ISSN 2372-5664
eISSN 2372-5672
Volume 11, No. 1 (Fall 2024)
Contents
Introduction: The Contraction of History PhD Programs in the Midwest
Jon K. Lauck
Regional Geography Special Issue
The Geography of a Midwestern Geographer
Christopher R. Laingen
There and Back Again: Regional Geography in the U.S.
Darrell Napton
“Where Have All the Region’s Gone?”
Gregory S. Rose
Regional Geography in a Globalized World
Andrew Husa
The Middle West as a Study in Migration
John C. Hudson
The Tyranny of Nostalgia: Landscape, Place, and Memory in a Midwestern Town
Timothy G. Anderson
The Midwest: Land of the Squares
D.B.H. Lehman
Smoke from Their Fires: Or, Environment and Region in Canada and the Upper Midwest
Hayden L. Nelson
Manufacturing the Motoring Midwest: Automobile Supplier Networks, 1930–1960
Kevin Moskowitz
THE LINE in Midwest USA: Proposing the Linear Spatial Device for Studies of Region
Mary Dahlman Begley
Symposium on Rural Rage
Try That in a Bougie Bookstore: White Rural Rage and the Scapegoating of Rural America
Jeffrey H. Bloodworth
The Fallacy of Rural Rage
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett
Thin Evidence, More Polarization
George Hawley
Existential Threat or a Convenient Scapegoat? Why White Rural Rage Misses the Mark on Rural America
Alee Lockman
Be Very Quiet, We’re Hunting Strawmen
Jon D. Schaff
Hide Your Constitutions, the Rural Whites Are Coming!
Catherine McNicol Stock
Articles
How Much Dutch? Ideological Borderlands of Place and Belonging in Holland, Michigan
Kathryn A. Remlinger, Tristan Kittle, and Alice Pozzobon
“Soldiers are continually advised by letter to desert”: Finding Democratic Voices in the 1863 Campaign to Discourage Civil War Soldiers
Stephen E. Towne
Book Reviews
William C. Pratt, After Populism: The Agrarian Left on the Northern Plains, 1900–1960
Cory Haala
Elizabeth Grennan Browning, Nature’s Laboratory: Environmental Thought and Labor Radicalism in Chicago, 1886–1937
Rosemary Feurer
Marcia Noe, Three Midwestern Playwrights: How Floyd Dell, George Cram Cook, and Susan Glaspell Transformed American Theatre
Rachael Price
Molly P. Rozum, Grasslands Grown: Creating Place on the U.S. Northern Plains and Canadian Prairies
Thomas Richards, Jr.
D. Scott Hartwig, I Dread the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaign
David M. Grabitske
Jon K. Lauck and Gleaves Whitney, eds., North Country: Essays on the Upper Midwest and Regional Identity
Hayden L. Nelson
B. J. Hollars, Wisconsin for Kennedy: The Primary that Launched a Candidate and Changed the Course of History
Jason K. Duncan
Media Reviews
Revisiting Drop Dead Gorgeous (dir. Michael Patrick Jann, 1999): Mockery, Escape, and the Perils of Pageant Politics
Jon Heggestad
Erasing Chicago: A Comparative Analysis of Child’s Play (dir. Tom Holland, 1988) and Child’s Play (dir. Lars Klevberg, 2019)
Alice Tremea
Facades and Smiling Faces in Ordinary People (dir. Robert Redford, 1980)
Michael Young
Reflections
“Plein Air” Imagination on the Middle Border
Noelle Canty
The Crossroads of America: Missourians’ Midwestern Identity
Dianne Mutti Burke
In Search of the Viking Midwest
Alice C. M. Kwok
Artistic Reflections on the Midwest: Julie Blackmon
Anna Cowley, and Elyssa Ford
Reconsidering Nostalgia
Susan J. Matt
T.S. Eliot, Midwesterner
James Matthew Wilson
Population Doldrums and Some Dynamism: The Urban Midwest, 1960–2020
Jon C. Teaford
Lincoln and Grant: Citizens of the Middle West
Andrew Lang
How a Steel Company’s Magazine Covered the Midwest
Robert Loerzel
Seeking “A Much Better Way of Life Out Here”: Opportunity, Community, and the Black Oral Histories of South Dakota
Sam Herley
Counterfactual Communities: Revised Visions of the Midwest in Recent Historical Fiction
Mark Athitakis
Appalachia Nice
Jeff Bilbro
A New Group of Comedians is Reviving “Midwest Comedy”
Christian Schneider
Looking Back Over the Shoulder of Memory: The Fate of Midwestern Regional Literature Over the Past Four Decades
David Pichaske
The American League Centrals’ (Finally) Having a Midwestern Moment
Christopher Vondracek
The Youngstown Sheet & Tube Bulletin: From Company Newsletter to Voice of Doom
Vince Guerrieri
Ohio, the Heart of It All
Daniel R. Birdsong
Pop or Soda: The Roots of My Midwestern Identity
John Kropf
The Midwest and the Roots of Conservatism: A Retrospective Review of Michael Bowen’s The Roots of Modern Conservativism: Dewey, Taft, and the Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party
Sean J. Flynn
Another Shade of Red: A Report from the 2024 Communist Party National Convention
Taylor Dorrell
Reflections on Settler Colonialism
Mary Stockwell
By the Numbers: The New York Times Best Book Ratings
Anesa Miller
Beyond Binaries: The Complexity of Populist Politics in Historical and Contemporary Contexts
Andrew Varsanyi
Statement of Publishing Ethics
The Middle West Review accepts submissions on a rolling basis. We encourage readers to contribute original content that deepens the public’s understanding of the American Midwest in an accessible and thoughtful manner.
