Archive Report
Archive Report
Social and Political Topography
Heart of Nation's Industry, Transportation
Bound on virtually all sides by major waterways, situated at the heart of the nation's land and air transportation routes, and blessed in some sections with the richest soil found anywhere in the world, the Great Lakes states owe their enormous economic power to a happy conjunction of natural resources, markets and Yankee ingenuity. The combination of iron from Lake Superior to the northwest and coal from the Appalachian fields to the southeast made the Great Lakes region the home of U.S. heavy industry.
It was here, in the late 19th century, that an application of industrial machinery to family farming began to revolutionize agriculture. Today the region's agricultural and industrial products are transported to the world via ...