WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.319 If you were to stand right in the middle of Iowa 00:00:02.319 --> 00:00:07.080 about 16 ,000 years ago, you definitely would 00:00:07.080 --> 00:00:09.960 not be looking at perfectly straight green rows 00:00:09.960 --> 00:00:12.480 of corn stretching to the horizon. No, not even 00:00:12.480 --> 00:00:14.199 close. Right. You wouldn't see a farm at all. 00:00:14.220 --> 00:00:16.300 You'd actually be standing on top of a massive 00:00:16.300 --> 00:00:19.420 glacier just staring out at this frozen Arctic 00:00:19.420 --> 00:00:22.420 wasteland. Ice as far as the eye could see. Exactly. 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:26.160 Welcome to this deep dive. Today, our mission 00:00:26.160 --> 00:00:28.960 is to basically give you a shortcut to being 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:32.539 genuinely well -informed about a place that is 00:00:32.539 --> 00:00:36.280 so often stereotyped as just endless, quiet agriculture. 00:00:36.500 --> 00:00:39.200 Yeah, the endless cornfield stereotype. We are 00:00:39.200 --> 00:00:41.460 diving into a really comprehensive historical 00:00:41.460 --> 00:00:44.060 text on the history of Iowa, and the landscape 00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:47.219 we are uncovering is, well, it's chaotic, dramatic, 00:00:47.460 --> 00:00:49.829 and anything but settled. It's an incredible 00:00:49.829 --> 00:00:51.869 starting point honestly because the physical 00:00:51.869 --> 00:00:55.149 thawing of that glacial ice perfectly mirrors 00:00:55.149 --> 00:00:57.450 the transformation of the human beings who live 00:00:57.450 --> 00:01:00.039 there. Oh that makes total sense. Yeah. So around 00:01:00.039 --> 00:01:03.079 12 ,000 years ago, as the Pleistocene Epoch ended 00:01:03.079 --> 00:01:06.219 and temperatures finally rose, those massive 00:01:06.219 --> 00:01:09.040 ice sheets retreated. And the earliest Native 00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:11.579 Americans in this region had to figure out how 00:01:11.579 --> 00:01:14.459 to survive a world that was literally melting 00:01:14.459 --> 00:01:16.840 beneath their feet. OK, let's unpack this for 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:20.480 a second, because going from surviving on a frozen 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:23.579 tundra to the complex agricultural society we 00:01:23.579 --> 00:01:26.980 eventually see, that is a massive leap. How exactly 00:01:26.980 --> 00:01:29.079 did they adapt? Well, I mean, it didn't happen 00:01:29.079 --> 00:01:31.939 overnight, obviously. But the warming climate 00:01:31.939 --> 00:01:34.599 allowed for what archaeologists call the Woodland 00:01:34.599 --> 00:01:37.859 Period. Over thousands of years, these nomadic 00:01:37.859 --> 00:01:40.140 hunter -gatherers figured out that if they domesticated 00:01:40.140 --> 00:01:43.819 certain plants, most importantly maize or corn, 00:01:44.219 --> 00:01:46.459 they didn't have to endlessly chase migrating 00:01:46.459 --> 00:01:49.340 herds. Because agriculture is basically a technology. 00:01:49.560 --> 00:01:51.980 Exactly. Once you have a reliable, storable food 00:01:51.980 --> 00:01:53.959 source, you can stop moving. And when you start 00:01:53.959 --> 00:01:56.260 moving, you can build. Wow. They started constructing 00:01:56.260 --> 00:01:59.299 these massive earth They developed really intricate 00:01:59.299 --> 00:02:01.400 ceramics because, you know, they no longer had 00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:03.180 to carry all their possessions on their backs. 00:02:03.319 --> 00:02:05.219 They didn't have to pack up every week. Right. 00:02:05.480 --> 00:02:08.039 They fundamentally terraformed their entire way 00:02:08.039 --> 00:02:11.110 of life to match the thawing earth. which brings 00:02:11.110 --> 00:02:13.729 up the specific nations cultivating this land 00:02:13.729 --> 00:02:16.430 just before European arrival. I mean, the state 00:02:16.430 --> 00:02:18.550 itself gets its name from the Aiwei tribe. Yeah, 00:02:18.729 --> 00:02:22.009 the Aiwei. According to our sources, by the 1700s, 00:02:22.009 --> 00:02:24.889 this was a highly organized group of about 1 00:02:24.889 --> 00:02:27.610 ,000 to 1 ,500 people. They were building villages 00:02:27.610 --> 00:02:29.590 in the wooded areas near rivers. And they weren't 00:02:29.590 --> 00:02:31.990 just hunting, right? No, they were actively managing 00:02:31.990 --> 00:02:37.030 the landscape, farming corn, squash, beans. And 00:02:37.030 --> 00:02:39.879 this is wild engineering. deep underground pits 00:02:39.879 --> 00:02:42.599 to store their harvests. The material culture 00:02:42.599 --> 00:02:44.659 