European exploration and early settlement The Middle Ground theory The theory of the middle ground was introduced in Richard White's seminal work:
The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 originally published in 1991. White defines the middle ground like so: White specifically designates "the lands bordering the rivers flowing into the northern Great Lakes and the lands south of the lakes to the Ohio" as the location of the middle ground. This includes the modern Midwestern states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan as well as parts of Canada. The middle ground was formed on the foundations of mutual accommodation and common meanings established between the French and the Indians that then transformed and degraded as both were steadily lost as the French ceded their influence in the region in the aftermath of
their defeat in the
Seven Years' War and the
Louisiana Purchase. Major aspects of the middle ground include blended culture, the
fur trade, Native alliances with both the French and British, conflicts and treaties with the United States both
during the Revolutionary War and
after, and its ultimate clearing/erasure throughout the nineteenth century.
New France European settlement of the area began in the 17th century following French exploration of the region and became known as
New France, including the
Illinois Country. The French period began with the exploration of the
Saint Lawrence River by
Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with their cessation of the majority of their holdings in North America to the
Kingdom of Great Britain in the
Treaty of Paris (1763).
Mapping of the Mississippi River In 1673 the
Governor of New France sent
Jacques Marquette, a Catholic priest and missionary, and
Louis Jolliet, a
fur trader, to map the way to the Northwest Passage to the Pacific. They traveled through Michigan's upper peninsula to the northern tip of Lake Michigan. On canoes, they crossed the massive lake and landed at present-day
Green Bay, Wisconsin. They entered the Mississippi River on 17 June 1673. Marquette and Jolliet were the first to map the northern portion of the Mississippi River. They confirmed that it was easy to travel from the St. Lawrence River through the Great Lakes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico by water, that the native peoples who lived along the route were generally friendly, and that the natural resources of the lands in between were extraordinary. New France officials led by LaSalle followed up and erected a network of fur trading posts.
Fur trade The
fur trade was an integral part of early European and Indian relations. It was the foundation upon which their interactions were built and was a system that would evolve over time. Goods often traded included guns, clothing, blankets, strouds, cloth, tobacco, silver, and alcohol.
France in 1741 to the French mission at
Kaskaskia, Illinois. It was later called the "Liberty Bell of the West", after it was rung to celebrate U.S. victory in the Revolution The French and Indian exchange of goods was called an exchange of gifts rather than a trade. These gifts held greater meaning to the relationship between the two than a simple economic exchange because the trade itself was inseparable from the social relations it fostered and the alliance it created. In the meshed French and Algonquian system of trade, the
Algonquian familial metaphor of a father and his children shaped the political relationship between the French and the Natives in this region. The French, regarded as the metaphoric father, were expected to provide for the needs of the Algonquians and, in return, the Algonquians, the metaphoric children, would be obligated to assist and obey them. Traders (
voyageurs,
coureur des bois) coming into Indian villages facilitated this system of symbolic exchange to establish or maintain alliances and friendships. Marriage also became an important aspect of the trade in both the Ohio River valley and the French ''
pays d'en haut'' with the temporary closing of the French fur trade from 1690 to 1716 and beyond. French fur traders were forced to abandon most posts and those remaining in the region became illegal traders who potentially sought these marriages to secure their safety. Another benefit for French traders marrying Indian women was that the Indian women were in charge of the processing of the pelts necessary to the fur trade. Women were integral to the fur trade and their contributions were lauded, so much so that the absence of the involvement of an Indian Woman was once cited as the cause for a trader's failure. When the French fur trade re-opened in 1716 upon the discovery that their overstock of pelts had been ruined, legal French traders continued to marry Indian women and remain in their villages. With the growing influence of women in the fur trade also came the increasing demand of cloth which very quickly grew to be the most desired trade good.
