The Rural Midwest Since World War II
The Rural Midwest Since World War II

Author: Rodney Anderson

Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press

Published: 2014-02-01

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 150175131X

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J.L. Anderson seeks to change the belief that the Midwest lacks the kind of geographic coherence, historical issues, and cultural touchstones that have informed regional identity in the American South, West, and Northeast. The goal of this illuminating volume is to demonstrate uniqueness in a region that has always been amorphous and is increasingly so. Midwesterners are a dynamic people who shaped the physical and social landscapes of the great midsection of the nation, and they are presented as such in this volume that offers a general yet informed overview of the region after World War II. The contributors—most of whom are Midwesterners by birth or residence—seek to better understand a particular piece of rural America, a place too often caricatured, misunderstood, and ignored. However, the rural landscape has experienced agricultural diversity and major shifts in land use. Farmers in the region have successfully raised new commodities from dairy and cherries to mint and sugar beets. The region has also been a place where community leaders fought to improve their economic and social well-being, women redefined their roles on the farm, and minorities asserted their own version of the American Dream. The rural Midwest is a regional melting pot, and contributors to this volume do not set out to sing its praises or, by contrast, assume the position of Midwestern modesty and self-deprecation. The essays herein rewrite the narrative of rural decline and crisis, and show through solid research and impeccable scholarship that rural Midwesterners have confronted and created challenges uniquely their own.

The Rural Midwest Since World War II
The Rural Midwest Since World War II

Author: J. L. Anderson

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2014-02-01

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 160909090X

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J.L. Anderson seeks to change the belief that the Midwest lacks the kind of geographic coherence, historical issues, and cultural touchstones that have informed regional identity in the American South, West, and Northeast. The goal of this illuminating volume is to demonstrate uniqueness in a region that has always been amorphous and is increasingly so. Midwesterners are a dynamic people who shaped the physical and social landscapes of the great midsection of the nation, and they are presented as such in this volume that offers a general yet informed overview of the region after World War II. The contributors—most of whom are Midwesterners by birth or residence—seek to better understand a particular piece of rural America, a place too often caricatured, misunderstood, and ignored. However, the rural landscape has experienced agricultural diversity and major shifts in land use. Farmers in the region have successfully raised new commodities from dairy and cherries to mint and sugar beets. The region has also been a place where community leaders fought to improve their economic and social well-being, women redefined their roles on the farm, and minorities asserted their own version of the American Dream. The rural Midwest is a regional melting pot, and contributors to this volume do not set out to sing its praises or, by contrast, assume the position of Midwestern modesty and self-deprecation. The essays herein rewrite the narrative of rural decline and crisis, and show through solid research and impeccable scholarship that rural Midwesterners have confronted and created challenges uniquely their own.

The Rural West Since World War II
The Rural West Since World War II

Author: R. Douglas Hurt

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780700608775

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Overviews changes in the rural West since WWII to show that agriculture, rural life, and agrarian politics have been inextricably linked to the economy and culture of the region even though the modern West has been disproportionately urban in population and city-driven in relation to economic, social, and political developments since 1945. The West is defined as the agricultural, small-town, and reservation West in Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast states. Themes include the cattle industry, migrant labor, water policy, environmentalism, women ranchers, and agribusiness. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Finding a New Midwestern History
Finding a New Midwestern History

Author: Jon K. Lauck

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2018-11

Total Pages: 494

ISBN-13: 149620879X

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In comparison to such regions as the South, the far West, and New England, the Midwest and its culture have been neglected both by scholars and by the popular press. Historians as well as literary and art critics tend not to examine the Midwest in depth in their academic work. And in the popular imagination, the Midwest has never really ascended to the level of the proud, literary South; the cultured, democratic Northeast; or the hip, innovative West Coast. Finding a New Midwestern History revives and identifies anew the Midwest as a field of study by promoting a diversity of viewpoints and lending legitimacy to a more in-depth, rigorous scholarly assessment of a large region of the United States that has largely been overlooked by scholars. The essays discuss facets of midwestern life worth examining more deeply, including history, religion, geography, art, race, culture, and politics, and are written by well-known scholars in the field such as Michael Allen, Jon Butler, and Nicole Etcheson.

Thunder from the Prairie
Thunder from the Prairie

Author: Jerry Harrington

Publisher: University Press of Kansas

Published: 2023-08-15

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 070063469X

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In Thunder from the Prairie, Jerry Harrington explores the life of Harold E. Hughes: a man of working-class origins who overcame severe alcoholism to become Iowa governor (1963–1969) and US Senator (1969–1974). As a Democratic governor in traditionally Republican Iowa, Hughes, through his charismatic leadership, helped transform Iowa into a competitive two-party state while modernizing state government to make it more responsive to the contemporary needs of its citizens. Hughes was an outspoken leader against the Vietnam War and the American military as senator, and he exposed covert operations such as the illegal bombings of North Vietnam and Cambodia. Relying upon his experience with alcoholism that nearly cost him his life, Senator Hughes spearheaded the creation of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which was founded on the principle that alcoholism is a disease, not a personal moral failure. Hughes’s moral compass was guided by his Christian beliefs, steering him to politics left of center. In this way, Hughes was distinctive among other openly Christian politicians of his day, whose theology manifested in conservative politics. Jerry Harrington’s detailed Thunder from the Prairie is the first book-length treatment of Harold E. Hughes. The work fills major gaps in the history of Iowa and Midwestern political history, as well as the history of the “Long Sixties” (from the late 1950s to the early 1970s). Hughes was an impactful actor within the rise of postwar American liberalism, the conflict over the Vietnam War, and the civil rights movement, and led the effort to reform the Democratic Party to make it more open to women, minorities, and young people.