was just quite sophisticated. I mean, families 00:02:44.659 --> 00:02:46.960 were eating from bowls carved out of bison horns 00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:49.000 and women were cooking in these specialized clay 00:02:49.000 --> 00:02:51.400 pots. It's a whole thriving society. It really 00:02:51.400 --> 00:02:54.240 was. And it's in this era that we see the first 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:58.000 recorded contact with Europeans. In 1673, two 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:01.120 French explorers, Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette, 00:03:01.539 --> 00:03:03.699 arrived on the eastern edge of what is now Iowa. 00:03:03.949 --> 00:03:05.849 I was really struck by the historical accounts 00:03:05.849 --> 00:03:07.889 of that meeting in the text. It notes they were 00:03:07.889 --> 00:03:10.289 met by the Illinois tribe who showed the Frenchmen 00:03:10.289 --> 00:03:12.990 every possible manifestation of joy. Yeah, it 00:03:12.990 --> 00:03:15.750 wasn't hostile at all. Not at all. The indigenous 00:03:15.750 --> 00:03:18.810 people offered them peace and hospitality. But, 00:03:18.990 --> 00:03:21.189 you know, looking at the timeline, that initial 00:03:21.189 --> 00:03:24.330 joy evaporates completely as European expansion 00:03:24.330 --> 00:03:26.389 accelerates. It really does. I want to jump to 00:03:26.389 --> 00:03:30.250 the Blackhawk War of 1832. Blackhawk. who is 00:03:30.250 --> 00:03:33.530 a respected Sauk leader, tries to return to his 00:03:33.530 --> 00:03:35.990 people's ancestral village of Saukanoak after 00:03:35.990 --> 00:03:38.590 they were forced out. Right. And the notes say 00:03:38.590 --> 00:03:42.189 he sent men under a white flag of truce to parlay 00:03:42.189 --> 00:03:44.669 with the Illinois militia. But the militia just 00:03:44.669 --> 00:03:47.250 opened fire on the truce flag. They did, yeah. 00:03:47.490 --> 00:03:50.259 You have to understand that this militia... It 00:03:50.259 --> 00:03:52.659 wasn't some disciplined regular army. Oh, they 00:03:52.659 --> 00:03:55.360 were volunteers. Mostly, yeah. It was comprised 00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:57.639 largely of frontier volunteers who were panicked, 00:03:57.960 --> 00:04:00.879 inexperienced, and deeply hostile. Firing on 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:03.379 a flag of truth threw the whole situation into 00:04:03.379 --> 00:04:05.680 absolute chaos. Just a total breakdown of the 00:04:05.680 --> 00:04:08.979 rules of engagement. Exactly. It sparked a war 00:04:08.979 --> 00:04:11.800 that ended in a horrific massacre of the remaining 00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:14.879 Sauk people on the Bad Axe River. The historical 00:04:14.879 --> 00:04:17.339 record even indicates they fired on Blackhawk 00:04:17.339 --> 00:04:20.060 after he personally raised a white flag. And 00:04:20.060 --> 00:04:22.259 the federal government follows that up with the 00:04:22.259 --> 00:04:25.439 Blackhawk purchase, which officially forces the 00:04:25.439 --> 00:04:28.379 Native Americans out of Eastern Iowa. But wait, 00:04:28.560 --> 00:04:30.639 I was looking at the modern map in our source 00:04:30.639 --> 00:04:32.899 materials, and it clearly states that the Meskwaki 00:04:32.899 --> 00:04:36.279 people currently own about 8 ,600 acres of land 00:04:36.279 --> 00:04:39.579 in Tomah County, Iowa. They do, yes. How is that 00:04:39.579 --> 00:04:42.399 possible if they were legally and violently exiled 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:44.379 by the Black Hawk Purchase? That is one of the 00:04:44.379 --> 00:04:47.019 most remarkable acts of resilience in this entire 00:04:47.019 --> 00:04:49.839 text, honestly. Decades after being violently 00:04:49.839 --> 00:04:53.220 removed, a group of Meskwaki people simply refused 00:04:53.220 --> 00:04:55.350 to accept the exile. They just came back. They 00:04:55.350 --> 00:04:58.149 quietly returned to Iowa, pooled together exactly 00:04:58.149 --> 00:05:01.250 $735 of their own money and went straight to 00:05:01.250 --> 00:05:03.810 the state's governor, James Grimes. Wait, they 00:05:03.810 --> 00:05:05.810 went directly to the governor? Yeah. Yeah. They 00:05:05.810 --> 00:05:07.750 asked for the legal right to purchase their own 00:05:07.750 --> 00:05:10.430 ancestral land back on the open market. OK, let's 00:05:10.430 --> 00:05:14.170 unpack this. That is exactly like a tenant being 00:05:14.170 --> 00:05:17.029 wrongfully, violently evicted from their own 00:05:17.029 --> 00:05:20.310 family home only to save up their pennies, walk 00:05:20.310 --> 00:05:22.670 back to the landlord and buy the property out 00:05:22.670 --> 00:05:25.439 from under them. It completely subverts the standard 00:05:25.439 --> 00:05:27.879 narrative of absolute defeat, doesn't it? Totally. 