The 21st Show

Best of: What does it mean to be in the Midwest?

Produced by Christine Hatfield
 
A view of the Mississippi River looking sound. It's is flanked by a path and apartments on the left and a wooded area on the right, where the trees are turning colors in autumn. A bridge over the river is in the distance.

The Mississippi River in the Quad Cities. Reginald Hardwick/IPM

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In 2023, researchers from the Middle West Review asked 11,000 people from 22 states their perceptions of Midwestern identity.

Almost 94 percent of Illinoisans who responded said yes, they live in the Midwest. But Midwestern identity stretches farther than that. For example, more than half of the people from Wyoming who responded said yes, they too live in the Midwest and consider themselves to be Midwesterners.

GUEST: 

Jon Lauck
Editor-in-chief, Middle West Review
Founding president, Midwestern History Association
Author, The Good Country: A History of the American Midwest, 1800–1900

A version of this conversation originally aired November 9, 2023. Today's show was scheduled to be an interview with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Christopher Swann, but at the last minute he could not make it.