Defenders of 'Midwest' present fresh evidence for its vitality

A discussion about whether Minnesota should ditch the Midwest moniker and re-christen itself as "North" attracted a standing-room-only crowd at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis last month.

It also prompted several champions of the term Midwest to cough politely and say, "Ahem."

They contend that Midwest — and Minnesota's place among the north central reaches of the region — retains a vibrant sense of place and regional identity. As evidence, consider these recent developments:

• There's now a Midwestern History Association, formed by historians during a recent Northern Great Plains History Conference in Sioux Falls, S.D. Organizers say it will promote "the study of the greatly neglected American Midwest."

• The Wisconsin Historical Society Press just published "The Heart of Things: A Midwestern Almanac," by John Hildebrand, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, whose essays "encourage an embrace of the Midwestern identity and sense of place."

• August saw the first issue of Flyover Country, a monthly literary magazine in Kent, Ohio, founded to counter the belief "that the Midwest is a culturally barren farmscape" that's created "what anthropologists and other buzzword enthusiasts call a 'brain drain' of college graduates."

• The Old Northwest Review printed its first issue this fall. The literary journal in Flint, Mich., focuses on writing "that is of, from, and aligned with the culture and aesthetic of the Great Lakes region and the greater Midwest."

"There's definitely something going on, all starting to converge and congeal," said Jon Lauck, who teaches history at the University of South Dakota and is the first president of the Midwestern History Association. "There's a deep human hunger for identity of place. It makes people stronger, more secure, less angst-ridden."

Of course, those who promote that Minnesota and its neighbors recast themselves with a term embracing a northerly bent say that their idea springs from a deep hunger for a more accurate identity than Midwest.

Lauck said that one problem with defining and studying the Midwest is that we tend to follow state boundaries, when they're often more about geography than culture.

For example, the southern reaches of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio have more in common with Dixie than the Midwest. Land west of the Missouri River in the Dakotas is more about ranchers than farmers.

Plus, the Midwest's history generally is less colorful than the East's with its Revolutionary War, the South's with its Civil War or the West's with its Lewis and Clark, cowboys and buffalo.

"I want to be clear, we're not asking for the world," he said, adding with perfectly pitched understatement: "We would just like one professor who, now and then, teaches one class."

The Midwestern History Association supports an academic journal, Middle West Review, published by the University of Nebraska Press. It's the only publication dedicated exclusively to the study of the Midwest as a region, exploring questions of identity, history, geography, society, culture and politics.

To apparently everyone's surprise, the press has had to order a second printing to meet subscription demand. Granted, Lauck said, that brings the press run to 140 copies, "but apparently that's solid for an inaugural issue of an academic journal." (bit.ly/1swW9GE)

The association itself has an e-mail list of more than 450.

Hildebrand wrote about canoeing the Yukon, living on Alaska's North Slope and living on a farm before turning his attention to "The Heart of Things."

Yet it remains "home," which can be a complicated concept.

"It's a tricky notion, this idea of home — and easily mistaken for a pigeonhole," Hildebrand said. "More useful, I think, is the concept of home range, which isn't a single spot on the map, but several spots and all the space in-between."

For him, that's a place that he'll keep calling the Midwest. If the Walker event is a guide, there also may be room for an additional, more northwesterly "home range."

Just don't look for any loud confrontations on the matter.