00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:30.839 What's fascinating here is the geopolitical shift 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:33.720 happening just beneath the surface of these events. 00:05:34.220 --> 00:05:37.310 If we zoom out... The Native Americans in Iowa 00:05:37.310 --> 00:05:39.790 weren't just fighting local European settlers. 00:05:39.930 --> 00:05:41.730 Right, they were bigger forces. Yeah, they were 00:05:41.730 --> 00:05:44.689 caught in a massive, continent -wide domino effect. 00:05:45.250 --> 00:05:47.970 Decades earlier, the French pushed into the Great 00:05:47.970 --> 00:05:50.910 Lakes region demanding furs. Which armed the 00:05:50.910 --> 00:05:53.329 Eastern tribes with guns. Right, exactly. And 00:05:53.329 --> 00:05:56.230 that pushed the Sauk and Musquaki westward into 00:05:56.230 --> 00:05:59.350 Iowa. Then, when the Sauk and Musquaki arrived, 00:05:59.550 --> 00:06:02.149 they clashed with the Iowa, pushing the Iowa 00:06:02.149 --> 00:06:04.689 even further west. So you're looking at a chain 00:06:04.689 --> 00:06:07.319 reaction of displacement driven entirely by global 00:06:07.319 --> 00:06:09.560 colonial markets. And the final domino in that 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:12.560 sequence officially opened Iowa to Euro -American 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:16.379 settlement in 1833. But the settlers rushing 00:06:16.379 --> 00:06:18.620 across the Mississippi River faced an environment 00:06:18.620 --> 00:06:20.980 they were totally unprepared for. Completely 00:06:20.980 --> 00:06:23.259 unprepared. Our sources highlight that settlers 00:06:23.259 --> 00:06:26.319 coming from the East Coast expected the lush, 00:06:26.439 --> 00:06:29.620 heavy forests of Pennsylvania or Ohio. Instead, 00:06:29.680 --> 00:06:32.329 they walked into the tall grass prairie. There 00:06:32.329 --> 00:06:35.689 was almost no timber. Just grass. Yeah. How do 00:06:35.689 --> 00:06:38.129 you build a house or a fence or heat your home 00:06:38.129 --> 00:06:40.610 through an Arctic Midwestern winter without wood? 00:06:40.790 --> 00:06:42.910 Well, you improvise. And this is where we see 00:06:42.910 --> 00:06:45.029 the invention of the soddy. The sod house. Right. 00:06:45.449 --> 00:06:47.689 Settlers literally cut bricks out of the dense 00:06:47.689 --> 00:06:50.209 prairie sod and dirt and just stack them up to 00:06:50.209 --> 00:06:52.709 build homes. The text mentions some people praise 00:06:52.709 --> 00:06:54.949 them for being well insulated against the cold, 00:06:55.230 --> 00:06:58.329 but it also describes them as dark. damp and 00:06:58.329 --> 00:07:00.870 constantly raining dirt and bugs down on the 00:07:00.870 --> 00:07:02.930 family sleeping inside. Yeah, it wasn't exactly 00:07:02.930 --> 00:07:05.610 glamorous. Then the fuel situation is even wilder 00:07:05.610 --> 00:07:07.790 because there was no wood to chop. They burned 00:07:07.790 --> 00:07:10.870 dried prairie hay, corn cobs, and I had to read 00:07:10.870 --> 00:07:14.009 this twice dried animal droppings. Buffalo chips 00:07:14.009 --> 00:07:17.230 and dried cow manure. Wow. I mean, when you are 00:07:17.230 --> 00:07:19.649 surviving in a freezing, wind -swept environment 00:07:19.649 --> 00:07:23.149 with zero timber, you utilize whatever combustible 00:07:23.149 --> 00:07:25.649 carbon you can find. Makes sense. It was a harsh, 00:07:26.009 --> 00:07:28.649 unforgiving landscape. And that lack of physical 00:07:28.649 --> 00:07:31.629 boundaries bred a very specific kind of frontier 00:07:31.629 --> 00:07:34.149 chaos. They were trying to build the rule of 00:07:34.149 --> 00:07:37.029 law from scratch. Which totally frames the Honey 00:07:37.029 --> 00:07:40.629 War of 1839. Oh, the Honey War. I love this part. 00:07:41.709 --> 00:07:44.269 careless surveyor messes up the border between 00:07:44.269 --> 00:07:47.430 the Iowa territory and Missouri. Missouri decides 00:07:47.430 --> 00:07:49.589 the border is actually further north and tries 00:07:49.589 --> 00:07:51.850 to send tax collectors into the disputed zone. 00:07:51.930 --> 00:07:55.480 Naturally. And Iowans refuse to pay. So impatient 00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:58.259 Missourians cross the invisible border and start 00:07:58.259 --> 00:08:00.740 chopping down bee trees to steal the honey as 00:08:00.740 --> 00:08:02.980 a form of tax collection. And the escalation 00:08:02.980 --> 00:08:05.620 from there is just a perfect snapshot of frontier 00:08:05.620 --> 00:08:08.199 society. Right. I mean, in