| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
The Midwest is a common name for a region of the United States of America. The term originated in the 19th century, along with 'Middle West' and 'Heartland', and referred to generally the same areas and states in the middle of the country. The heart of the Midwest is bounded by the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, the 'Old Northwest' (or the 'West') referring to the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin, which comprised the original Northwest Territory, but are now (somewhat confusingly in this context) called the East North Central States by the United States Census Bureau. The Northwest Territory was created out of the ceded English (formerly French, and of course Indian) frontier lands by the Continental Congress just before the U.S. Constitution was ratified under the Northwest Ordinance. The Northwest Ordinance prohibited slaverySlavery is involuntary servitude, enforced by violence or other, clear forms of coercion. It is sometimes regarded as an expectation associated with other relationships, such as marriage and/or other family relations, military service, or debt relationshi, religious discriminationReligious discrimintation is valuing a person or group lower because of their religion, or treating someone differently because of what they do or don't believe. While many religious and secular authorities nowadays tend to stress that religion is somethi, promoted public schools and private property. As Revolutionary War soldiers from the original colonies were awarded lands in Ohio and migrated there and to other Midwestern states with other pioneers, including many immigrants from central and northern EuropeFor the band of the same name, see Europe (band . Europe is a continent forming the westermost part of the Eurasian supercontinent. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Se, the area became the first thoroughly American region. The Midwest region today refers not only to States created from the Northwest Ordinance, but also may include states between the Appalachian MountainsThe Appalachian Mountains are a system of North American mountains running from Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada to Alabama in the United States, although the northernmost mainland portion ends at the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec. The system is divided into to the Rocky MountainsThe Rocky Mountains often called the Rockies, are a broad mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3000 miles (4800 km) from Mexico, through the continental United States, into Canada and Alaska. The highest peak is M and north of the Ohio River.
Though definitions vary, any definition of the Midwest would include the Northwest Ordinance ' Old Northwest' states and often includes many state that were part of the Louisiana Purchase. The state of the Old Northwest are also known as ' Great Lakes states'. Many of the Louisiana Purchase states are also known as Great Plains states. The Midwest is defined, by the U.S. Census Bureau as these 12 states:
The region's largest city is Chicago, the nation's third largest city, though the cities of Cleveland, Indianapolis, Detroit, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis, are also economically important. Those cities and the farms of Kansas and Iowa loom large in any imaginative description of the Midwestern soul.
Because The Northwest Ordinance region, comprising the heart of the Midwest, was the first large region of the United States which prohibited slavery (the Northeastern states emancipated slaves four decades into the 19th century), the region remains culturally apart from the country and proud of its free pioneer heritage. The regional southern boundary was the Ohio River, the border of freedom and slavery in American history and literature (See: Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe; Beloved, by Toni Morrison).
The region was shaped by freedom from slavery, pioneer spirit, intellectual stimulation in one-room free public schools, and democratic feeling brought with Revolutionary War veterans, Protestant faiths and experimentation, and agricultural wealth disbursed by the Ohio River riverboats , flatboats , canal boats , and railroads. The canals in Ohio and Indiana opened so much of the Midwestern agriculture that it launched the world's greatest population and economic boom foreshadowing later "emerging markets". The commodities that the Midwest funneled into the Erie Canal down the Ohio River led to the great wealth of New York City, which overtook Boston and Philadelphia. New York State would proudly boast of its "Inland empire" — the Midwest — and would become known as the Empire State. The Midwest was predominantly rural at the time of the Civil War, dotted with small farms across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, but industrialization, immigration, and urbanization fed the Industrial Revolution, and the heart of industrial progress became the Great Lakes states of the Midwest. German, Scandinavian, Slavic and African American immigration into the Midwest continued to bolster the population there in the 19th and 20th centuries, though generally the Midwest remains a predominantly diverse, Protestant region, while the Coasts are predominantly Catholic and the South predominantly Southern Baptist.
Midwestern or Heartland influence is felt in Pittsburgh (an old pioneer town), West Virginia (which seceded from Virginia), Louisville (an industrial city on the Ohio River) and, with some irony, in former states where slavery was legal or tolerated before the Civil War, including Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and parts of Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, though most of these cities and states are not truly Midwestern. Parts of Colorado and Utah were settled by Midwestern migrants, and retain some "Heartland feeling", and because of trade ties, the province of Ontario has some cultural affinity to the Midwest. Generally, though, the region is bounded by the Ohio River, through the Great Plains to the Rockies and Canada.
The term West was applied to the region in the early years of the country. During this time, the vast majority of the population lived east of the Appalachian Mountains, but the country's borders stretched west all the way to the Rocky Mountains. Later, the vast region west of the Appalachians was divided into the Far West (now just the West), and the Middle West. Some parts of the Midwest have also been referred to as North West for historical reasons (for instance, this explains the Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines and the former Norwest Bank), so the current Northwest region of the country is called the Pacific Northwest to make a clear distinction.
The Midwest term is used sometimes interchangeably with the Heartland term to refer to "Middle America" and its citizens, "Middle Americans". Heartland states would seem to increasingly include states like Arkansas and Oklahoma, whom Atlanta-based CNN referred as the location of the "tragedy in the Heartland". Because the middle of the country has sometimes lagged the Coasts and Sunbelt states in agriculture and industry, the poverty of Southern border states and the religious character there leads some to include these states, like Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas in a definition of the "Heartland". Many Southerners and Westerners might be included in the "Heartland" definition as well, though strong regional affiliations with the old Confederacy and the Rocky Mountains usually trump those associations.