The Decline of Small Communities

This chapter examines the decline of small communities in the Middle West. In 1980, 76 percent of all the incorporated towns and cities in the Middle West had fewer than 1,500 people. The region's nine states ranked first through ninth nationally (not counting Alaska) in having the highest proportion of small towns this size. These figures indicate that the Middle West was defined by its small communities. The chapter considers the changing size of communities in the Middle West, focusing on how small towns were being affected by and responding to stable or declining populations. It also explores three factors that influenced the trajectory of Middle Western towns: oil, agriculture, and the military. Finally, it discusses the efforts of residents of small communities to keep their towns as livable and attractive as possible.

Recovering from the Great Depression

This chapter examines how the Middle West recovered from the ill effects of the Great Depression. The Great Depression was something Americans hoped they would never experience again. In the rural Midwest, foreclosures and sheriff's auctions were common. The worst drought years devastated the land. Dust storms blew with such intensity that crops failed and machinery broke down. World War II sparked the economy, revived agriculture, and coincided with better weather. However, the war took millions of men and women away from their families, necessitated mandatory rationing, and drove up prices. When it was over, rural communities faced continuing challenges. The chapter considers the case of Smith Center, Kansas, to illustrate the challenges rural communities faced as they overcame the setbacks of the Great Depression and prepared for the era ahead. Recovery from the Great Depression varied across middle America, but many of the dynamics evident in Smith County occurred elsewhere.

Introduction

This book examines the resilience shown by the American Middle West—Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Missouri, North and South Dakota, Arkansas, and Oklahoma—despite going through profound social upheavals during the half century that began in the 1950s. It shows that the Middle West has undergone a strong, positive transformation since the 1950s—a time when many families were still recovering from the Great Depression. The transformation is surprising because it took place in the nation's heartland. The region's economy fared surprisingly well; agribusiness was flourishing; elementary and secondary education was among the best in the nation; the region was known for innovative medical research and biotechnology. The chapter suggests that one precondition for the social change that has happened in the Middle West is the fact that the region largely comprised rich land with vast potential for crops and livestock as well as mineral wealth.

From Towns to Sprawling Suburbs

This chapter examines the growth of sprawling suburbs and exurbs around the Middle West's largest cities. Housing developments on the outskirts of Wichita, Omaha, St. Louis, and a few other cities became increasingly common during World War II and in the 1950s as the farm population declined. As the farm population dwindled, people fleeing the region entirely or gravitating to Dallas and Houston (where new jobs were more abundant) became a more likely scenario. The chapter explains how this reshuffling led to the emptying of farms and small towns and also to the rise of new centers of population, not in the cities but adjacent to them. It also considers how edge cities have become an important feature of social life in the Middle West. It shows that edge cities were not only communities of housing developments and shopping malls, but also the location of the region's growing industrial sector.

Reinventing the Rustic Life

This chapter examines how rustic life was reinvented in the Middle West. In middle America, hicks, hillbillies, and hayseeds drove down the cultural barometer. They spoke in a nasal dialect and perpetuated peculiar locutions, like “crick” and “warsh.” The picture was almost a mirror opposite of the Jeffersonian ideal that saw agrarian life as the taproot of civilization. The heartland was a national embarrassment. Rustics were simpleminded, ignorant, usually boring, and sometimes downright comical. The chapter shows how, between the 1940s and 1960s, heartland residents gained exposure to newer and more positive interpretations of the rustic life. It also considers shifting perceptions of the Wild West in the 1880s by looking at the stories of two Nebraskans: William F. Cody and Polly Spence. Finally, it suggests that the monetary connotation of landownership encourages residents to focus more on the landscape in conjunction with rustic life.

Afterword

This afterword summarizes the book's main findings about the social transformations that the Middle West has experienced since the 1950s. It explains how the decade after World War II presented a multitude of problems for nearly everyone. Roads, electricity, telephone service, and machinery had all been put on hold by the Great Depression and the war. Marginal farmers were unable to make the transition. They did not have the capital to purchase additional land, to mechanize, or to invest in livestock. Ultimately, their failure nevertheless served the region and the nation. Farming became better capitalized and more efficient as a result. The heartland was redefining itself, and the author believes that the Middle West's emphasis on friendliness, hospitality, and native ingenuity owes much to the reinvention of its heritage that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Changing Face of Agribusiness

This chapter examines the changing face of agribusiness in the Middle West. It explains how agribusiness transformed large sections of the Middle West during the last third of the twentieth century and was reshaped as it became part of a global food production and marketing system. The transformation was particularly evident in the region's increasing emphasis on packaged-food production, ranging from frozen dinners for wholesale and retail markets to boxed beef and poultry for fast-food franchises. Commercial feedlots, animal-slaughtering facilities, and poultry-processing and meatpacking plants appeared with increasing frequency in southwest Kansas, western Oklahoma, central and eastern Nebraska, western Iowa, parts of Minnesota and South Dakota, and northwestern Arkansas. The chapter considers why small towns provided an attractive venue for large agriculture-related businesses in the Middle West. It looks at the case of Garden City, Kansas, to illustrate the long-term as well as recent developments in heartland agribusiness.

Here in the Middle

This chapter reflects on the idea of an American heartland now beset with problems and how it intertwines with nostalgic visions of a better past. Both perceptions play well to the insiders who live in declining rural communities and to audiences who have long since pursued more glamorous lifestyles elsewhere. The chapter considers the case of Smith County, situated at the exact geographic middle of the United States: the heart of America's heartland. That America's heartland is a thing of the past is a long-standing refrain in treatments of the region. The reigning motif is nostalgia for a pastoral village-based America. The other common perspective on middle America sees the region as a social problem. The chapter argues that neither nostalgia nor an emphasis on social problems adequately captures the complexity of the social transformations that took place in America's heartland.

Education in Middle America

This chapter focuses on education in middle America. Education fitting the needs and aspirations of its citizens was an important aspect of life in heartland states from the start. Country schools, private academies, public high schools, and colleges were founded in such numbers during the first few decades of the twentieth century that the region came to be known as the “education belt.” After World War II, state and county boards of education launched a massive campaign to improve and consolidate public schools. Officials promoted education, technological improvements, and research as means of advancing their communities and the region. Colleges and universities throughout the Middle West expanded. The chapter considers issues relating to education in the Middle West, including educational attainment, public funds for education, migration, literacy, racism, the quality of rural education, and inequality between wealthier and poorer school districts.