retaliation for the 00:08:08.199 --> 00:08:11.040 stolen honey, Iowans march south armed with pitchforks 00:08:11.040 --> 00:08:14.199 and bats. Imagine a modern neighborhood property 00:08:14.199 --> 00:08:17.000 line dispute escalating into a literal militia 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:20.100 standoff over a beehive. It's absurd. It is. 00:08:20.379 --> 00:08:22.180 They end up freezing in the cold and deserting 00:08:22.180 --> 00:08:24.740 the next night. And the United States Supreme 00:08:24.740 --> 00:08:27.560 Court eventually has to step in and legally define 00:08:27.560 --> 00:08:30.079 the border. It sounds crazy to us now, but these 00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:33.740 moments, relying on animal droppings for heat, 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:36.899 militias mobilizing over honey, they show a deeply 00:08:36.899 --> 00:08:39.639 improvised society desperate to establish boundaries 00:08:39.639 --> 00:08:42.899 before they even achieve statehood in 1846. Yeah. 00:08:43.200 --> 00:08:45.700 But you also see this improvised frontier justice 00:08:45.700 --> 00:08:48.639 operating in much darker, higher -stays contexts. 00:08:48.840 --> 00:08:51.159 Look at the story of Ralph. This is a really 00:08:51.159 --> 00:08:55.100 profound moment in the text. So in 1834, an enslaved 00:08:55.100 --> 00:08:57.720 man named Ralph makes a contract with his enslaver 00:08:57.720 --> 00:09:00.440 in Missouri. He's allowed to travel north to 00:09:00.440 --> 00:09:02.919 work in the Dubuque, Iowa lead mines to buy his 00:09:02.919 --> 00:09:05.879 freedom for $100. Right. He works for five years, 00:09:05.919 --> 00:09:08.240 but just can't accumulate the money. So bounty 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:11.059 hunters grab him to drag him back south. But 00:09:11.059 --> 00:09:13.470 a local merchant named Alexander Butterworth 00:09:13.470 --> 00:09:15.750 sees the kidnapping happening. And he steps in. 00:09:15.850 --> 00:09:18.289 Yeah, he immediately runs to a local judge and 00:09:18.289 --> 00:09:21.269 gets a writ of habeas corpus. Let's clarify that 00:09:21.269 --> 00:09:23.289 term for the listener. That essentially means 00:09:23.289 --> 00:09:26.429 the judge issued a legal order forcing the bounty 00:09:26.429 --> 00:09:29.860 hunters to physically produce Ralph. in court 00:09:29.860 --> 00:09:31.659 before they could flee the territory, right? 00:09:31.820 --> 00:09:34.779 Exactly. It prevents illegal detention. Butterworth 00:09:34.779 --> 00:09:37.919 uses this writ to literally rescue Ralph off 00:09:37.919 --> 00:09:40.580 a riverboat just before it departs down the Mississippi. 00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:43.740 Just in the nick of time. Yeah. And in 1839, 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:46.899 the Iowa Supreme Court hears the case. This is 00:09:46.899 --> 00:09:50.539 their very first decided case as a judicial body. 00:09:50.620 --> 00:09:53.120 Their first case ever. Their first ever. They 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:55.179 examine the law and rule that because Ralph was 00:09:55.179 --> 00:09:57.539 permitted to travel to a free territory, he could 00:09:57.539 --> 00:10:00.519 not be treated as property or a fugitive. They 00:10:00.519 --> 00:10:03.289 ruled him a free man. It's incredible. Even in 00:10:03.289 --> 00:10:06.990 this messy dirt floor frontier territory, individuals 00:10:06.990 --> 00:10:10.009 were actively utilizing the courts to draw a 00:10:10.009 --> 00:10:12.610 hard legal boundary around human rights while 00:10:12.610 --> 00:10:14.289 the rest of the nation was hurtling toward the 00:10:14.289 --> 00:10:16.990 Civil War. But to survive that looming war and 00:10:16.990 --> 00:10:19.710 to integrate into the national economy, Iowa 00:10:19.710 --> 00:10:22.129 had to solve its geographical isolation. I mean, 00:10:22.190 --> 00:10:24.610 they were entirely landlocked. Right. Enter the 00:10:24.610 --> 00:10:27.940 railroad. The shift here is staggering. Track 00:10:27.940 --> 00:10:32.259 laid in Iowa explodes from just 68 miles in 1855 00:10:32.259 --> 00:10:37.960 to 655 miles by 1860. A massive jump. Huge. And 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:39.860 the very first bridge across the Mississippi 00:10:39.860 --> 00:10:44.639 River is built in 1856, though in classic chaotic 00:10:44.639 --> 00:10:47.799 frontier fashion, a steamboat immediately crashes 00:10:47.799 --> 00:10:50.080 into it and catches fire. Of course it does. 