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Book

The good country : a history of the American Midwest, 1800-1900

Author

Jon Lauck

Call Number

  • 977 L3669 (CEN, OSH)

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Publication Information

Norman : University of Oklahoma Press, [2022]

Physical Description

xii, 350 pages : maps ; 24 cm

Summary

"A history of the US Midwest in the nineteenth century, describing and analyzing a rich civic culture that prized education, literature, libraries, and the arts; developed a stable social order grounded in Victorian norms, republican virtue, and Christian teachings; was marred by overt racism but made significant progress toward racial equality; and generally put democratic ideals into practice further than any nation to date"--

Contents

  • The Exceptionalism of the Old Square World
  • "A Free and Unrestricted Mode of Life": Planting Democracy in the Midwest
  • "Moulded for Good": The Growth of a Common Democratic Culture in the Midwest
  • "The Attitude of a Section Itself": The Formation of Midwestern Regional Identity
  • "Also a Seamy Side to Certain Phases of the History of the Valley": Racial Failures and Advances in the Good Country
  • "Nothing Else Quite like It in the World": The Midwest and the Age of Mild Reform
  • Finding Virtue in the Good Country.

Subjects