Making the Corn Belt

"John Hudson's accomplishment looms large...This is a book of great substance that will likely stand as a classic." - John Jakle. Stretching from the Rockies to the Appalachians, the Corn Belt is America's heartland. "Making the Corn Belt" traces the geographical and agricultural evolution of this region, whose agriculture is based on the tradition of corn-feeding meat animals. This use of corn emerged in the westward movement of Euro-American farming people from the Upland South to the Ohio Valley and the Mississippi Valley. Corn Belt agriculture, however, spread more slowly northward than it did westward, partly because of the patterns of migration established in the spread of the frontier. By the Civil War, however, this distinctive cultural region was divided socially and politically. "Making the Corn Belt" traces these evolving regional-agricultural themes and carries them into the age of rapid technological change in the 1930s. This volume presents the most complete and up-to-date account of the origin and growth of America's heartland.