Britain English traders entered the Ohio country as a serious competitor to the French in the fur trade around the 1690s. English (and later British) traders almost consistently offered the Indians better goods and better rates than the French, with the Indians being able to play that to their advantage, thrusting the French and the British into competition with each other to their own benefit. The Indian demand for certain kinds of cloth in particular fueled this competition. This, however, changed following the
Seven Years' War with
Britain's victory over France and the cession of New France to
Great Britain. The British attempted to establish a more assertive relationship with the Indians of the ''pays d'en haut'', eliminating the practise of gift giving which they now saw as unnecessary. Following the conflict, the British government was forced to compromise and loosely re-created a trade system that was an echo of the French one.
American settlement While French control ended in 1763 after their defeat in the Seven Years' War, most of the several hundred French settlers in small villages along the
Mississippi River and its tributaries remained, and were not disturbed by the new British administration. By the terms of the
Treaty of Paris, Spain was given
Louisiana, the area west of the Mississippi.
St. Louis and
Ste. Genevieve in Missouri were the main towns, but there was little new settlement. France regained Louisiana from Spain in exchange for
Tuscany by the terms of the
Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800. Napoleon had lost interest in re-establishing a
French colonial empire in North America following the
Haitian Revolution and together with the fact that France could not effectively defend
Louisiana from a possible British attack, he sold the territory to the United States in the
Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Meanwhile, the British maintained forts and trading posts in U.S. territory, refusing to give them up until 1796 by the
Jay Treaty. American settlement began either via routes over the Appalachian Mountains or through the waterways of the Great Lakes.
Fort Pitt (now
Pittsburgh) at the source of the
Ohio River became the main base for settlers moving into the Midwest.
Marietta, Ohio in 1787 became the first settlement in Ohio, but not until the defeat of Native American tribes at the
Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 was large-scale settlement possible. Large numbers also came north from Kentucky into southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The region's fertile soil produced
corn and vegetables; most farmers were self-sufficient. They cut trees and claimed the land, then sold it to newcomers and then moved further west to repeat the process.
Squatters 1787 Settlers without legal claims, called "squatters", had been moving into the Midwest for years before 1776. They pushed further and further down the Ohio River during the 1760s and 1770s and sometimes engaged in conflict with the Native Americans. British officials were outraged. These squatters were characterized by British General
Thomas Gage as "too Numerous, too Lawless, and Licentious ever to be restrained", and regarded them as "almost out of Reach of Law and government; Neither the Endeavors of Government, or Fear of Indians has kept them properly within Bounds." The British had a long-standing goal of establishing a
Native American buffer state in the American Midwest to resist American westward expansion. With victory in the American Revolution the new government considered evicting the squatters from areas that were now federally owned public lands. In 1785, soldiers under General
Josiah Harmar were sent into the Ohio country to destroy the crops and burn down the homes of any squatters they found living there. But overall the federal policy was to move Indians to western lands (such as the
Indian Territory in modern Oklahoma) and allow a very large numbers of farmers to replace a small number of hunters. Congress repeatedly debated how to legalize settlements. On the one hand, Whigs such as
Henry Clay wanted the government to get maximum revenue and also wanted stable middle-class law-abiding settlements of the sort that supported towns (and bankers). Jacksonian Democrats such as
Thomas Hart Benton wanted the support of poor farmers, who reproduced rapidly, had little cash, and were eager to acquire cheap land in the West. Democrats did not want a big government, and keeping revenues low helped that cause. Democrats avoided words like "squatter" and regarded "actual settlers" as those who gained title to land, settled on it, and then improved upon it by building a house, clearing the ground, and planting crops. A number of means facilitated the legal settlement of the territories in the Midwest:
land speculation,
federal public land auctions, bounty
land grants in lieu of pay to military veterans, and, later,
preemption rights for squatters. The "squatters" became "pioneers" and were increasingly able to purchase the lands on which they had settled for the minimum price thanks to various preemption acts and laws passed throughout the 1810s-1840s. In Washington, Jacksonian Democrats favored squatter rights while banker-oriented Whigs were opposed; the Democrats prevailed.
