Editing Midwestern United States (section)

===Party politics===
[[File:LittleWhiteSchoolhouse.jpg|thumb|The first local meeting of the new Republican Party took place at the [[Little White Schoolhouse]] in [[Ripon, Wisconsin]] on March 20, 1854.]]

The Midwest has been a key swing district in national elections, with highly contested elections in closely divided states often deciding the national result. From 1860 to 1920, both parties tried to find their presidential and vice presidential candidates from the region.<ref>{{cite book |first=Lewis L. |last=Gould |title=Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans |edition=2nd |year=2012 |page=126 }}</ref>

One of the two major political parties in the United States, the [[History of the Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]], originated in the Midwest in the 1850s; [[Ripon, Wisconsin]], had the first local meeting while [[Jackson, Michigan]], had the first statewide meeting of the new party. Its membership included many [[Yankee]]s out of New England and New York who had settled the upper Midwest. The party opposed the expansion of slavery and stressed the Protestant ideals of thrift, a hard work ethic, self-reliance, democratic decision making, and religious tolerance.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gould |title=Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans |edition=2nd |year=2012 |page=14 }}</ref>

In the early 1890s, the wheat-growing regions were strongholds of the short-lived [[People's Party (United States)|Populist movement]] in the Plains states.<ref>John D. Hicks, "[https://www.jstor.org/stable/20160737 The Birth of the Populist Party]". ''Minnesota History'' 9.3 (1928): 219-247.</ref>

Starting in the 1890s, the middle class urban [[Progressive movement]] became influential in the region (as it was in other regions), with Wisconsin a major center. Under the [[Robert M. La Follette, Sr.|La Follettes]], Wisconsin fought against the Republican bosses and for efficiency, modernization, and the use of experts to solve social, economic, and political problems.<ref>David Thelen, ''Robert M. La Follette and the insurgent spirit'' (Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1985).</ref>

Theodore Roosevelt's [[Progressive Party (United States, 1912)|1912 Progressive Party]] had the best showing in this region, carrying the states of Michigan, Minnesota, and South Dakota. In 1924, La Follette, Sr.'s [[Progressive Party (United States, 1924–34)|1924 Progressive Party]] did well in the region, but carried only his home base of Wisconsin.<ref>Thelen, 1985.</ref><ref>Allen F. Davis, "The social workers and the progressive party, 1912-1916". ''American Historical Review'' 69.3 (1964): 671-688, {{JSTOR|1845783}}.</ref>

The Midwest—especially the areas west of Chicago—has always been a stronghold of [[United States non-interventionism|isolationism]], a belief that America should not involve itself in foreign entanglements. This position was largely based on the many [[German American]] and [[Swedish-American]] communities. Isolationist leaders included the La Follettes, Ohio's [[Robert A. Taft]], and [[Robert R. McCormick|Colonel Robert McCormick]], publisher of the ''Chicago Tribune''.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Ralph H. |last=Smuckler |title=The Region of Isolationism |journal=[[American Political Science Review]] |year=1953 |volume=47 |issue=2 |pages=386–401 |jstor=1952029 |doi=10.2307/1952029 |s2cid=144875635 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=John N. |last=Schacht |title=Three Faces of Midwestern Isolationism: Gerald P. Nye, Robert E. Wood, John L. Lewis |year=1981 |publisher=Center for the Study of the Recent History of the United States |isbn=978-0-87414-019-4 }}</ref>

==== Yankees and ethnocultural politics ====
[[File:Rome Waterfront, on the Ohio River.jpg|thumb|[[Ohio River]] near [[Rome, Ohio]]]]
{{Main|Indiana Territory}}

Yankee settlers from New England started arriving in Ohio before 1800, and spread throughout the northern half of the Midwest. Most of them started as farmers, but later the larger proportion moved to towns and cities as entrepreneurs, businessmen, and urban professionals. Since its beginnings in the 1830s, Chicago has grown to dominate the Midwestern metropolis landscape for over a century.<ref>"Yankees" in Reiff, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Chicago''</ref>

Historian John Bunker has examined the worldview of the Yankee settlers in the Midwest:

<blockquote>Because they arrived first and had a strong sense of community and mission, Yankees were able to transplant New England institutions, values, and mores, altered only by the conditions of frontier life. They established a public culture that emphasized the work ethic, the sanctity of private property, individual responsibility, faith in residential and social mobility, practicality, piety, public order and decorum, reverence for public education, activists, honest and frugal government, town meeting democracy, and he believed that there was a public interest that transcends particular and stick ambitions. Regarding themselves as the elect and just in a world rife with sin, air, and corruption, they felt a strong moral obligation to define and enforce standards of community and personal behavior....This pietistic worldview was substantially shared by British, Scandinavian, Swiss, English-Canadian and Dutch Reformed immigrants, as well as by German Protestants and many of the [[Forty-Eighters]].<ref>{{cite book|first=John|last=Buenker|chapter=Wisconsin|editor-first=James H.|editor-last=Madison |title=Heartland: Comparative Histories of the Midwestern States |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TMUCo0UXCjoC&pg=PA72|year=1988|publisher=Indiana University Press|pages=72–73|isbn=978-0253314239}}</ref></blockquote>

Midwestern politics pitted Yankees against the German Catholics and Lutherans, who were often led by the Irish Catholics. These large groups, Buenker argues:

<blockquote>Generally subscribed to the work ethic, a strong sense of community, and activist government, but were less committed to economic individualism and privatism and ferociously opposed to government supervision of the personal habits. Southern and eastern European immigrants generally leaned more toward the Germanic view of things, while modernization, industrialization, and urbanization modified nearly everyone's sense of individual economic responsibility and put a premium on organization, political involvement, and education.<ref>John Buenker, "Wisconsin"</ref><ref>Richard J. Jensen, ''Illinois: a Bicentennial history'' (1977) ch 1-3</ref></blockquote>