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:52.019 The Supreme Court actually had to step in again 00:10:52.019 --> 00:10:55.139 and legally rule that building bridges over navigable 00:10:55.139 --> 00:10:57.279 rivers was allowed. Well the railroad didn't 00:10:57.279 --> 00:10:59.779 just solve their transportation problem it fundamentally 00:10:59.779 --> 00:11:02.320 altered space and time for the Midwestern farmer. 00:11:02.519 --> 00:11:05.440 How so? Previously if you grew excess corn it 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:07.379 might just rot because you couldn't move it over 00:11:07.379 --> 00:11:10.620 muddy rutted trails. Trains provided year -round 00:11:10.620 --> 00:11:12.940 high -speed transport for corn beef and pork 00:11:12.940 --> 00:11:15.220 directly to the massive markets in Chicago and 00:11:15.220 --> 00:11:17.120 from there to the rest of the world. It sparked 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:19.620 massive industrialization. Exactly. John and 00:11:19.620 --> 00:11:21.519 Robert Stewart start an oats processing plant 00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:23.820 in Cedar Rapids that eventually becomes the global 00:11:23.659 --> 00:11:27.679 giant Quaker Oats. Oh wow. Yeah and because trains 00:11:27.679 --> 00:11:30.539 need fuel a massive coal mining industry detonates 00:11:30.539 --> 00:11:32.639 across the state. You know I was looking at the 00:11:32.639 --> 00:11:34.759 enlistment numbers for the Civil War in our notes. 00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:37.799 Iowa heavily supported the Union sending over 00:11:37.799 --> 00:11:41.139 75 ,000 soldiers but I scanned the historical 00:11:41.139 --> 00:11:44.279 maps and I couldn't find a single major Civil 00:11:44.279 --> 00:11:47.440 War battlefield inside Iowa's borders. Right 00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:49.519 there weren't any. So what exactly was their 00:11:49.519 --> 00:11:52.480 strategic role? If we connect this to the bigger 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:56.559 picture, wars are won on logistics. Armies run 00:11:56.559 --> 00:11:59.980 on calories. Because of the railroad boom, Iowa 00:11:59.980 --> 00:12:03.399 became the Union's breadbasket. The wartime economy 00:12:03.399 --> 00:12:06.500 caused grain prices to absolutely spike, and 00:12:06.500 --> 00:12:09.179 the rail network allowed Iowa to pump massive 00:12:09.179 --> 00:12:11.480 amounts of food eastward to sustain the troops 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:13.500 and the industrial cities. Those they fed the 00:12:13.500 --> 00:12:16.090 war effort. Precisely. They transitioned from 00:12:16.090 --> 00:12:19.169 isolated subsistence farming into an industrialized 00:12:19.169 --> 00:12:21.669 global food supplier at the exact moment the 00:12:21.669 --> 00:12:24.090 nation's survival depended on it. And the demographics 00:12:24.090 --> 00:12:26.009 of the troops they sent are fascinating, too. 00:12:26.250 --> 00:12:28.350 The text details a unit called the Greybeards, 00:12:28.809 --> 00:12:31.710 the 37th Iowa Infantry. Yes, the Greybeards. 00:12:31.809 --> 00:12:33.909 These were specifically recruited men over the 00:12:33.909 --> 00:12:36.909 age of 45. Their average age was 57, and some 00:12:36.909 --> 00:12:39.289 were in their 60s. Why recruit men that age? 00:12:39.549 --> 00:12:42.110 Because the state was draining its young labor 00:12:42.110 --> 00:12:44.690 pool to fight on the front lines, they needed 00:12:44.690 --> 00:12:47.389 older men to take over guard duty, protecting 00:12:47.389 --> 00:12:50.110 the vital supply trains and cities back home. 00:12:50.750 --> 00:12:53.730 The text also highlights the 60th Colored Infantry, 00:12:54.250 --> 00:12:57.340 formed by African American men from Iowa. Despite 00:12:57.340 --> 00:13:00.240 enduring terrible conditions and systemic disease, 00:13:00.659 --> 00:13:03.879 they successfully repelled an ambush by 1 ,500 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:06.779 southern troops in Arkansas. Which is incredible. 00:13:06.899 --> 00:13:08.620 Yeah, they were fighting for a nation that was 00:13:08.620 --> 00:13:10.820 still heavily segregated. And when those troops 00:13:10.820 --> 00:13:13.240 came home, the industrial and agricultural boom 00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:16.240 didn't stop. It actually accelerated. But the 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:18.440 railroads and the new coal mines required massive 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:20.899 amounts of manual labor. They needed more people. 