Native American wars In 1791, General
Arthur St. Clair became commander of the
United States Army and led a
punitive expedition with two Regular Army regiments and some militia. Near modern-day
Fort Recovery, his force advanced to the location of Native American settlements near the headwaters of the
Wabash River, but on November 4 they were routed in battle by a tribal confederation led by
Miami Chief
Little Turtle and Shawnee chief
Blue Jacket. More than 600 soldiers and scores of women and children were killed in the battle, which has since borne the name "
St. Clair's Defeat". It remains the greatest defeat of a U.S. Army by Native Americans. The British demanded the establishment of a
Native American barrier state at the
Treaty of Ghent which ended the
War of 1812, but American negotiators rejected the idea because Britain had lost control of the region in the
Battle of Lake Erie and the
Battle of the Thames in 1813, where
Tecumseh was killed by U.S. forces. The British then abandoned their Native American allies south of the lakes. The Native Americans ended being the main losers in the
War of 1812. Apart from the short
Black Hawk War of 1832, the days of Native American warfare east of the Mississippi River had ended.
Lewis and Clark 1803 In 1803, President
Thomas Jefferson commissioned the
Lewis and Clark Expedition that took place between May 1804 and September 1806. Launching from
Camp Dubois in
Illinois, the goal was to explore the
Louisiana Purchase, and establish trade and U.S. sovereignty over the native peoples along the
Missouri River. The Lewis and Clark Expedition established relations with more than two dozen indigenous nations west of the Missouri River. The Expedition returned east to
St. Louis in the spring of 1806.
Party politics in
Ripon, Wisconsin on March 20, 1854. The Midwest has been a key swing district in national elections, with highly contested elections in closely divided states often deciding the national result. From 1860 to 1920, both parties tried to find their presidential and vice presidential candidates from the region. One of the two major political parties in the United States, the
Republican Party, originated in the Midwest in the 1850s;
Ripon, Wisconsin, had the first local meeting while
Jackson, Michigan, had the first statewide meeting of the new party. Its membership included many
Yankees out of New England and New York who had settled the upper Midwest. The party opposed the expansion of slavery and stressed the Protestant ideals of thrift, a hard work ethic, self-reliance, democratic decision making, and religious tolerance. In the early 1890s, the wheat-growing regions were strongholds of the short-lived
Populist movement in the Plains states. Starting in the 1890s, the middle class urban
Progressive movement became influential in the region (as it was in other regions), with Wisconsin a major center. Under the
La Follettes, Wisconsin fought against the Republican bosses and for efficiency, modernization, and the use of experts to solve social, economic, and political problems. Theodore Roosevelt's
1912 Progressive Party had the best showing in this region, carrying the states of Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota. In 1924, La Follette, Sr.'s
1924 Progressive Party did well in the region, but carried only his home base of Wisconsin. The Midwest—especially the areas west of Chicago—has always been a stronghold of
isolationism, a belief that America should not involve itself in foreign entanglements. This position was largely based on the many
German American and
Swedish-American communities. Isolationist leaders included the La Follettes, Ohio's
Robert A. Taft, and
Colonel Robert McCormick, publisher of the
Chicago Tribune.
Yankees and ethnocultural politics near
Rome, Ohio Yankee settlers from New England started arriving in Ohio before 1800, and spread throughout the northern half of the Midwest. Most of them started as farmers, but later the larger proportion moved to towns and cities as entrepreneurs, businessmen, and urban professionals. Since its beginnings in the 1830s, Chicago has grown to dominate the Midwestern metropolis landscape for over a century. Historian John Bunker has examined the worldview of the Yankee settlers in the Midwest: Because they arrived first and had a strong sense of community and mission, Yankees were able to transplant New England institutions, values, and mores, altered only by the conditions of frontier life. They established a public culture that emphasized the work ethic, the sanctity of private property, individual responsibility, faith in residential and social mobility, practicality, piety, public order and decorum, reverence for public education, activists, honest and frugal government, town meeting democracy, and he believed that there was a public interest that transcends particular and stick ambitions. Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin, air, and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior....This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of the
Forty-Eighters. Midwestern politics pitted Yankees against the German Catholics and Lutherans, who were often led by the Irish Catholics. These large groups, Buenker argues: Generally subscribed to the work ethic, a strong sense of community, and activist government, but were less committed to economic individualism and privatism and ferociously opposed to government supervision of the personal habits. Southern and eastern European immigrants generally leaned more toward the Germanic view of things, while modernization, industrialization, and urbanization modified nearly everyone's sense of individual economic responsibility and put a premium on organization, political involvement, and education.
