Originally published on January 5, 2023 (Episode 299)
Introduction
“Tell about the Midwest. What’s it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all.”
That, of course, is a playful mangling of Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! that is meant to provoke. The South, in American letters, is haunted, mysterious, and endlessly interesting. The Midwest, by contrast, is the Good Child, too often dismissed as dull and ordinary. But every place, as Jon Lauck would argue, deserves its historians and its stories.
In his book The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, 1800–1900 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2022), Lauck shows that the Midwest was neither marginal nor uninteresting. It was a region of reform, religious ferment, agricultural innovation, and intellectual energy that shaped the broader American story.
About the Guest
Jon Lauck is Professor of History and Political Science at the University of South Dakota, Editor-in-Chief of the Middle West Review, and founding President of the Midwestern History Association. His earlier work includes The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History, which we discussed in his first appearance on Historically Thinking—way back in Episode 13.
For Further Investigation
Jon Lauck, The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, 1800–1900 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2022)
Related conversations:
Oh, Dakota!, with Ben Jones on South Dakota history
What Black Hawk Wore, with Jane Simonsen on Native American history and removal in the Midwest
Black Suffrage, with Paul Escott on Lincoln’s last goal and Reconstruction
💬 Listen & Discuss
Does the Midwest deserve to be seen as “the good country”—a region central to American democracy and reform? Share your reflections in the comments, and share the episode with a Midwesterner or with someone who sneers at “flyover country”.