Submissions
Articles should run between 8,000-10,000 words and articulate a central thesis about the study of the Midwest. These works should build upon original research or new interpretations of existing sources. Book review essays should run roughly 2,000-2,500 words and discuss multiple books. Non-fiction essays should run roughly 3,000 words. See prior issues of Middle West Review for examples.
All contributions will undergo a process of peer review spearheaded by the Middle West Review editors and executive board.
Submissions will either be accepted for publication outright, returned with a request to “revise and resubmit,” or rejected outright. All submissions will benefit from the comments and revisions of the Middle West Review editors and its editorial reviewers.
Please feel free to submit your materials at any time to MWR@USD.edu. You can also send any questions about submissions and other matters to that address.
Stylistic Guidelines
Detailed guidelines are available here.
Statement of Principles
Middle West Review embraces the principles of open inquiry, free speech, intellectual diversity, and robust debate and discussion and believes they are crucial to the proper functioning of scholarly journals, higher education, and a society where unfettered expression and deliberation are prized ideals. Middle West Review adheres to the longstanding tenet of academic freedom which promotes an open marketplace of ideas among its editors, contributors, and readers. It strives to create a forum that reflects high standards of scholarship and places a premium on facts, logic, and evidence, as well as respecting all viewpoints embracing such standards and that are grounded in the process of critical thinking that has traditionally characterized scholarly endeavors. Middle West Review also welcomes intelligent and well-reasoned creative non-fiction and cultural criticism more generally. Toward these ends, Middle West Review specifically endorses the University of Chicago’s Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression (2015). More broadly, Middle West Review recognizes the importance of creating and sustaining academic and literary outlets in the nation’s far-flung and diverse regions and embraces the goals of regionalists who have sought to resist the dominant centers of cultural production in the nation and to create more platforms in order to foster a diversity of thought and creative enterprises.
Jon K. Lauck, University of South Dakota
Jennifer Stinson, Saginaw Valley State University
Christopher R. Laingen, Eastern Illinois University
Hannah Redder, New York University
David Grabitske, South Dakota State Historical Society
Richard J. Jensen, Montana State University–Billings
Paula Nelson, University of Wisconsin at Platteville
Gregory L. Schneider, Emporia State University
Graduate Student Assistant
Donald Keifert, University of South Dakota
William Barillas, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse
Megan Birk, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
James F. Brooks, University of California–Santa Barbara
Jason Duncan, Aquinas College
Paul Finkelman, Gratz College
Patrick Garry, University of South Dakota
David F. Good, University of Minnesota–Twin Cities
Jeffrey Helgeson, Texas State University
R. Douglas Hurt, Purdue University
Suzzanne Kelley, North Dakota State University Press
Bill Peterson, State Historical Society of North Dakota
Sara A. Kosiba, Kent State University
Gregory S. Rose, The Ohio State University at Marion
Matthew Sanderson, Kansas State University
Andrew Seal, University of New Hampshire
Jeff Wells, Dickinson State University
Jonathan Kasparek, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Adam Ochonicky, University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh
Jon Lauck on the 2024 Presidential Election
Editor Jon Lauck has been a go-to resource person on the topic of Midwestern identity as news outlets report on the impact of two Midwestern Vice Presidential candidates in the 2024 Presidential Election. Read or listen to some of his insights.
Survey Results
Middle West Review has released the results for their survey made in conjunction with Emerson College Polling. Read more here.
This list of peer-reviewed materials features articles on many topics spanning Globalization, Genocide, Religion, Diaspora Communities, and other aspects on the topic of Migration.
Reading List: Willa CatherThis list of peer-reviewed articles & reviews centers on the work of acclaimed author (and UNL alum) Willa Cather. Known for her novels on the pioneer experience, her works are reexamined here through the lens of modern-day academics.
Reading List: Social MediaAs online communities continue to widen their reach, so too does our list of peer-reviewed articles on various subjects including Journalism, Communal Narrative, Activism, Marketing, and Image Rehabilitation.
Reading List: Sports-Related Controversies, Social Issues, and ScandalsThis sprawling list includes peer-reviewed articles on subjects as diverse as the fields of play they revolve around, including Violence in Sports, Gambling & Game Fixing, Drugs & Banned Substances, Mascots & Offensive Imagery, and other controversies.
Reading List: Women's Political Action in the U.S.Resources for use in discussions of women's political activities in the U.S., both contemporary and historical.