00:13:20.980 --> 00:13:23.559 Right. The young state simply did not have the 00:13:23.559 --> 00:13:26.090 population to sustain its own growth. Here's 00:13:26.090 --> 00:13:29.090 where it gets really interesting. Facing a massive 00:13:29.090 --> 00:13:32.330 labor shortage, 19th century Iowa essentially 00:13:32.330 --> 00:13:34.750 launches an aggressive international corporate 00:13:34.750 --> 00:13:37.690 marketing campaign. They really did. In 1870, 00:13:37.950 --> 00:13:39.669 they create a board of immigration that prints 00:13:39.669 --> 00:13:42.090 promotional booklets in five different languages, 00:13:42.389 --> 00:13:45.190 English, German, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish. 00:13:45.690 --> 00:13:48.090 Yeah, they are actively competing with other 00:13:48.090 --> 00:13:50.309 states to pull people from across the globe onto 00:13:50.309 --> 00:13:53.490 the prairie. It completely shatters the modern 00:13:53.490 --> 00:13:56.529 assumption we have of a historically homogenous, 00:13:56.870 --> 00:13:59.570 native -born Midwest. The resulting diversity 00:13:59.570 --> 00:14:02.450 was staggering, honestly, and it was driven by 00:14:02.450 --> 00:14:05.470 complex push and pull factors. You have economic 00:14:05.470 --> 00:14:08.389 desperation in Europe pushing people out and 00:14:08.389 --> 00:14:10.350 targeted corporate recruitment in Iowa pulling 00:14:10.350 --> 00:14:12.500 them in. Take the Dutch, for example. The text 00:14:12.500 --> 00:14:14.559 notes they were fleeing a potato crop failure 00:14:14.559 --> 00:14:16.879 in Europe, combined with a search for religious 00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:19.279 freedom, and they end up founding the town of 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:22.679 Pella, Iowa. Or the Utopians. Oh yeah. You have 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:25.419 French socialists founding a colony called Acaria, 00:14:25.700 --> 00:14:28.120 and then you have the Amana colonies. The Amana 00:14:28.120 --> 00:14:30.460 colonies are a fascinating case study. The notes 00:14:30.460 --> 00:14:32.580 say these were German pietists who practiced 00:14:32.580 --> 00:14:34.919 strict communal living, essentially communism, 00:14:35.059 --> 00:14:38.120 all the way until 1932. But then they suddenly 00:14:38.120 --> 00:14:40.240 pivoted to manufacturing household appliances. 00:14:40.769 --> 00:14:43.629 How does a religious agrarian commune become 00:14:43.629 --> 00:14:45.990 a commercial appliance brand? It comes down to 00:14:45.990 --> 00:14:49.830 survival. By 1932, the Great Depression had absolutely 00:14:49.830 --> 00:14:52.250 bankrupted their communal agricultural model. 00:14:52.409 --> 00:14:54.610 They were starving. So what did they do? The 00:14:54.610 --> 00:14:57.009 community held a vote and enacted what they called 00:14:57.009 --> 00:15:00.330 the Great Change. They abandoned the communal 00:15:00.330 --> 00:15:03.820 economy. formed a joint stock corporation and 00:15:03.820 --> 00:15:06.659 utilized their existing highly skilled metalworking 00:15:06.659 --> 00:15:09.580 and craft shops to begin manufacturing commercial 00:15:09.580 --> 00:15:12.220 refrigeration. That is such a pivot. Isn't it? 00:15:12.279 --> 00:15:14.259 Yeah. They adapted their community to survive 00:15:14.259 --> 00:15:17.259 a global economic collapse. We also see targeted 00:15:17.259 --> 00:15:20.159 corporate recruitment completely shifting demographics. 00:15:20.919 --> 00:15:23.360 In the early 1900s, national restrictions were 00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:26.019 choking off. European immigration. Right. So 00:15:26.019 --> 00:15:28.620 the American beet sugar company, desperate for 00:15:28.620 --> 00:15:31.399 labor in north central Iowa, begins actively 00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:33.860 recruiting Latinos, specifically from Mexico, 00:15:34.159 --> 00:15:36.779 to perform backbreaking manual labor in the fields 00:15:36.779 --> 00:15:39.379 and on the rail lines. And African Americans 00:15:39.379 --> 00:15:42.320 were similarly recruited. In the 1880s, southern 00:15:42.320 --> 00:15:44.639 Iowa coal companies brought black workers up 00:15:44.639 --> 00:15:47.320 from the American south, initially as strikebreakers. 00:15:47.500 --> 00:15:49.539 Yeah. And this migration led to the creation 00:15:49.539 --> 00:15:53.159 of unique, predominantly black, thriving coal 00:15:53.159 --> 00:15:56.519 towns. in Iowa, like Buxton. Later, during World 00:15:56.519 --> 00:15:59.340 Wars I and II, federal military training camps 00:15:59.340 --> 00:16:01.679 located in Des Moines introduced thousands more 00:16:01.679 --> 00:16:03.700 black families to the state. But building your 00:16:03.700 --> 00:16:06.840 entire state economy on global exports and international 00:16:06.840 --> 00:16:10.279 labor comes with a massive vulnerability. I mean, 00:16:10.419 --> 00:16:13.570 when the globe hiccups... Iowa feels it in its 00:16:13.570 --> 00:16:16.350 bones. The 20th and 21st centuries look like 00:16:16.350 --> 00:16:18.610 an absolute economic roller coaster. Because 00:16:18.610 --> 00:16:21.049 they are deeply integrated into the world market. 