6 June
Pushing back against the dominance of New England and the South in American historical narratives, the “Prairie Historians” of the first part of the twentieth century pioneered the study of Midwestern history. The states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa were each home to leading researchers and scholars. State historical societies also existed in many of these states. The Indiana Historical Socity was founded in 1830, followed by Wisconsin and Minnesota historical societies in the 1840’s, and the State Historical Society of Iowa in 1857. Historians at the University of Iowa also played important roles in the movement to create a regionalist Midwestern ethos and emphasis on the importance of the Midwest in the history of the United States.
The Prairie Historians tended to support local history, state historical societies, and regional journals that focused on the Midwest. Often devotees of Frederick Jackson Turner, they studied the political and economic development of the region and highlighted themes such as democracy, law, farming, Populism, land and geography, and social history. They tended to bring to the study of history their personal experiences, according to historian Jon Lauck, “often on farms or in small towns in the Midwest, that shaped their views and provided a regionalist ethos that unified their work.”
An important outlet of this ‘twentieth-century movement to advance the cause of studying the history of the Midwest” was the Mississippi Valley Historical Association (MVHA) and its journal, the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, which in 1965 became the Organization of American Historians and the Journal of American History respectively. Formed at a 1907 meeting of representatives of Midwestern historical societies in Lincoln, Nebraska, the MVHA committed itself to “promote historical study and research and to secure cooperation between the historical societies and departments of history of the Mississippi Valley.” The new organization was quickly met with the opposition of the eastern-dominated American Historical Association (AHA), with MVHA leaders arguing that the AHA devalued the history of the Midwest.
Seven years later, in 1914, the Association published the first issue of its quarterly publication, the Mississippi Valley Historical Review. The original editorial board consisted of eight distinguished historians from universities across the United States, especially the Midwest, including Frederic L. Paxson from the University of California, a Pulitzer Prize-winning professor of American History, and Benjamin Shambaugh, an esteemed professor of History at the University of Iowa. The original managing editor was Clarence W. Alvord of the University of Illinois. The first issue was published in June of 1914 and included articles on a variety of subjects, including Mexican-American relations, the history of New England and Northeastern Canada, and a general history of the American people, along with assorted notes, book reviews, comments, and news stories.
Iowa City was home to early meetings of the MVHA, hosted by founding member Benjamin Shambaugh. A native Iowan and a professor in the UI’s Department of Political Science from 1896 until his death in 1940, Shambaugh exemplified the MVHA’s bridging of public and academic history by also serving as the superintendent and editor of the publications of the State Historical Society of Iowa from 1907 to 1940. Shambaugh was president of the MVHA from 1910-1911 and served on the first editorial board of the MVHR in 1914. Shambaugh was also influential in shaping the association’s focus on the upper rather than the lower Mississippi.
This tradition was carried on in the 1930s and 1940s by UI professor Louis Pelzer, a native Iowan who earned his Ph.D. from UI in 1909. Pelzer gave a presentation at the age of twenty-nine at the very first meeting of the Association in 1908 and remained a contributor for the rest of his life. He served as an elected member of the executive committee from 1918 to 1921, President of the Association from 1935 to 1936, and an ex-officio member of the executive committee until his sudden death in 1946. He also served on the board of editors from 1936 to 1939 and was the Managing Editor 1941-1946. The Organization of American Historians (successor to the MVHA) honors the best essay in American History submitted by a graduate student each year with the Louis Pelzer Memorial Award.
Born out a “revolt against eastern condescension and neglect,” in the words of Jon Lauck, the Prairie Historians developed an intellectual movement that was centered on “the study of the democratic, economic, and social development of the Midwest” and supported by regional research institutions and scholarly journals. At the same time that they maintained scholarly norms, Prairie Historians also understood that by “compensating for eastern historians’ ignorance” of the Midwest, they could “generate histories from an ‘altogether different viewpoint.’”
In recent years, there has been a revival of interest in Midwestern history with strong connections to UI History. Lauck himself, a former UI history department PhD student, was the founding president of the Midwestern History Association, established in 2014 to rebuild the field of Midwestern history. The MHA advocates for “greater attention to Midwestern history among professional historians, seeks to rebuild the infrastructure necessary for the study of the American Midwest, promotes greater academic discourse relating to Midwestern history, supports the work of the Middle West Review and other journals which promote the study of the Midwest, and offers prizes to scholars who excel in the study of the Midwest.”
For essays on the “Prairie Historians” and the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, see:
Jon K. Lauck, “The Prairie Historians,” Annals of Iowa (Spring 2012)
Ian Tyrell, “Public at the Creation: Place, Memory, and Historical Practice in the MVHA, 1907-1950,” Journal of American History (June 2007),”