri-Kansas City
11) How the Midwest Won the Civil War: Nicole Etcheson, Ball State University
12) The Civil War and Reconstruction as an Interpretative Problem in Midwestern History: Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

The Midwest and African Americans

13) By Law or Custom: Race and the Law in the Midwest before the Great Migration: Kathryn Schumaker, University of Sydney
14) Lynching in the Midwest: Michael J. Pfeifer, City University of New York
15) 'Meet force with force and law with law': Black Self-Defense in Nineteenth-Century Iowa: David Brodnax, Sr., Trinity Christian College

The Ethnic Midwest

16) The German Midwest: Samantha Litty, Europa-Universität Flensburg
17) The Irish, Ireland, and the Midwest: Eileen McMahon, Lewis University
18) The Dutch Midwest: Robert P. Swierenga, Hope College, and Andrew Klumpp, editor, Annals of Iowa
19) Latinos in the Midwest: Omar Valerio-Jimenez, University of Texas at San Antonio

Midwestern Economic Life

20) Our Inland Seas: The Great Lakes in American History: Theodore Karamanski, Loyola University-Chicago
21) The Rise and Remarkable Decline of Organized Labor in the Midwest: Daniel Nelson, University of Akron

The Fin de Siecle Midwest

22) The Coming of the Urban Midwest: Jon Teaford, Purdue University
23) The Rise of Realism and Regionalism in the Midwest: Marcia Noe, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
24) Print Culture in the Midwest: James Connolly, Ball State University
25) The Boundaries of the Midwestern Environment: Peter Simons, Hamilton College

The Political Midwest

26) The Midwest and the Development of the Republican Party: Greg Schneider, Emporia State University
27) Midwestern Populism: Jeff Wells, Dickinson State University
28) Isolationist Sentiment in the Midwest, 1919-1945: Bernard Lemelin, Laval University
29) The New Right in the Midwest: Sean Flynn, Dakota Wesleyan University


The Twentieth-Century Midwest

30) Opera or Opry: Midwest Radio Wars of the 1920s: Kim Porter, University of North Dakota
31) Architecture of the Midwest: Gretchen Buggeln, Valparaiso University
32) Being Native in the Midwestern City”: Deborah Davis Jackson, Earlham College
33) The Women's Movement in the Midwest”: Matthew Pehl, Texas Tech University

The Cultural Midwest

34) 'Oh, God, we must win': The Midwest and the Integration of Religion and Sport: Paul Putz, Baylor University
35) The Visual Culture of the 1980s Farm Crisis: Wayne Anderson, University of Iowa
36) The Midwest in the Contemporary Cultural Imagination: Zachary Michael Jack, North Central College
37) Midwestern Nostalgia: John E. Miller, South Dakota State University

Index