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