Synopses & Reviews
We live these days in a virtual nation of cities and celebrities, dreaming a small-town America rendered ever stranger by purveyors of nostalgia and dark visionaries from Sherwood Anderson to David Lynch. And yet it is the small town, that world of local character and neighborhood lore, that dreamed the America we know today—and the small-town boy, like those whose stories this book tells, who made it real.
In these life-stories, beginning in 1890 with frontier historian Frederick Jackson Turner and moving up to the present with global shopkeeper Sam Walton, a history of middle America unfolds, as entrepreneurs and teachers like Henry Ford, George Washington Carver, and Walt Disney; artists and entertainers like Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Carl Sandburg, and Johnny Carson; political figures like William McKinley, William Jennings Bryan, and Ronald Reagan; and athletes like Bob Feller and John Wooden by turns engender and illustrate the extraordinary cultural shifts that have transformed the Midwest, and through the Midwest, the nation—and the world.
Many of these men are familiar, icons even—Ford and Reagan, certainly, Ernie Pyle, Sinclair Lewis, James Dean, and Lawrence Welk—and others, like artists Oscar Micheaux and John Steuart Curry, economist Alvin Hansen and composer Meredith Willson, less so. But in their stories, as John E. Miller tells them, all appear in a new light, unique in their backgrounds and accomplishments, united only in the way their lives reveal the persisting, shaping power of place, and particularly the Midwest, on the cultural imagination and national consciousness.
In a thoroughly engaging style Miller introduces us to the small-town Midwestern boys who became these all-American characters, privileging us with insights that pierce the public images of politicians and businessmen, thinkers and entertainers alike. From the smell of the farm, the sounds and silences of hamlets and county seats, the schoolyard athletics and classroom instruction and theatrical performance, we follow these men to their moments of inspiration, innovation, and fame, observing the workings of the small-town past in their very different relationships with the larger world. Their stories reveal in an intimate way how profoundly childhood experiences shape personal identity, and how deeply place figures in the mapping of thought, belief, ambition, and life's course.
Review
"A deeply-researched and brilliantly-conceived account of the small town experiences of a series of Midwesterners whose names many over-50 readers will instantly recall."—Claremont Review of Books
Review
"[Miller] shows both the cultural shifts that have changed the Midwest (and along with it, the nation) and the persistent, shaping power of place on individuals and the national consciousness."—Minnesota History
Review
"The essays are well researched, detailed, and strongly written to create a clear sense of the effect that this peculiar sort of American place had on a given man."—Annals of Iowa
Synopsis
In a thoroughly engaging style John Miller introduces us to the small-town Midwestern boys who dreamed the America we know today and who made it real; from Frederick Jackson Turner and George Washington Carver to Henry Ford and Sam Walton.
About the Author
John E. Miller's many books include Governor Philip F. La Follette, the Wisconsin Progressives, and the New Deal; Looking for History on Highway 14, and, also from Kansas, Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town: Where History and Literature Meet.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments and Note on Sources
Introduction: Midwestern Small Towns and the Experience of Place
Section I: Small towns in the Crucible of Change, 1890-1920
Introduction to Section I
1. Frederick Jackson Turner: Frontier Historian
2. William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan: Battling for the Soul of America
3. Henry Ford: The Revolutionary as Nostalgist
4. George Washington Carver and Oscar Micheaux: African American Dreamers and Doers
Section II: Embattled Small Towns During Prosperity, Depression, and War, 1920-1945
Introduction to Section II
5. Sinclair Lewis: The Man from Main Street
6. Carl Sandburg: The Eternal Seeker and People's Poet
7. Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and John Steuart Curry: Painting the American Scene
8. Ernie Pyle: Hoosier Vagabond and GIs' Friend
Section III: Reverberations of the Small-Town myth, 1945-1965
Introduction to Section III
9. Alvin Hansen: South Dakota Farm boy Turned Keynesian Prophet
10. Bob Feller: Iowa Farm Boy on the "Field of Dreams"
11. James Dean: The Indiana Rebel without a Cause
12. Meredith Wilson: the Music Man from Mason City
13. Walt Disney: Memories of Marceline and Dreams of an Ideal Tomorrow
Section IV: The Lingering Presence of the Small Town, 1965 to the Present
Introduction to Section IV
14. Lawrence Welk and Johnny Carson: Dancing and Talking the Night Away
15. John Wooden: Small-Town Values on the Hardwood Court
16. Ronald Reagan: Small-Town Dreamer on the Stage of History
17. Sam Walton: Main Street Shopkeeper Turned Global Behemoth
Coda: Small-Town Boys and the American Dream
Notes
Index