Development of transportation Waterways is shared by Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Pictured is
Indiana Dunes National Park in northwest Indiana. Three waterways have been important to the development of the Midwest. The first and foremost was the
Ohio River, which flowed into the
Mississippi River. Development of the region was halted until 1795 by Spain's control of the southern part of the Mississippi and its refusal to allow the shipment of American crops down the river and into the Atlantic Ocean. This was changed with the 1795 signing of
Pinckney's Treaty. The third waterway, the
Missouri River, extended water travel from the Mississippi almost to the Rocky Mountains. In the 1870s and 1880s, the Mississippi River inspired two classic books—
Life on the Mississippi and
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—written by native Missourian Samuel Clemens, who used the pseudonym
Mark Twain. His stories became staples of Midwestern lore. Twain's hometown of
Hannibal, Missouri, is a tourist attraction offering a glimpse into the Midwest of his time. Inland canals in Ohio and Indiana constituted another important waterway, which connected with Great Lakes and Ohio River traffic. The commodities that the Midwest funneled into the
Erie Canal down the Ohio River contributed to the wealth of New York City, which overtook
Boston and
Philadelphia.
Railroads and the automobile in central Nebraska in 1888 During the mid-19th century, the region got its first railroads, and the railroad junction in Chicago became the world's largest. During the century, Chicago became the nation's railroad center. By 1910, over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. Even today, a century after
Henry Ford, six
Class I railroads (
Union Pacific,
BNSF,
Norfolk Southern,
CSX,
Canadian National, and
Canadian Pacific) meet in Chicago. In the period from 1890 to 1930, many Midwestern cities were connected by electric
interurban railroads, similar to streetcars. The Midwest had more interurbans than any other region. In 1916, Ohio led all states with , Indiana followed with . These two states alone had almost a third of the country's interurban trackage. The nation's largest interurban junction was in Indianapolis. During the decade of the early 1900s, that city's 38 percent growth in population was attributed largely to the interurban. Competition with automobiles and buses undermined the interurban and other railroad passenger business. By 1900,
Detroit was the world center of the auto industry, and soon practically every city within was producing auto parts that fed into its giant factories. In 1903, Henry Ford founded the
Ford Motor Company. Ford's manufacturing—and those of automotive pioneers
William C. Durant, the
Dodge brothers,
Packard, and
Walter Chrysler—established Detroit's status in the early 20th century as the world's automotive capital. The proliferation of businesses created a synergy that also encouraged truck manufacturers such as Rapid and
Grabowsky. The growth of the auto industry was reflected by changes in businesses throughout the Midwest and nation, with the development of garages to service vehicles and gas stations, as well as factories for parts and tires. Today, greater Detroit remains home to
General Motors,
Chrysler, and the Ford Motor Company.
