Thought this was interesting. For a long time, the Midwest had a weak regional identity, it was sort of seen as default America. But perhaps more of a regional identity developed in recent years as the center of the American economy moved out of the Midwest.
Explains Cayton: “Up until the last 30 or 40 years, the Midwest was not a peripheral part of the United States. What we call the Midwest — from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century — truly was the heartland of the United States. It was also the political and economic powerhouse of the United States.
“Region as an identity tends to coalesce in places where people feel alienated or cut off — the South being the classic example. “The fact that the term Midwest came so late to general usage goes to the point that nobody thought it was a particularly distinctive place,” Cayton says. “It’s not meant to be insulting. It’s meant to say, ‘This is America here.’ The South is not really quite America. New England is this old 18th-century place. And the West is way the heck out there. So this is the American heartland. People did not use the term Midwest in a widespread way until they began to think of the Midwest as being peculiar or out of the mainstream.”
https://www.hourdetroit.com/communit...ng-of-midwest/
