Here ya go folks. This is copy and pasted from Wikipedia
History of the term "Midwest"
The term "Middle West" originated in the 19th century, followed by "Midwest." The heart of the Midwest is bounded by
Great Lakes and the
Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, the "Old Northwest" (or the "West"), an area that comprised the original
Northwest Territory. This area is now called the "East North Central States" by the United States Census Bureau and the "Great Lakes" region by its inhabitants.
The Northwest Territory was created out of the ceded English (formerly French and Native American) frontier lands under the
Northwest Ordinance by the
Continental Congress just before the
U.S. Constitution was ratified. The Northwest Ordinance prohibited
slavery and
religious discrimination, and promoted
public schools and
private property, but did not apply after the territories became states. The Northwest Ordinance also specified that the land be surveyed and sold in the rectangular grids of the
Public Land Survey System, which was first used in Ohio. The effect of this grid system can be seen throughout the Midwest in such things as county shapes and road networks.
In contrast, land in
Kentucky and
Tennessee was surveyed and sold using. As
Revolutionary War soldiers were awarded lands in Ohio and migrated there and to other Midwestern states with other pioneers, the area became the first thoroughly "American" region.
Frederick Jackson Turner celebrated its
frontier for shaping the national character of
individualism and
democracy.
The
Midwest region today sometimes refers not only to states created from the
Northwest Ordinance, but also may include states between the
Appalachian Mountains and the
Rocky Mountains and north of the
Ohio River. In all, 12 states are covered by
The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia(2006).
The term "West" was applied to the region in the early years of the country. Later, the region west of the Appalachians was divided into the
Far West the West, and the
Middle West. Some parts of the Midwest have also been referred to as
Northwest for historical reasons (for instance, this explains the Minnesota-based
Northwest Airlines as well as
Northwestern University in Illinois), so the current Northwest region of the country is called the
Pacific Northwest to make a clear distinction.
The boundaries of what is considered the Midwest today are somewhat ambiguous. People from across the region consider themselves to be from the Midwest for very different reasons and have varying definitions and perceptions of the Midwest, and use has changed historically, gradually growing westward to include states which formerly were thought of as being the "West." Because the Northwest Territory lay between the East Coast and the then-far-West, the states carved out of it were called the "Northwest" in 1789, and "Middle West" (Middlewest, Middle-West) by 1898.
In the early 19th century, anything west of the Mississippi River was considered the West, and the Midwest was the region west of the Appalachians and east of the Mississippi. In time, some users began to include Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri, and with the settlement of the western prairie, a new term, "Great Plains States," was used for the row of states from North Dakota to Kansas. Later, these states annexed themselves unofficially to the Midwest. Today, the term "Far West" means the West Coast, and people as far west as the prairie sections of Colorado, Wyoming and Montana sometimes identify themselves with the term
Midwest.
Culture
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2004-07-14_2600x1500_chicago_lake_skyline.jpg]
Chicago is the largest city in the Midwest
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image
etroitSkyline.jpg"]
Detroit is the busiest commercial border crossing in
North America.
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image
owntown_indy_from_parking_garage_zoom.JPG"]
Indianapolis is the third largest city in the Midwest
Midwesterners are alternately viewed as open, friendly, and straightforward, or sometimes stereotyped as unsophisticated and stubborn. Factors that probably affected the shaping of Midwest values include the religious heritage of the abolitionist, pro-education Congregationalists to the stalwart Calvinist heritage of the Midwestern Protestants, as well as the agricultural values inculcated by the hardy pioneers who settled the area. The Midwest remains a melting pot of Protestantism and
Calvinism, mistrustful of authority and power.
Roman Catholicism is the largest single religious denomination in the Midwest, varying between 19 and 29% of the state populations.
Baptists compose 14% of the populations of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, up to 22% in Missouri and down to 5% in Minnesota.
Lutherans peak at 22-24% in Wisconsin and Minnesota, reflecting the Scandinavian and German heritage of those states as parodied humorously by
Garrison Keillor in his
Prairie Home Companion.
Pentecostal and
charismatic denominations have few adherents in the Midwest, ranging between 1 and 7% (although the
Assembly of God began in lower
Missouri .