American Civil War Slavery prohibition and the Underground Railroad The Northwest Ordinance region, comprising the heart of the Midwest, was the first large region of the United States that prohibited
slavery (the
Northeastern United States emancipated slaves into the 1830s). The regional southern boundary was the Ohio River, the border of freedom and slavery in American history and literature (see ''
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Beloved'' by
Toni Morrison). The Midwest, particularly Ohio, provided the primary routes for the
Underground Railroad, whereby Midwesterners assisted slaves to freedom from their crossing of the Ohio River through their departure on
Lake Erie to Canada. Created in the early 19th century, the Underground Railroad was at its height between 1850 and 1860. One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad consisted of meeting points, secret routes, transportation, and safe houses and assistance provided by abolitionist sympathizers. Individuals were often organized in small, independent groups; this helped to maintain secrecy because individuals knew some connecting "stations" along the route, but knew few details of their immediate area. Escaped slaves would move north along the route from one way station to the next. Although the fugitives sometimes traveled on boat or train, they usually traveled on foot or by wagon. The region was shaped by the relative absence of slavery (except for Missouri), pioneer settlement, education in
one-room free public schools, democratic notions brought by
American Revolutionary War veterans,
Protestant faiths and experimentation, and agricultural wealth transported on the Ohio River
riverboats,
flatboats,
canal boats, and
railroads.
Bleeding Kansas '', in the
Kansas State Capitol The first violent conflicts leading up to the
American Civil War occurred between two neighboring Midwestern states, Kansas and Missouri, involving
anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "
Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the
Kansas Territory and the western frontier towns of Missouri roughly between 1854 and 1858. At the heart of the conflict was the question of whether Kansas would enter the
Union as a free state or slave state. As such,
Bleeding Kansas was a
proxy war between
Northerners and
Southerners over the issue of
slavery. The term "Bleeding Kansas" was coined by
Horace Greeley of the
New-York Tribune. The immediate cause of the events was the
Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. The Act created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opened new lands that would help settlement in them, repealed the
Missouri Compromise, and allowed settlers in those territories to determine through
popular sovereignty whether to allow slavery within their boundaries. It was hoped the Act would ease relations between the North and the South, because the South could expand slavery to new territories, but the North still had the right to abolish slavery in its states. Instead, opponents denounced the law as a concession to the
slave power of the South. routes An ostensibly
democratic idea, popular sovereignty stated that the inhabitants of each territory or state should decide whether it would be a free or slave state; however, this resulted in immigration
en masse to Kansas by activists from both sides. At one point, Kansas had two separate governments, each with its own constitution, although only one was federally recognized. On January 29, 1861, Kansas was admitted to the
Union as a free state, less than three months before the
Battle of Fort Sumter officially began the Civil War. On May 21, 1856, the
Free Soil town of
Lawrence, Kansas, was sacked by an armed pro-slavery force from Missouri. A few days later, the
Sacking of Lawrence led
abolitionist John Brown and six of his followers to execute five men along the
Pottawatomie Creek in
Franklin County, Kansas, in retaliation. The so-called "Border War" lasted from May through October between armed bands of pro-slavery and Free Soil men. The U.S. Army had two garrisons in Kansas, the First Cavalry Regiment at
Fort Leavenworth and the
Second Dragoons and Sixth Infantry at
Fort Riley. The skirmishes endured until a new governor, John W. Geary, managed to prevail upon the Missourians to return home in late 1856. National reaction to the events in Kansas demonstrated how deeply divided the country had become. The Border Ruffians were widely applauded in the South, even though their actions had cost the lives of numerous people. In the North, the murders committed by Brown and his followers were ignored by most, and lauded by a few. The election of
Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 was the final trigger for
secession by the Southern states. The U.S. federal government was supported by 20 mostly-Northern free states in which slavery already had been abolished, and by five slave states that became known as the
border states. All of the Midwestern states but one, Missouri, banned slavery. Though most battles were fought in the South, skirmishes between Kansas and Missouri continued until culmination with the
Lawrence Massacre on August 21, 1863, in which
Quantrill's Raiders raided and plundered Lawrence, killing more than 150 and burning all the business buildings and most of the dwellings.
