Jon K. Lauck and the Revival of Midwestern History

Few individuals have championed the revival of the field of midwestern history more than Jon K. Lauck. The founding president of the Midwestern History Association, Lauck hosts the Heartland History podcast, and is the general editor of the online journal Studies in Midwestern History, as well as associate editor and book review editor for this journal. He has authored and edited several books on midwestern history, including two works aimed specifically at revitalizing midwestern historiography and that are the subject of this essay.

In The Lost Region, Lauck notes that the Midwest receives less political, cultural, and historiographical attention than other regions of the United States. He admits it is not an easy task “to draw more eyes and ears to the story of the Midwest” (2). Since the early twentieth century there has been strong cultural criticism and hostility for the small town, rural Midwest. Despite the recent efforts of scholars such as Andrew Cayton, James Madison, William Cronon, and David Brown, Lauck laments that larger trends indicate that the Heartland remains understudied. He concludes that “the region has become a foreign country, seldom visited or discussed while serving as a periodic source of exotica, but largely off the main map of American historiography and lost to the main channels of historical inquiry” (7). The Lost Region fills part of Lauck’s long-term goal of restoring the once vibrant field of midwestern history.

Lauck does four things in The Lost Region. In the first chapter, he offers evidence for why the Midwest matters, a question, he argues, that historians must answer in order to make a revival of midwestern history possible. The Midwest is significant, he maintains, “because it helps explain the course of foundational events in North America, the origins of the American Revolution, the political and social foundations of the American republic, the outcome of the Civil War, and the emergence of the United States as a world power that shaped global events.” Furthermore, the region “reveals the evolution of interior resistance to the coastal dominance of politics and culture,” “explains the history of capitalism in the United States,” and provides insight into the history of race in America, with white settlers pushing Native Americans farther westward as the nineteenth century progressed and with many African Americans fleeing the South and moving to the Midwest at the start of the twentieth century (13–14).

Chapter 2 describes the establishment of the field of midwestern history in the early twentieth century through the efforts of a group of historians Lauck calls “Prairie Historians.” These scholars “made a substantial contribution to the historical profession and wrote the foundational histories of the prairie Midwest,” and their work “deserves to be remembered both on its own terms and for what it can do to inspire a revival of midwestern history” (29). Frederick Jackson Turner deviated from historians living and working in the eastern United States when he wrote about the Midwest. The Prairie Historians followed Turner’s lead in the development of midwestern historiography. Their efforts were strengthened by the formation of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association (MVHA) in 1907. Further support came from individuals involved with midwestern state historical societies. The Prairie Historians helped the state historical societies, published their work in the regional historical journal, Mississippi Valley Historical Review (MVHR), and in the journals produced by midwestern state historical societies. The once thriving field of midwestern history formed by the Prairie Historians faded as World War II approached, with the MVHA shedding its midwestern orientation and transitioning into a nationally focused organization and the MVHR becoming the Journal of American History.

The third chapter discusses the contributions of the Prairie Historians and how their work can be used as a framework for revitalizing midwestern history. Lauck points out...