The following works deal with the cultural, political, economic, military, biographical and geologic history of the Midwestern United States.

Overviews Cayton, Andrew R. L. Midwest and the Nation (1990) Cayton, Andrew R. L. and Susan E. Gray, eds. The Identity of the American Midwest: Essays on Regional History. (2001) Cayton, Andrew R. L. and Peter S. Onuf, eds. The American Midwest: Rethinking the History of an American Nation (1990) Good, David F. "American History through a Midwestern Lens." Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 38.2 (2012): 435+ online; emphasis on economic history Hurt, R. Douglas. The Big Empty: The Great Plains in the Twentieth Century (University of Arizona Press; 2011) 315 pages; the environmental, social, economic, and political history of the region. Lauck, Jon K. "Why the Midwest Matters." The Midwest Quarterly 54.2 (2013): 165+ Nordin, Dennis S., and Roy V. Scott. From Prairie Farmer to Entrepreneur: The Transformation of Midwestern Agriculture. (2005) 356pp. Sisson, Richard, Christian Zacher, and Andrew Cayton, eds. The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (Indiana University Press, 2006), 1916 pp of articles by scholars on all topics covering the 12 states Walker, Kenneth R. A History of the Middle West From the Beginning to 1970 (1972) 552pp the only textbook Wertenbaker, Thomas J. "The Molding of the Middle West." American Historical Review (1948): 223–234. in JSTOR Wishart, David J. ed. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, . complete text online

Historiography Billington, Ray Allen. "From Association to Organization: The OAH in the Bad Old Days." Journal of American History (1978): 75–84. in JSTOR Brown, David S. Beyond the Frontier: The Midwestern Voice in American Historical Writing (2009) Buck, Solon J. "The Progress and Possibilities of Mississippi Valley History," Mississippi Valley Historical Review (1923) 10#1 pp. 5–20 in JSTOR Clark, Thomas D. "Our Roots Flourished in the Valley." Journal of American History (1978): 85–107. in JSTOR Howard, Joseph Kinsey. "New Concepts of Plains History." Montana Magazine of History (1952): 16–23. in JSTOR Kirkendall, Richard S., ed. The Organization of American Historians and the Writing and Teaching of American History (Oxford University Press, 2011) Lauck, Jon K. "The Prairie Historians and the Foundations of Midwestern History." Annals of Iowa (2012) 71#2 pp: 137–173. Lauck, Jon K. The Lost Region: Toward a Revival of Midwestern History (University of Iowa Press; 2013) 166 pages; criticizes the neglect of the Midwest in contemporary historiography and argues for a revival of attention excerpt Madison, James H., ed. Heartland: Comparative Histories of the Midwestern States (Indiana UP, 1988) Ross, Earle D. "A Generation of Prairie Historiography." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 33#3 (1946) pp: 391–410. in JSTOR Tyrrell, Ian. "Public at the Creation: Place, Memory, and Historical Practice in the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, 1907-1950," Journal of American History (2007) 94#1 pp. 19–46 in JSTOR

Before 1783 Fisher, James. "A Forgotten Hero Remembered, Revered, and Revised: The Legacy and Ordeal of George Rogers Clark." Indiana Magazine of History (1996): 109–132. online Pauketat, Timothy R. Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi (2009) White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes region, 1650-1815 (1991)

Frontier Era: 1783-1850 Barnhart, John D. Valley of Democracy: The Frontier versus the Plantation in the Ohio Valley, 1775-1818 (1953) Billington, Ray Allen, and Martin Ridge. Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier (5th ed. 2001); 892 pp; textbook with 160pp of detailed annotated bibliographies Buley, R. Carlyle. The Old Northwest: Pioneer Period 1815–1840 2 vol (1951), Pulitzer Prize Etcheson, Nicole. Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era (2006) Lamar, Howard, ed. The New Encyclopedia of the American West (1998); this is a revised version of Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West ed. by Howard Lamar (1977) Larson, John Lauritz. "Teaching the West in the Early American Republic: Old Chestnuts and the Fruits of New Research." Magazine of History (2000): 17–20. in JSTOR, historiography Rodriguez, Junius P. ed. The Louisiana Purchase: A Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia (2002) Scheiber, Harry N. ed. The Old Northwest; studies in regional history, 1787-1910 (1969) 16 essays by scholars on economic and social topics Smelser, Marshall. "Tecumseh, Harrison, and the War of 1812," Indiana Magazine of History (March 1969) 65#1 pp 25–44 online Watts, Edward, and David Rachels, eds. The First West: Writing from the American Frontier, 1776-1860 (Oxford University Press, 2002), 960pp; primary sources excerpt and text search Wyman, Mark. The Wisconsin Frontier (2009)

Civil War & Gilded Age Barker, Brett, et al. eds. Union Heartland: The Midwestern Home Front During the Civil War (2013). Gjerde, Jon. Minds of the West: Ethnocultural Evolution in the Rural Middle West, 1830–1917 (1999) excerpt and text search Jensen, Richard J. The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888–96 (University of Chicago Press, 1971) online Jordan, Philip D.Ohio Comes of Age: 1873-1900 Volume 5 (1968) online Kleppner, Paul. The cross of culture : a social analysis of midwestern politics, 1850-1900 (1970) online Nye, Russel B. Midwestern Progressive Politics (1959) Scheiber, Harry N. ed. The Old Northwest; studies in regional history, 1787-1910 (1969) 16 essays by scholars on economic and social topics Thornbrough, Emma Lou. Indiana in the Civil War Era, 1850-1880 (1965); the standard scholarly history