Judaism and
Islam are each practiced by 1% or less of the population, with higher concentrations in major urban areas, such as,
Indianapolis,
St. Louis,
Minneapolis,
Detroit and
Cleveland . Those with no religious affiliation make up 13-16% of the Midwest's population.
The rural heritage of the land in the Midwest remains widely held, even if industrialization and suburbanization have overtaken the states in the original Northwest Territory. Given the rural, antebellum associations with the Midwest, further rural states like Kansas have become icons of Midwesternism, most directly with the 1939 film
The Wizard of Oz.
Midwestern politics tends to be cautious, but the caution is sometimes peppered with protest, especially in minority communities or those associated with agrarian, labor or populist roots. This was especially true in the early 20th century when
Milwaukee was a hub of the
socialist movement in the United States, electing three socialist mayors and the only socialist congressional representative (
Victor Berger) during that time. The metropolis-strewn Great Lakes region tends to be the most liberal area of the Midwest, and liberal presence diminishes gradually as you move south and west from that region into the less-populated rural areas. The Great Lakes region has spawned people such as the
La Follette political family, labor leader and five-time Socialist Party of America presidential candidate
Eugene Debs, and Communist Party leader
Gus Hall. Minnesota in particular has produced liberal national politicians
Paul Wellstone,
Walter Mondale,
Eugene McCarthy, and
Hubert Humphrey as well as protest musician
Bob Dylan.
Because of 20th century
African American migration from the South, a large African American urban population lives in most of the regions' major cities, although the concentration is not generally as large as that of the
Southern United States. The combination of
industry and
cultures,
Jazz,
Blues, and
Rock and Roll, led to an outpouring of musical creativity in the 20th century in the Midwest, including new music like the
Motown Sound and
technofrom
Detroit and
house music & the blues from
Chicago.
Rock and Roll music was first identified as a new genre by a Cleveland radio DJ, and the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is now located in Cleveland. See also
Music of the Midwest Motown,
Detroit, 70s Soul Music, Ohio Players, Kool and The Gang, and
Dayton. Today the population of the Midwest is 65,971,974, or 22.2% of the total population of the United States.
Cultural overlap with neighboring regions
Differences in the definition of the Midwest mainly split between the
Heartland Great Plains on one side, and the
Great Lakes and the
Rust Belt on the other. While some point to the small towns and agricultural communities in Kansas, Iowa, the Dakotas and Nebraska of the
Great Plains as representative of traditional Midwestern lifestyles and values, others would assert that the declining Rust Belt cities of the
Great Lakes, with their histories of 19th- and early-20th century immigration, manufacturing base, and strong Catholic influence, are more representative of the Midwestern experience. Under such a definition, cities as far east as
Buffalo, New York and
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania may be considered Midwestern in nature.
Certain areas of the traditionally defined Midwest are often cited as not being representative of the 'Midwest,' while other areas traditionally outside of the Midwest are often claimed to be part of the Midwest. These claims often embody historical, cultural, economic or demographic arguments for inclusion or exclusion.
Two other important regions,
Appalachia and the Ozark Mountains, overlap with the Midwest, Appalachia in Southern Ohio and the Ozarks in Southern Missouri. The
Ohio River has long been the boundary between North and
South, and between the Midwest and the
Upper South. All the lower Midwestern states, including
Missouri, have a major Southern component, but only Missouri was a
slave state before the Civil War.
In addition, parts of the
Northeastern states have a Midwestern feel.
Western Pennsylvania, which contains the cities of
Erie and
Pittsburgh, shares culture, history, and identity with the "Midwest," but overlaps with
Appalachia as well.
citation needed Buffalo, New York, the western terminus of the
Erie Canal and gateway to the
Great Lakes, also offers a Midwestern orientation, and in most instances its residents identify more readily with the cultures of
ChicagoDetroit than cities on the
Eastern Seaboard. However, residents of Western Pennsylvania and
Western New York rarely, if ever, consider themselves Midwesterners.
The prairie parts of
Montana, Wyoming, and especially
Colorado are sometimes considered part of the Midwest, especially to people in the
Great Plains which are closer to the geographic middle of the country.
citation needed However, such an inclusion would be considered incorrect to most people in the Great Lakes region as many people near the Great Lakes do not even consider the Plains states to be the Midwest, as much of those states are ranchland.
