Chapter 8 - The Great Lakes and Corn Belt

The millions of persons who settled the Great Lakes and Corn Belt region came from many different origins. Natives of the Appalachians, such as Kentucky-born Abraham Lincoln, moved north and west across the Ohio River. These “Butternut” settlers were soon outnumbered by natives of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania who crossed the Alleghanies in search of cheap, fertile farmland. They were joined by immigrants from England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scandinavia. Many Canadians who a generation or two earlier had moved to Upper Canada returned to the United States, and were especially prevalent in Michigan.(Hardwick, 153)

 

Most of the residents of the Great Lakes and Corn Belt in 1910 were of European ancestry. However, diversity in the region soon increased as African-Americans began to move to the region in large numbers after World War I. The movement of African-Americans from the South became a critical part of a new migration stream that dramatically changed the demographics and cultures of cities throughout the region. Between 1916 and 1920, some 500,000 African-Americans left the rural South for the industrial centers of Chicago, New York, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Kansas City in what was known as the “Great Migration.” Thousands more moved northward between the 1920s and the 1950s. These migrants were driven by both push factors and pull factors. Push factors are issues encouraging people to migrate away from their areas of origin. For Southern African Americans, these push factors included institutionalized racism and segregation, lynchings, beatings, crop failures, and limited educational and economic opportunities. Pull factors are issues encouraging migrants to select particular destinations. Pull factors in the industrial cities of the Great Lakes and Corn Belt included jobs at much higher wages than were prevalent in the South, along with a call to freedom and a much sought after opportunity for equality. (Hardwick, 154)

REFERENCE: The Geography of North America, Hardwick