00:16:21.490 --> 00:16:23.409 During World War I, the federal government urges 00:16:23.409 --> 00:16:26.009 farmers to patriotically increase food production 00:16:26.009 --> 00:16:28.769 for the allies. So they expand. Exactly. Farmers 00:16:28.769 --> 00:16:31.350 take on heavy debt to buy more land and tractors. 00:16:31.669 --> 00:16:34.169 But when the war ends, European agriculture recovers, 00:16:34.470 --> 00:16:37.210 global demand plummets, and the 1920s bring a 00:16:37.210 --> 00:16:39.690 devastating crash. The numbers in the text are 00:16:39.690 --> 00:16:42.129 brutal. At one point, the price of corn hits 00:16:42.129 --> 00:16:44.870 10 cents a bushel. It was literally cheaper for 00:16:44.870 --> 00:16:46.809 farmers to burn their own corn to heat their 00:16:46.809 --> 00:16:48.830 homes than to sell it and buy coal. It's hard 00:16:48.830 --> 00:16:51.809 to even imagine. Farmers were so desperate that 00:16:51.809 --> 00:16:54.250 a group called the Farmers' Holiday Association 00:16:54.250 --> 00:16:56.750 started setting up blockades on the highways, 00:16:57.350 --> 00:16:59.750 forcefully withholding food from the market just 00:16:59.750 --> 00:17:02.110 to artificially choke the supply and raise prices. 00:17:02.330 --> 00:17:05.029 Which shows how dire things were. Yeah. Real 00:17:05.029 --> 00:17:08.049 relief only materializes when the New Deal introduces 00:17:08.049 --> 00:17:10.910 the Agricultural Adjustment Act. which the text 00:17:10.910 --> 00:17:14.029 notes was architected by an Iowan, Henry A. Wallace. 00:17:14.549 --> 00:17:17.230 And that whiplash just continues. During World 00:17:17.230 --> 00:17:20.190 War II, Iowa farmers are suddenly deemed so essential 00:17:20.190 --> 00:17:22.069 to the global war effort that the government 00:17:22.069 --> 00:17:24.670 issues them draft exemptions while women step 00:17:24.670 --> 00:17:26.670 into the factories and run the farms. And then 00:17:26.670 --> 00:17:28.809 the demographic shifts again later on. Right. 00:17:28.869 --> 00:17:31.089 Decades later, the geopolitical fallout of the 00:17:31.089 --> 00:17:34.150 Vietnam War reaches the prairie as Iowa actively 00:17:34.150 --> 00:17:38.089 welcomes over 10 ,000 refugees, including a large 00:17:38.089 --> 00:17:40.750 population of Khai Dam who permanently resettle 00:17:40.750 --> 00:17:43.349 in Des Moines. Even their local political systems 00:17:43.349 --> 00:17:46.549 become a national focal point. The Iowa caucuses 00:17:46.549 --> 00:17:49.490 begin in 1972. I always assumed this was some 00:17:49.490 --> 00:17:51.430 ancient tradition, but the text says it was actually 00:17:51.430 --> 00:17:54.109 born out of local Democrats' frustration with 00:17:54.109 --> 00:17:56.329 party bosses controlling the nominee selection. 00:17:56.670 --> 00:17:58.509 Yeah, it was a totally new approach. They designed 00:17:58.509 --> 00:18:01.410 a grassroots system and it blew up into a national 00:18:01.410 --> 00:18:03.910 spectacle when Jimmy Carter utilized it to capture 00:18:03.910 --> 00:18:07.369 the presidency in 1976. But the economic data 00:18:07.369 --> 00:18:10.869 we see in the 1980s and 90s shows how macroeconomic 00:18:10.869 --> 00:18:13.890 policy continued to violently reshape the state. 00:18:14.670 --> 00:18:17.490 And just to clarify for you listening, we aren't 00:18:17.490 --> 00:18:20.490 taking partisan sides on the politics here at 00:18:20.490 --> 00:18:22.630 all, just looking at the source data. Right, 00:18:22.730 --> 00:18:25.289 just observing the impacts. Exactly. During the 00:18:25.289 --> 00:18:28.549 1980s farm crisis, under the agricultural policies 00:18:28.549 --> 00:18:30.890 of the Reagan administration, the text shows 00:18:30.890 --> 00:18:33.849 the price of Midwestern farmland plummeting by 00:18:33.849 --> 00:18:36.650 more than half. It wiped out independent implement 00:18:36.650 --> 00:18:39.269 dealers and destroyed tens of thousands of middle 00:18:39.269 --> 00:18:41.950 class rural jobs. And then in the 1990s, the 00:18:41.950 --> 00:18:44.230 passage of NAFTA under the Clinton administration 00:18:44.230 --> 00:18:47.029 shifted the economic landscape yet again. How 00:18:47.029 --> 00:18:49.349 so? Well, the economic data correlates the free 00:18:49.349 --> 00:18:51.769 trade agreement with heavily subsidized American 00:18:51.769 --> 00:18:54.450 corn flooding the Mexican market. This undercut 00:18:54.450 --> 00:18:57.210 and displaced local Mexican farmers who then 00:18:57.210 --> 00:18:59.869 migrated north to places like Iowa to find work 00:18:59.869 --> 00:19:02.589 in the massive meatpacking plants. Processing 00:19:02.589 --> 00:19:05.990 the very animals fed by that Iowa corn. Precisely. 