Immigration and industrialization refinery was opened in
Cleveland by businessman
John D. Rockefeller. in Michigan's
Copper Country, 1905 By the time of the
American Civil War, European
immigrants bypassed the
East Coast of the United States to settle directly in the interior:
German immigrants to Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri;
Irish immigrants to port cities on the Great Lakes, like Cleveland and Chicago;
Danes,
Czechs,
Swedes, and
Norwegians to Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the
Dakotas; and
Finns to
Upper Michigan and northern/central Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Poles,
Hungarians, and Jews settled in Midwestern cities. The U.S. was predominantly rural at the time of the Civil War. The Midwest was no exception, dotted with small farms all across the region. The late 19th century saw
industrialization,
immigration, and
urbanization that fed the
Industrial Revolution, and the heart of industrial domination and innovation was in the
Great Lakes states of the Midwest, which only began its slow decline by the late 20th century. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and
immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. In addition to manufacturing, printing, publishing, and food processing also play major roles in the Midwest's largest economy. Chicago was the base of commercial operations for industrialists
John Crerar,
John Whitfield Bunn,
Richard Teller Crane,
Marshall Field,
John Farwell,
Julius Rosenwald, and many other commercial visionaries who laid the foundation for Midwestern and global industry. Meanwhile,
John D. Rockefeller, creator of the
Standard Oil Company, made his billions in Cleveland. At one point during the late 19th century, Cleveland was home to more than 50% of the world's millionaires, many living on the famous
Millionaire's Row on Euclid Avenue. In the 20th century,
African American migration from the
Southern United States into the Midwestern states changed Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Detroit, Omaha, Minneapolis, and many other cities in the Midwest, as factories and schools enticed families by the thousands to new opportunities. Chicago alone gained hundreds of thousands of black citizens from the
Great Migration and the
Second Great Migration. The
Gateway Arch monument in St. Louis, clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a flattened
catenary arch, is the tallest man-made monument in the United States, and the world's tallest arch. The Midwestern cities of
Milwaukee,
Cincinnati,
St. Louis, and
Chicago were favored destinations of German immigrants. By 1900, the populations of the cities of
Cleveland, Milwaukee,
Hoboken, and Cincinnati were all more than 40 percent German American.
Dubuque and
Davenport, Iowa, had even larger proportions; in
Omaha, Nebraska, the proportion of German Americans was 57 percent in 1910. In many other cities of the Midwest, such as
Fort Wayne, Indiana, German Americans were at least 30 percent of the population. Many concentrations acquired distinctive names suggesting their heritage, such as the "
Over-the-Rhine" district in Cincinnati and "
German Village" in
Columbus, Ohio. A favorite destination was Milwaukee, known as "the German Athens". Radical Germans trained in politics in the old country dominated the city's
Socialists. Skilled workers dominated many crafts, while entrepreneurs created the brewing industry; the most famous brands included
Pabst,
Schlitz,
Miller, and
Blatz. While half of German immigrants settled in cities, the other half established farms in the Midwest. From Ohio to the Plains states, a heavy presence persists in rural areas into the 21st century. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, German Americans showed a high interest in becoming farmers, and keeping their children and grandchildren on the land. Western railroads, with large land grants available to attract farmers, set up agencies in
Hamburg and other German cities, promising cheap transportation, and sales of farmland on easy terms. For example, the
Santa Fe Railroad hired its own commissioner for immigration, and sold over to German-speaking farmers.
Politics 1860s–1920s The Midwest was a battleground for political and economic issues after the Civil War, with voters splitting along ethnic and religious lines rather than class. The
temperance,
Greenback, and
populist movements gained attention in the region, with
pietists supporting the Republicans and ritualists backing the Democrats.
Prohibition was a major issue in the Midwest, with both the
Women's Christian Temperance Union and the
Anti-Saloon League originating in the region. The
18th Amendment was ratified by most Midwestern state legislatures, but the Midwest also became a center of resistance to Prohibition, with ethnic, urban Catholic and German Lutheran voters supporting repeal while native-born, rural pietistic Protestant Midwesterners opposed it.
