Writing the midwest: history, literature and regional identity

American Geographical Society

Writing the Midwest: History, Literature, and Regional Identity Author(s): Kent C. Ryden Reviewed work(s): Source: Geographical Review, Vol. 89, No. 4 (Oct., 1999), pp. 511-532 Published by: American Geographical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/216100 . Accessed: 02/08/2012 00:23
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WRITING THE MIDWEST:HISTORY,LITERATURE, AND REGIONALIDENTITY
KENT C. RYDEN
ABSTRACT.

In this articleI discuss the function of history in constructing regional identity and explore the ways in whichthe AmericanMidwest differsfrom other widely recognized regions-New England,the South, and the West-in the kinds of historicalfiguresand narratives that createa regionaldistinctivenessin the eyes of residentsand writers.Whereasother regions tend to locate identity in a limited number of well-known figuresand events from the past and to generalizethem to the regionas a whole, in the Midwestmeaningis discerned on a more limited, place-by-placebasis, in terms of more strictly local events and personages.This understandingof a particularkind of historicallybased identity is made especially clear in contemporarynonfiction from the Midwest,which collectivelycreatesa dense mosaic of local meanings in a landscapeconventionallyseen by outsidersas largelyempty of interest and significance.Keywords:Midwest,nonfictionliterature,regionalidentity.

lna personal essay entitled "The Landfill of Memory, the Landscape of the Imagination," C. J.Hribal reflects on the experience of growing up near Hortonville, Wisconsin, the sort of place that instills in its residents
the gnawingknowledgethat you'rein the middle of the middle of nowhere,at least as far as the rest of thecountry'sconcerned.Flyovercountry,as we'reknown to the coasts.Yousay to someone you'refromWisconsinand theireyes glazeover.Oh, yes, they say.Winter.Cheese. MOOOOOO! Repeateda few million times, that sort of gets to your self-esteem.... And even if you never leave the state, you know what they're saying about you. But it's not that so much as the feeling of insignificance that gnaws at you.... Wisconsin is one of thosegirl- or guy-next-door states.Not your first choice to ask out, but if New Yorkis busy,you might think about giving Wisconsin a call. Wisconsin knows it's being called on the rebound, and is goodnatured about it. (Hribal 1992, 107) At the same time, Hribal knows that this nagging insecurity coexists with another, equally powerful kind of knowledge, one that builds up gradually through longtermresidence, through the repeated experience of traveling through the rural landscape both singly and in the company of neighbors. Upon moving to Wisconsin from the Chicago suburbs as a child, Hribal began studying maps of his township because he was aware that "People knew where the rivers oxbowed or spread out close to the roadway, where fog was likely, what houses had gone up on which hills, who had aplace on the river for sheepshead fishing and who didn't. I wanted to know this, too" (1992,96). Hribal gradually achieved this kind of intensely local knowledge, and despite the fact that he left the state as a young man, that he and his friends "wanted to be where nobodyknew us,"over time he came to revalue and revisitboth the Wisconsin landscape and the patterns of life that gave it texture...