From Settlement to Fordism: The Agro-Industrial Revolution in the American Midwest

The Midwest has often served as a paradigmatic case of capitalist development and a proving ground for American theories of urban and regional growth, although interest in the successful history of the region has diminished in recent years. Existing approaches based on central place, staples export, cumulative causation, and industrial take-off concepts all miss the mark, despite their several contributions to an understanding of the midwestern experience. New ideas coming from industrial geography provide a spur to rethinking the nineteenth century roots of the birthplace of Fordist mass production. Four considerations stand out: (1) The indigenous evolution of industry and productive capabilities, starting from the very earliest periods of settlement; industry did not follow the plow, it built the plow. (2) The symbiotic relation of agriculture and manufacturing in a process of agro-industrialization, and the particular materials processing and farm supply sectors that led midwestern growth; external tr...