Frederick Jackson Turner

“ Ohio has no preponderant social center; her multiplicity of colleges and universities bears tribute to the diversity of the elements that have made the State. One-third of her people are of foreign parentage (one or both parents foreign-born) , and the city of Cincinnati has been deeply affected by the German stock, while Cleveland strongly reflects the influence of the New England element. That influence is still very palpable, but it is New England in the presence of natural gas, iron, and coal, New England shaped by blast and forge. The Middle State ideals will dominate Ohio's future. ”

“ In a word, the Populist is the American farmer who has kept in advance of the economic and social transformations that have overtaken those who remained behind. While, doubtless, investigation into the ancestry of the Populists and "silver men" who came to the prairies from the Old Northwest would show a large proportion of Southern origin, yet the center of discontent seems to have been among the men of the New England and New York current. ”

“ This social history of the timber areas of Wisconsin has left clear indications in the development of the peculiar political leadership in the northern portion of the State.
In the southern and middle counties of the State, the original settlement of the native American pioneer farmer, a tendency is showing itself to divide the farms and to sell to thrifty Germans, or to cultivate the soil by tenants, while the farmer retires to live in the neighboring village, and perhaps to organize creameries and develop a dairy business. The result is that a replacement of nationalities is in progress. ”

“ The non-native element shows distinct tendencies to dwell in groups. One of the most striking illustrations of this fact is the community of New Glarus, in Wisconsin, formed by a carefully organized migration from Glarus in Switzerland, aided by the canton itself. For some years this community was a miniature Swiss canton in social organization and customs, but of late it has become increasingly assimilated to the American type, and has left an impress by transforming the county in which it is from a grain-raising to a dairy region. ”

“ Some of the social modifications in this State are more or less typical of important processes at work among the neighboring States of the Old Northwest. In the north, the men who built up the lumber interests of the State, who founded a mill town surrounded by the stumps of the pine forests which they exploited for the prairie markets, have acquired wealth and political power. ”

“ The elements that have contributed to the civilization of this region are therefore well worth consideration. To know the States that make up the Old Northwest—Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin—one must understand their social origins. ”

“ Townships and even counties once dominated by the native American farmers of New York extraction are now possessed by Germans or other European nationalities. Large portions of the retail trades of the towns are also passing into German hands, while the native element seeks the cities, the professions, or mercantile enterprises of larger character. ”

“ Between this stupendous economic future to the northwest and the colossal growth of Chicago on the southeast Wisconsin seems likely to become a middle agricultural area, developing particularly into a dairy State. She is powerfully affected by the conservative tendencies of her German element in times of political agitation and of proposals of social change. ”

“ The story of the political leaders who remained in the place of their birth and shared its economic changes differs from the story of those who by moving to the West continued on a new area the old social type. ”

“ In the Northwest, where interstate migration has been so continuous and widespread, the lack of typical State peculiarities is obvious, and the student of society, like the traveler, is tempted, in his effort to distinguish the community from its neighbors, to exaggerate the odd and exceptional elements which give a particular flavor to the State. Indiana has suffered somewhat from this tendency ”

“ The spacious and well-appointed home of the town-builder may now be seen in many a northern community, in a group of less pretentious homes of operatives and tradesmen, the social distinctions between them emphasized by the difference in nationality. ”

“ But I desire to insist upon the other truth, also, that these westward immigrants, keeping for generations in advance of the transforming industrial and social forces that have wrought so vast a revolution in the older regions of the East which they left, could not but preserve important aspects of the older farmer type. ”

“ Kansas, for example, has about twenty-six per cent of persons of foreign parentage, while Nebraska has about forty-two, Iowa forty-three, South Dakota sixty, Wisconsin seventy-three, Minnesota seventy-five, and North Dakota seventy-nine. ”

“ His wife and daughters make extensive visits to Europe, his sons go to some university, and he himself is likely to acquire political position, or to devote his energies to saving the town from industrial decline, as the timber is cut away, by transforming it into a manufacturing center for more finished products. ”