American Farmer Book

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This is an OCR edition with typos.
Excerpt from book:
CHAPTER IV. THE MIDDLE WEST. While some objection might be made to the statement that the social organization of this territory presents the purest American type, it would be hard to deny that it is the most unique of all the diversified social forms appearing on this continent. In its early stages it was the most characteristically pioneer, and it has long been recognized that more than any one other class of citizens the pioneer embraces those qualities that have come to be considered typically American. Neglecting as unimportant in their general effect the early French settlements, the social organization of the Middle West began to take a definite form at a time when even the remnants of feudalism that have been mentioned were beginning to disappear from New England. This social stage, therefore, never became prominent in the Middle West. It must be remembered that while each new territory opened to settlement has, to a great degree, repeated all previous history of the race from savagery to the stage reached by the oldest portions, and indeed has often in its turn, apparently through the very momentum of its rapid development, rushed on beyond its older neighbors, nevertheless this analogy must not be pushed too far. Each newly developing society was in ever closer touch with more fully developed social organizations to the Eaat, and the effect of these in modifying or accelerating the development of the new society must not be overlooked. The great movement toward the Middle West began just prior to the Revolution. The New England States were then just passing from the feudalistic to the capitalistic stage. The members of the younger generation in the North Atlantic States were being crowded out of their old locations by the economic revolution that was going on ar...