Vol. for 1958 includes "Anthology of poems from the seventeen previously published Braithwaite anthologies."

For a half-century - from Edward Eggleston's pioneering novel The Hoosier Schoolmaster in 1871 through the dazzling early work of Hart Crane, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway in the 1920s - Midwestern literature was at the center of American writing. In The Midwestern Ascendancy in American Writing, Ronald Weber illuminates the sense of lost promise that gives rise to the elegiac note struck in many Midwestern works; he also addresses the deeply divided feelings about the region revealed in the contrary desires to abandon and to celebrate. The period of Midwestern cultural ascendancy was a time of tremendous social and technological change. Midwestern writing was a reflection of these societal changes; it was American literature.

From architecture to food to music, this volume provides a textured examination of the many ways in which the Midwest has served as an undeniable cross-section of American culture. Includes the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin.