Kickstarter

Without corn, there might never have been a United States. At the very least, the country would never have been as wealthy or well fed as it is.

The word corn is testament to its importance: corn simply means “dominant cereal grain.” Only in the United States does corn always mean maize—the grain of the Americas.

Nowhere in the US is corn more important than in America’s heartland, the Midwest. Corn shaped the Midwest, its culture, and its foodways. I am working on a book manuscript that will address the history and influence of corn in the growth and shaping of the heartland. The book will record the life that revolved around corn, from pioneer days to the present. It will visit the farmers in their fields but also the Midwest businesses that grew up around corn, from railways to bourbon distillers to Cracker Jack and Orville Redenbacher. I need three months to focus on the research, and to travel around the Midwest to talk to farmers, historians, folklorists, and others involved in the story of corn.