Oklahoma is sometimes thought of as being a Midwestern state, though it is always identified as a
South Central state. Eastern Oklahoma is decidedly "Southern" in its cultural history and its connection to the oil business and other Southern industries, having much in common with nearby
Arkansas and eastern
Texas. However, western and central Oklahoma (excluding the
Oklahoma City area) and the upper
Texas Panhandle (generally the part of Texas north of and including
Amarillo, Texas), by contrast, generally have more in common economically, climatically, and culturally with the states of Kansas and Nebraska and the eastern part of Colorado than with most of the American South or
Southwest.
citation needed These areas may have been under nominal control of the
Confederate States of America but were thinly populated during the Civil War, and were settled largely by people from the Midwest and rely heavily upon ranching and wheat-growing instead of cotton and lumbering for their agricultural production which so clearly mark the American South.
Kentucky is also sometimes considered Midwestern,reflecting its heritage as a border state between the Southeast and Midwest that remained in the Union during the Civil War; however, the state is defined as Southern by the US Census Bureau and many would argue that its culture, especially in rural areas, remains distinctly Southern. Due to significant corn and grain production, much of the state forms part of the American agricultural core, or
Corn Belt, along with states like Illinois, Indiana and Iowa. Several regions along the northern border with the Ohio River, especially in the industrial and urbanized
Louisville and
Northern Kentucky areas, saw significant levels of German immigration in the 19th century, as did most other Midwestern states. Industrial regions in north Kentucky, such as Louisville, have also experienced population and employment declines that have led to their being viewed as part of the
Rust Belt region.
The four
Northern Panhandle counties of
West Virginia could also be considered part of the Midwest, due to their location north of the
Mason-Dixon Line extension (
Wetzel Marshall county border). Also, cities such as
Wheeling and
Weirton have experienced a dramatic population decrease due to their Rust Belt economies; this is in common with the Midwest. The other 51 counties of the state are generally located within the
Upper South region, which is in keeping with the U.S. Census Bureau's definition of all of West Virginia as a
South Atlantic state.
Linguistic characteristics
Main articles: Inland Northern American English, North Central American English, and Yooper dialect
The accents of the region are generally distinct from those of the South and many urban areas of the American Northeast. The accent considered characteristic of most of the Midwest is considered by many to be
"standard" American English. This accent is preferred by many national radio and television broadcasters, who go so far as to actually have potential broadcasters receive training in speaking "Midwestern."
citation needed
This may have started because many prominent broadcast personalities — such as
Walter Cronkite,
Johnny CarsonDavid Letterman,
Tom Brokaw,
John Madden and
Casey Kasem — came from this region and so created this perception. More recently, a
National Geographic magazine article (Nov. 1998) attributed the high number of telemarketing firms in Omaha, Nebraska, due to the "neutral accents" of the area's inhabitants.
However, many Midwestern cities are now undergoing the
Northern Cities Shift away from the perceived standard accent.
In some regions, particularly the farther north into the
Upper Midwest one goes, a definite accent is sometimes detectable, usually reflecting the heritage of the area. For example,
Minnesota, western
Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula have strong
Scandinavian accents, which intensify the farther north one goes. Many parts of western
Michigan have noticeable
Dutch-flavored accent. Many areas close to the Canadian border share similar accent traits as Canadians, sounding extremely similar (most notably pronunciation of words such as "about" as "aboat" in Michigan). This is partly due to the constant flow of citizens between these areas due to close business/commercial ties (Michigan & Ontario in particular).
Also, residents of
Chicago are recognized to have their own distinctive nasal accent (the Chicago bark), with a similar accent occurring in parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, Northern Indiana, Cleveland, and Western New York State. Arguably, this may have been derived from heavy Irish, German, Polish, and Eastern European influences in the Great Lakes Region. The most southern parts of the Midwest, generally south of
U.S. Route 50, show distinctly southern speech patterns.
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Thanks to everyone for the welcome
I have come across Eskimo Joe's. What is it? Is it just a restaurant or something more? Also what's the strip? I assume its something to the degree of the Las Vegas strip but Oklahoma style. (without all the prostitutes and casinos probably). Maybe I'm the only one but I can't wait to get out of high school and live on my own, go to OSU and start college. I've out grown high school and want to get out of Maryland!
