The Midwest has long had cornfields, niceness and plenty of jokes about such by (ahem) coastal types. And now, it also has its own historical association.
The Midwestern History Association, which was officially founded at the recent convention of the Northern Great Plains History Conference in Sioux Falls, S.D., aims to give the region “a stronger voice in the historical profession,” according to a news release. It will hold an annual meeting, award three prizes for scholarship and publish a new journal, the Middle West Review.
“Unlike other regions, the Midwest hasn’t had a journal focused on its history until now,” Jon K. Lauck, a lawyer and historian in Sioux Falls and the group’s first president, said in an email. Mr. Lauck, the author of the recent book “The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History,” added, “We think it’s time for the Midwest to stand up for itself.”
Jon Butler, a retired Yale professor and board member of the new group who lives in Minneapolis, said that the region, with the exception of Chicago, was “as much the flyover zone in history as it is in public culture.” He added: “Or think of it another way: a book for every minor Puritan, Southern military man, and Western cowboy, while Hubert Humphrey gets a footnote.”
In a sense the last major professional group of Midwest historians, the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, was a victim of its own success. That group, founded in 1907 in Lincoln, Neb., gradually broadened its focus. In 1965 it renamed itself the Organization of American Historians, and it remains the leading scholarly group dedicated to American history.