The Routledge History of Rural America
The Routledge History of Rural America

Author: Pamela Riney-Kehrberg

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 1135054983

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The Routledge History of Rural America charts the course of rural life in the United States, raising questions about what makes a place rural and how rural places have shaped the history of the nation. Bringing together leading scholars to analyze a wide array of themes in rural history and culture, this text is a state-of-the-art resource for students, scholars, and educators at all levels. This Routledge History provides a regional context for understanding change in rural communities across America and examines a number of areas where the history of rural people has deviated from the American mainstream. Readers will come away with an enhanced understanding of the interplay between urban and rural areas, a knowledge of the regional differences within the rural United States, and an awareness of the importance of agriculture and rural life to American society. The book is divided into four main sections: regions of rural America, rural lives in context, change and development, and resources for scholars and teachers. Examining the essays on the regions of rural America, readers can discover what makes New England different from the South, and why the Midwest and Mountain West are quite different places. The chapters on rural lives provide an entrée into the social and cultural history of rural peoples – women, children and men – as well as a description of some of the forces shaping rural communities, such as immigration, race and religious difference. Chapters on change and development examine the forces molding the countryside, such as rural-urban tensions, technological change and increasing globalization. The final section will help scholars and educators integrate rural history into their research, writing, and classrooms. By breaking the field of rural history into so many pieces, this volume adds depth and complexity to the history of the United States, shedding light on an understudied aspect of the American mythology and beliefs about the American dream.

The Heartland
The Heartland

Author: Kristin L. Hoganson

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2020-04-21

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 0525561633

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A history of a quintessentially American place--the rural and small town heartland--that uncovers deep yet hidden currents of connection with the world. When Kristin L. Hoganson arrived in Champaign, Illinois, after teaching at Harvard, studying at Yale, and living in the D.C. metro area with various stints overseas, she expected to find her new home, well, isolated. Even provincial. After all, she had landed in the American heartland, a place where the nation's identity exists in its pristine form. Or so we have been taught to believe. Struck by the gap between reputation and reality, she determined to get to the bottom of history and myth. The deeper she dug into the making of the modern heartland, the wider her story became as she realized that she'd uncovered an unheralded crossroads of people, commerce, and ideas. But the really interesting thing, Hoganson found, was that over the course of American history, even as the region's connections with the rest of the planet became increasingly dense and intricate, the idea of the rural Midwest as a steadfast heartland became a stronger and more stubbornly immovable myth. In enshrining a symbolic heart, the American people have repressed the kinds of stories that Hoganson tells, of sweeping breadth and depth and soul. In The Heartland, Kristin L. Hoganson drills deep into the center of the country, only to find a global story in the resulting core sample. Deftly navigating the disconnect between history and myth, she tracks both the backstory of this region and the evolution of the idea of an unalloyed heart at the center of the land. A provocative and highly original work of historical scholarship, The Heartland speaks volumes about pressing preoccupations, among them identity and community, immigration and trade, and security and global power. And food. To read it is to be inoculated against using the word "heartland" unironically ever again.

1940: Journal of a Midwestern Town, Story of an Era
1940: Journal of a Midwestern Town, Story of an Era

Author: Dana Yost

Publisher:

Published: 2017-01-27

Total Pages: 668

ISBN-13: 9781541261525

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Called a "tour de force" by historian Joseph Amato, the book is a history of the rural Midwest in 1940, a pivotal year in history between the Great Depression and World War II. Local, regional and national history - told through the perspective of a small Minnesota town and its people. The book is, in Amato's words, "Truly alive to one place during one year. Many people, classes and cultures, amply and intelligently unified....proving one place is many places, one time joins many lives and times. History here benefits from a journalist."

Struggling with Iowa's Pride
Struggling with Iowa's Pride

Author: Wilson J. Warren

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 2000-05

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 9781609380311

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aRecognized between 1880 and 1910 by its trademark label Iowa's Pride, John Morrell and Company is best known for contributing one of the most important local unions to the progressive United Packinghouse Workers of America. During the 1930s and 1940s, its members pursued a militant brand of unionism. By the early 1950s, the local's militancy became a source of contention among the membership. By explaining the effect of Morrell-Ottumwa's union leaders on local and state Democratic politics, especially in the development of the Congress of Industrial Organizations' Iowa State Industrial Union Council and the AFL-CIO's Iowa Federation of Labor, Wilson Warren makes an important contribution to the literature on labor's involvement in the Democratic party's ascendancy across much of the industrial North following World War II. This history of Ottumwa's meatpacking workers provides insights into the development of several forms of labor relations, including the evangelical Christian paternalism, welfare capitalism, and unionism that were distinctive to one blue-collar community but that also reflected workers' experiences in many other rural midwestern industrial communities. By carefully analyzing all relevant labor and industrial sources and by revealing the deeply held aspirations and concerns expressed by both workers and managers, Warren constructs a window through which Iowa's industrial and labor history over the past 120 years can be viewed."

US Economic History Since 1945
US Economic History Since 1945

Author: Michael French

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9780719041853

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Since 1945 the US economy has evolved from an expanding consumer society in which affluence was more widely distributed than ever before. Mike French's volume examines the principal economic developments and social changes in the US since 1945, including those in business, regional dynamics, protest movements, and population distribution. Social movements based on the civil rights demands of African-Americans, ethnic minorities, and women are also examined. The elements of continuity to pre-1945 trends and the points of departure, notably in the post-1970 period, are discussed to provide a more complete examination than previously available.