00:19:06.029 --> 00:19:08.069 Which completely transformed the demographics 00:19:08.069 --> 00:19:10.589 and the social fabric of rural towns. like Storm 00:19:10.589 --> 00:19:13.109 Lake, where meatpacking companies were literally 00:19:13.109 --> 00:19:15.710 posting recruitment billboards south of the border. 00:19:15.890 --> 00:19:18.529 It's a huge structural change. Concurrently, 00:19:18.710 --> 00:19:21.789 the text correlates the lingering rural economic 00:19:21.789 --> 00:19:24.390 oppression and the social hollowing out of these 00:19:24.390 --> 00:19:27.730 towns with the rise of Midwestern meth superlabs. 00:19:27.930 --> 00:19:30.970 Yeah, that's a dark chapter. The text specifically 00:19:30.970 --> 00:19:33.670 highlights the massive illicit operation run 00:19:33.670 --> 00:19:36.400 by an Iowan named Lori Arnold. during this period 00:19:36.400 --> 00:19:39.400 is just relentless change. This raises an important 00:19:39.400 --> 00:19:41.339 question for anyone looking at this history. 00:19:41.839 --> 00:19:44.819 How does a community absorb such racket structural 00:19:44.819 --> 00:19:47.539 volatility? Right. From agricultural crashes 00:19:47.539 --> 00:19:50.460 to the complex impacts of global free trade agreements 00:19:50.460 --> 00:19:53.640 to enduring billions of dollars in sudden damages 00:19:53.640 --> 00:19:56.420 from natural disasters. I mean, the text outlines 00:19:56.420 --> 00:20:00.119 the great flood of 1993, the catastrophic 2008 00:20:00.119 --> 00:20:03.799 Parkersburg tornado, the devastating 2020 direct 00:20:03.799 --> 00:20:05.940 go, which is essentially an inland hurricanes. 00:20:05.940 --> 00:20:08.319 Just massive destruction. All the way up to the 00:20:08.319 --> 00:20:11.039 supply chain collapses of the COVID -19 pandemic. 00:20:11.599 --> 00:20:14.039 Iowa's history is ultimately a master class in 00:20:14.039 --> 00:20:17.059 adaptation. They are in a perpetual state of 00:20:17.059 --> 00:20:20.079 reshaping themselves in response to forces much 00:20:20.079 --> 00:20:22.779 larger than their own state borders. We've covered 00:20:22.779 --> 00:20:25.549 an incredible timeline today. We started with 00:20:25.549 --> 00:20:27.809 melting glaciers and the terraforming brilliance 00:20:27.809 --> 00:20:31.289 of Native American societies. We saw early pioneers 00:20:31.289 --> 00:20:34.630 building houses out of dirt, burning dried animal 00:20:34.630 --> 00:20:37.170 waste, and forming militias over honey. It's 00:20:37.170 --> 00:20:39.289 been quite a journey. We watched the railroad 00:20:39.289 --> 00:20:41.809 transform a landlocked prairie into a global 00:20:41.809 --> 00:20:44.549 breadbasket that fueled the Union Army, followed 00:20:44.549 --> 00:20:47.269 by a multilingual marketing campaign that pulled 00:20:47.269 --> 00:20:49.829 immigrants from around the world. And finally, 00:20:50.250 --> 00:20:52.799 we rode the whiplash of the modern era. from 00:20:52.799 --> 00:20:55.000 the desperation of the Great Depression to the 00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:57.279 complex demographic ripple effects of NAFTA. 00:20:57.619 --> 00:20:59.660 It is a history that completely shatters that 00:20:59.660 --> 00:21:01.839 peaceful, static painting we imagined at the 00:21:01.839 --> 00:21:04.059 very beginning of our conversation. Exactly. 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:05.799 And that is the final thought I want to leave 00:21:05.799 --> 00:21:08.880 you with today. We so often think of the American 00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:13.539 Midwest as a quiet, isolated place, safely insulated 00:21:13.539 --> 00:21:16.160 from the chaos of the rest of the world. But 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:18.960 looking at the deep history of Iowa, It is abundantly 00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:21.400 clear that the heartland is not a shelter from 00:21:21.400 --> 00:21:23.880 global forces. Not at all. It is the very place 00:21:23.880 --> 00:21:26.440 where those global forces collide first and often 00:21:26.440 --> 00:21:29.099 hit the hardest. So the next time you see a quiet 00:21:29.099 --> 00:21:31.940 green cornfield stretching to the horizon, don't 00:21:31.940 --> 00:21:34.539 just see a farm. Ask yourself, what invisible 00:21:34.539 --> 00:21:36.880 global economies are currently shaping the dirt 00:21:36.880 --> 00:21:39.119 beneath it? Thank you for joining us on this 00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:39.619 deep dive.