The Midwestern Small Town as an Interpretative Problem

By the middle of the last century, the Midwestern small town had popularly become representative of the nation itself. This paper traces three trends that laid a foundation for this synecdoche: the formation of “Main Streets” out of Midwestern settlement patterns, the maturation of the Midwestern industrial-agricultural economy in the late 19^th century, and two literary trends during the generation that bridged the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The paper then analyzes the way this synecdoche proved adaptable after 1945 and offered both a bulwark of American identity against economic and social flux, as well as a seat for self-actualization in the face of a supposedly repressive dominant culture. Finally, I will briefly consider the “othering” of the small town in twenty-first century popular media. Throughout, it traces the ways in which popular culture confected economic and social changes into tropes where the Midwestern small town proved normative as a place both wholesomely American and wholly repressive. Unpacking this myth’s origins, life-cycle, decline, and modern variants advances an accurate and robust Midwestern history by situating the mythologized Midwestern town within its historical context, and thereby undermines the seeming timelessness of its claims.