This paper session will highlight emerging historical research about the U.S. Midwest and its relationship to institutions, practices, and spaces of carcerality. Presenters will speak to their recent research on Midwestern carceral histories, rooted in regional case studies, while suggesting new directions for the field more broadly. In doing so, they will also connect current scholarship to the geographic region in which the AHA 2026 will take place, offering fresh and innovative perspectives on the region’s role in the U.S. carceral state on the one hand, and the ways in which the carceral state manifests in the social, cultural, and spatial histories of the region, on the other.