1900 to 1940 Billington, Ray Allen. "The Origins of Middle Western Isolationism," Political Science Quarterly (1945) 60#1, 45–64. in JSTOR Bonnifield, Paul. The Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt, and Depression, (University of New Mexico Press, 1978) Egge, Sara. Woman Suffrage and Citizenship in the Midwest, 1870-1920 (2018). Shannon, Fred A. "The Status of the Midwestern Farmer in 1900" The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. (1950), 37#3 pp: 491–510. in JSTOR

1940 to present Hurt, R. Douglas. The Great Plains during World War II. (U of Nebraska Press, 2008). Pp. 507pp. Wuthnow, Robert. Remaking the Heartland: Middle America since the 1950s (2011) comprehensive survey excerpt

Culture Hutton, Graham. Midwest at Noon (1946), analysis of regional culture Rees, Amanda. The Great Plains Region: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures (2004); architecture, art, fashion, folklore, food, language, literature, music, religion, and sports Shortridge, James R. The Middle West: Its Meaning in American Culture (1989) excerpt and text search Slade, Joseph W. and Judith Lee. The Midwest: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures (2004); architecture, art, fashion, folklore, food, language, literature, music, religion, and sports

Economics

Agriculture

Atack, Jeremy and Fred Bateman. To Their Own Soil: Agriculture in the Antebellum North (Iowa State University Press, 1987)* Grant, Michael Johnston. Down and Out on the Family Farm: Rural Rehabilitation in the Great Plains, 1929-1945, (University of Nebraska Press, (2002) Hart, John Fraser. "Change in the corn belt." Geographical Review (1986) pp: 51–72. online Jones, Robert Leslie. History of Agriculture in Ohio to 1880 (1983) Jones, Robert Leslie. "The Horse and Mule Industry in Ohio to 1865." Mississippi Valley Historical Review (1946): 61–88. in JSTOR Page, Brian and Richard Walker. "From Settlement to Fordism: The Agro-Industrial Revolution in the American Midwest," Economic Geography (1991) 67#4, 281–315. Shannon, Fred A. "The Status of the Midwestern Farmer in 1900" Mississippi Valley Historical Review (1950) 27#3 pp: 491–510. in JSTOR

Industry High, Stephen C. Industrial Sunset: The Making of North America’s Rust Belt, 1969-1984 (2003) Longworth, Richard C. Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism (2008) Meyer, David R. "Midwestern Industrialization and the American Manufacturing Belt in the Nineteenth Century", The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 49, No. 4 (December, 1989) pp. 921–937.in JSTOR Page, Brian and Richard Walker. "From Settlement to Fordism: The Agro-Industrial Revolution in the American Midwest," Economic Geography (1991) 67#4, 281–315.

Labor Boryczka, Raymond, and Lorin Lee Cary. No Strength Without Union: An Illustrated History of Ohio Workers, 1803-1980 Ohio Historical Society, 1982. Critchlow, Donald (ed.). Socialism in the Heartland: The Midwestern Experience, 1900-1925. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986. Feurer, Rosemary. Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 1900-1950. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Higbie, Frank Tobias. Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest, 1880-1930. (2003). Margo, Robert A. "Regional Wage Gaps and the Settlement of the Midwest." Explorations in Economic History (1999) 36#2 pp: 128–143. Nelson, Daniel. Farm and Factory: Workers in the Midwest 1880-1990. (1995) online review Neth, Mary. "Gender and the Family Labor System: Defining Work in the Rural Midwest." Journal of Social History (1994): 563–577. in JSTOR Schob, David E. Hired Hands and Plowboys: Farm labor in the Midwest, 1815-60. (1975). Warren, Wilson J. Struggling with Iowa's Pride: Labor Relations, Unionism, and Politics in the Rural Midwest Since 1877. (2000)

Railroads and transportation

Atack, Jeremy, et al. "Did railroads induce or follow economic growth? Urbanization and Population Growth in the American Midwest, 1850–1860." Social Science History 34.2 (2010): 171–197. online Campbell, Ballard. "The Good Roads Movement in Wisconsin, 1890-1911," Wisconsin Magazine of History 49 (1966): 273–93

Kane, Adam I. The Western River Steamboat (2004) Larson, John Lauritz. Bonds of enterprise: John Murray Forbes and western development in America's railway age (2010). Mercer, Lloyd J. "Land Grants to American Railroads: Social Cost or Social Benefit?" Business History Review (1969) 43#2 pp 134–151 in JSTOR Meyer, Balthasar Henry, and Caroline Elizabeth MacGill. History of Transportation in the United States before 1860 (1917). online White, Richard. Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (2011)

Geography, land and environment Blouet, Brian W. and Frederick C. Luebke, eds. The Great Plains: Environment and Culture (U of Nebraska Press, 1979) Cronon, William. Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (1992), 1850–1900 excerpt and text search Garland, John H. The North American Midwest: A Regional Geography (1955) Hart, John Fraser. "The Middle West." Annals of the Association of American Geographers (1972) 62#2 pp: 258–282. in JSTOR Rohrbough, Malcolm J. The Land Office Business: The Settlement and Administration of American Public Lands, 1789-1837 (1968) Van Atta, John R. Securing the West: Politics, Public Lands, and the Fate of the Old Republic, 1785--1850 (2014)

Politics Buck, Solon J. The Granger Movement: A Study of Agricultural Organization and Its Political, Economic and Social Manifestations, 1870-1880 (1913) online Fenton, James H. Midwest politics (1966), voting patterns by state Jensen, Richard J. The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888–96 (University of Chicago Press, 1971) online Lauck, Jon K. "Trump and The Midwest: The 2016 Presidential Election and The Avenues of Midwestern Historiography" Studies in Midwestern History (2017) vol 3#1 online Lauck, Jon K. and Catherine McNicol Stock, eds. The Conservative Heartland: A Political History of the Postwar American Midwest (UP of Kansas, 2020) online review