Women The presence of women in the Midwest public stage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries aligned with the growing movements for women's rights and prohibition. Women's activism was often presented as an extension of their domestic cleaning role. Activists at the local and state level used the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union's crusade against alcohol, as a way to push for the right to vote. Midwestern states began allowing women to vote before the
19th Amendment was passed, and the leader of the campaign for the suffrage amendment was
Carrie Chapman Catt from Iowa. The 1970s feminist movement also had Midwestern roots, with
Betty Friedan from Illinois writing
The Feminine Mystique in 1963. Economic necessity and the desire for a career also drove women to work outside the home, and certain occupations such as teaching and nursing became feminized.
Workers and populists speaking in
Canton, Ohio, in 1918, being arrested for
sedition shortly thereafter The Midwest saw labor unrest and rebellion against the capitalist economic order. Chicago played a large role in the
Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Later, in 1886, labor leaders organized a protest meeting at
Haymarket Square in Chicago in 1886, where a bomb was thrown among police and eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy for murder, an event known as the
Haymarket affair. The
Pullman Strike of 1894 was a shutdown of most rail traffic in the Midwest and West. It turned violent and was broken by federal troops.
Eugene V. Debs, leader of the striking
American Railway Union, went to prison where he converted to Socialism. His version of socialism appealed to some immigrant groups but was too radical for most Midwesterners. Farmers distrusted big business and adopted cooperative arrangements, such as those offered by the
Grange in the 1870s or the
Farmers' Alliance in the 1890s. They wanted cooperatives controlled by farmers to handle farm products, a reduction in rail freight rates, and the coining of silver money to raise prices. The Alliance turned to political action with the creation of the
Populist Party in 1892. It had local success in the wheat belt and silver mining areas. This venture as a third party was short-lived and they fused with the Democrats in 1896 and voted for Democrat
William Jennings Bryan. Leftwing rural politics continued in the 20th century in the Dakotas and Minnesota with the
Farmer–Labor Party 1920s The second
Ku Klux Klan experienced a short surge in the Midwest in the early 1920s, fueled by anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic fears. The KKK in the 1920s was a local membership organization, but its autonomous locals were not coordinated and it had little impact on legislation. Members wanted enforcement of vice laws, especially Prohibition, which many immigrants violated. The Klan reached its peak of visibility in Indiana, where the governor supposedly had connections to the secret group. However, the hundreds of
Indiana Klan chapters collapsed overnight due to a scandal implicating the state leader in the
abduction and murder of a young woman. The Klan represented a conformist impulse. Middletown (actually the city of
Muncie, Indiana) was the base for a
pioneering sociological study conducted by
Robert S. Lynd. The book revealed a powerful business class that promoted civic boosterism, patriotism, and straight-ticket voting, while discouraging political activism and dissent.
Progressive Era The negative effects of industrialization triggered the political movement of progressivism, which aimed to address its negative consequences through social reform and government regulation.
Jane Addams and
Ellen Gates Starr pioneered the settlement house outreach to newly arrived immigrants by establishing
Hull House in Chicago in 1889. Settlement houses provided social services and played an active role in civic life, helping immigrants prepare for naturalization and campaigning for regulation and services from city government. Midwestern mayors—especially
Hazen S. Pingree and
Tom L. Johnson, led early reforms against boss-dominated municipal politics, while
Samuel M. Jones advocated public ownership of local utilities.
Robert M. La Follette, the most famous leader of Midwestern progressivism, began his career by winning election against his state's Republican party in 1900. The machine was temporarily defeated, allowing reformers to launch the "
Wisconsin idea" of expanded democracy. This idea included major reforms such as direct primaries, campaign finance controls, civil service to replace patronage, restrictions on lobbyists, state income and inheritance taxes, child labor restrictions, pure food, and workmen's compensation laws. La Follette promoted government regulation of railroads, public utilities, factories, and banks. Although La Follette lost influence in the national party in 1912, the Wisconsin reforms became a model for progressivism in other states. == Geography ==