American sectional nomenclature is still confused. Once "the West" described the whole region beyond the Alleghanies; but the term has hopelessly lost its definiteness. The rapidity of the spread of settlement has broken down old usage, and as yet no substitute has been generally accepted. The "Middle West" is a term variously used by the public, but for the purpose of the present paper, it will be applied to that region of the United States included in the census reports under the name of the North Central division, comprising the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin (the old "Territory Northwest of the River Ohio"), and their trans-Mississippi sisters of the Louisiana Purchase,—Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. It is an imperial domain. If the greater countries of Central Europe,—France, Germany, Italy, and Austro-Hungary,—were laid down upon this area, the Middle West would still show a margin of spare territory. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Buffalo constitute its gateways to the Eastern States; Kansas City, Omaha, St. Paul-Minneapolis, and Duluth-Superior dominate its western areas; Cincinnati and St. Louis stand on its southern borders; and Chicago reigns at the center. What Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore are to the Atlantic seaboard these cities are to the Middle West. The Great Lakes and the Mississippi, with the Ohio and the Missouri as laterals, constitute the vast water system that binds the Middle West together. It is the economic and political center of the Republic. At one edge is the Populism of the prairies; at the other, the capitalism that is typified in Pittsburgh. Great as are the local differences within the Middle West, it possesses, in its physiography, in the history of its settlement, and in its economic and social life, a unity and interdependence which warrant a study of the area as an entity. Within the limits of this article, treatment of so vast a region, however, can at best afford no more than an outline sketch, in which old and well-known facts must, if possible, be so grouped as to explain the position of the section in American history.
In spite of the difficulties of the task, there is a definite advantage
in so large a view. By fixing our attention too exclusively upon the
artificial boundary lines of the States, we have failed to perceive much
that is significant in the westward development of the United States. For instance, our colonial system did not begin with the Spanish War; the United States has had a colonial history and policy from the beginning of the Republic; but they have been hidden under the phraseology of "interstate migration" and "territorial organization."
The American people have occupied a spacious wilderness; vast
physiographic provinces, each with its own peculiarities, have lain
across the path of this migration, and each has furnished a special
environment for economic and social transformation. It is possible to
underestimate the importance of State lines, but if we direct our gaze
rather to the physiographic province than to the State area, we shall be
able to see some facts in a new light. Then it becomes clear that these
physiographic provinces of America are in some respects comparable to
the countries of Europe, and that each has its own history of occupation
and development. General Francis A. Walker once remarked that "the
course of settlement has called upon our people to occupy territory as
extensive as Switzerland, as England, as Italy, and latterly, as France
or Germany, every ten years." It is this element of vastness in the
achievements of American democracy that gives a peculiar interest to the
conquest and development of the Middle West. The effects of this
conquest and development upon the present United States have been of
fundamental importance.