The Extractive Midwest

Call for Proposals for Edited Volume

Description:

Typically defined as a fertile, renewable, and nurturing region, the Midwest has also experienced a long history of extraction. Its laborers, free and unfree, used the region’s natural resources to build cities and to create economic empires, both within and beyond the region’s boundaries. Yet this extraction has been hidden from both the region’s popular perceptions and from its scholarship, which tends to look at extraction at local levels, not from a regional perspective. This collection aims to acknowledge the Midwest’s extractive past and its creation of the region’s present.

The impetus for this collection came from panels about midwestern mining, logging, and agriculture at the annual conferences for the Western History Association and the Midwestern History Association. Feedback revealed the need for new scholarship that foregrounds extraction within Midwestern history. Although recent scholarship on midwestern history has emphasized the region’s distinctive nature, this collection will consider how the Midwest, as a region, developed through extractive processes that were similar to those seen in western and southern US history.

We aim to produce an edited collection that draws on the provocative recent scholarship foregrounding extractivism while remaining accessible to non-specialist audiences. Proposals should examine the relationship between extraction in its manifold forms and the history of the Midwest, broadly defined. We recognize that extraction happens in various forms so we’re excited to accept proposals that explore extraction from multiple disciplinary angles.

Themes:

Below is a list of ideas around the central theme of “extraction” that the editors have developed. The list is by no means exhaustive and instead only serves to generate ideas.

• Agriculture as an extractive industry / modern agribusiness / soil depletion

• Capitalism / Political Economy / Boom and bust cycles in the Midwest

• Cultures of extractivism in the Midwest

• Data / Information & Technology

• Energy in the Midwest / biofuels / midwestern coal, oil, and, gas

• Fishing / Hunting

• Forestry

• Indigenous History

• Labor / Talent / Immigration into and Emigration from the Midwest

• The Midwest in Modern Global Systems and Economies / International Capital and Commodity Flows

• Mining / Mineral Extraction

• Recreation / Tourism

• Transportation

• Waste / Reclamation & Remediation

Target Audience:

We intend this collection to appeal to scholars of the Midwest, especially historians and literary scholars engaged in the recent boom in Midwestern studies, as well as a broader readership interested in exploring the Midwest’s character and development through serious nonfiction. 

Plan for Collaboration:

We plan to create an edited collection with clear, consistent arguments woven throughout each chapter. Thus, the editors and chapter authors will work collaboratively to craft a collection that, we hope, will be greater than the sum of its parts.

The editors will begin by reviewing abstracts for proposed chapters and inviting authors to submit full chapter drafts. Interested contributors should submit a 300-500 word abstract describing their proposed chapter, along with a brief biography (150 words), and a short CV by August 30, 2026.

At the chapter draft stage, we seek well-researched and original chapters between 6,000 and 8,000 words, not including notes, which should be completed in Chicago Manual of Style footnotes. Submissions should be grounded in scholarly analysis and should align with the above themes and the collection’s overall argument about extractivism’s role in shaping the Midwest.

In late 2026, the editors will convene regular meetings of the contributors (via video call) in a writing group format. We will workshop chapter drafts in a supportive, generative manner that aims to improve submissions and align our arguments. We tentatively plan for final chapter drafts to be due in June 2027.

Tentative Timeline:

• March 31, 2026–Release CFP

• August 30, 2026–Proposals Due

• Mid-September 2026–Acceptances

• Mid-to-Late December 2026–Virtual symposium

• June 1, 2027–Chapter Drafts Due

• January 1, 2028–Final Chapter Drafts Due

Editors:

Brian James Leech is Associate Professor of History at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. His research focuses on the history of natural resources in the American West and Midwest.

Sarah Mittlefehldt is Professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences at Northern Michigan University. Her research focuses on the history of forest management and the development of wood-based energy technologies.

Hayden L. Nelson is a Gale Scholar, Research Historian at the Minnesota Historical Society. His research focuses on the relationship between resource extraction and colonization in the Great Lakes and Great Plains.

Jeff Schramm is Associate Professor of History at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri. His research focuses on 20th century industrial technology, specifically railroads and mining, and the engineering and regulation thereof. 

Send all inquiries and submissions to: 

Hayden L. Nelson (hayden.l.nelson@outlook.com)