Transcript The Midwest

The Midwest
Ellie
Lindsey
Introduction
There are 10 states in the
Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,
Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota,
Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and
Wisconsin.
• Indiana is the only state in the
Midwest that is not a Native
American word.
• The Midwest was a land of
promise with good soil to the
first pioneers, forests full of
trees, and lakes full of fish.
People and History
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Levi Coffin was sometimes called
“the president of the Underground
Railroad.”
Illinois now calls it self “Land of
Lincoln.”
The Homestead Act allowed
settlers to claim 160 acres of land,
as long as they built a house there,
planted crops, and lived there for
five years.
The Louisiana Purchase was when
the United States bought the
Louisiana territory from France. It
included states that later became
known as Minnesota, Iowa,
Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska.
Land in the Area
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In the winter it is very snowy
and in the summer there can be
heat waves and droughts.
The Mississippi River is the
backbone of the west. It assists
with buying and selling goods. It
is also good for recreation (fun),
fishing, and wildlife.
The Great Lakes are Lake Huron,
Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan,
Lake Erie, and Lake Superior.
The snowiest part of the
Midwest is the upper Peninsula
of Michigan. In an average
winter, this area gets 9 feet 2
inches of snow.
Animals and Plants
• Animals: Bats, bison, falcons,
white-tailed deer, fish, pigeons,
and starlings.
• Plants: prairie grasses, tall grasses,
mosses, oak trees, yellow
pimpernel and false foxglove.
• There are woodlands and prairies
in the Midwest. The woodlands are
dominated by trees and are found
by rivers, streams and other
sources of water
• In the 1900s there were 300,000
white-tailed deer. Now there are
more than 30 million white –tailed
deer.
Cities and Towns
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Cities: Chicago, Illinois, Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, Detroit, Michigan, and
Cleveland, Ohio,
In 1871 a fire started in Chicago. The
fire burned 18,000 buildings, killed 300
people, and left almost 100,000
residents (one-third of the city’s
population) homeless.
Although Chicago gets a lot of
attention, there are a lot of other
exciting towns in the Midwest. For
example, Madison which is the capital
of Wisconsin, is called “The City of Four
Lakes.” It is built on a isthmus
The Sears Tower is the fourth tallest
skyscraper in the world. It rises above
the city of Chicago. It is 1,450 feet tall.
This is 110 stories tall. It is an entire
mini-city with stores, apartments, and
all sorts of fun activities to do.
Rural Life
• The Iowa State Fair is one of
the nations oldest and
largest state fairs, which
started in 1854.
• Farming tractors are a big
investment. One tractor can
cost $150,000! These
tractors are important to the
success of the farming in the
area.
• Iowa is the nation’s largest
pig producer.
• Wisconsin produces 35% of
all the cheese made in the
USA, which is more than any
other state.
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Getting Around
The Mackinac Bridge connects Michigan’s
Lower Peninsula to the Upper Peninsula. It
opened in the year of 1957. Ever since then,
more than 100 million vehicles have crossed
it. It goes five miles across open water and is
one of the world’s largest suspension bridges.
Whether you go by boat, train, car, or plane ,
the Midwest is an easy place to travel. The
Midwest’s central location in the USA makes it
easy to get from here to almost anywhere else
in the country
The best way to see the Midwest is by car. The
many interstate highways, state highways, and
local roads that crisscross the region make it
possible to travel from Ohio to Nebraska in a
couple of days . This same trip would have
taken early settlers months to complete.
For nearly 200 years , barges have been in use
on the Mississippi River. It is cheaper to ship
goods by barges than by freight trains or semitrailers. They are held together with steel
cables and pushed by towboats.
Work in the Area
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A lot of the food sold in the US is
grown, produced, or packed in the
Midwest.
A lot of steel that was used to build the
railroads and skyscrapers throughout
the US was mined and milled in the
Midwest.
There are many different kinds of jobs
in the Midwest that keep the cities
going. Kansas leads the nation in
building airplanes airplanes for
businesses and military use.
Oprah Winfrey was the first AfricanAmerican woman to become a
billionaire. She uses her fame and
wealth to help people around the
world who are less fortunate.
Free Time
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Some foods that people eat or grow in the Midwest
are Chicago style pizza, spinach milkshakes, sausages,
hot dogs , popcorn, chili, and cheese.
Some sports that are played in the Midwest are
boating, biking skiing, baseball, basketball, football,
hockey, and racecar driving. There is also swimming
and fishing.
Every winter since 1973, Wisconsin hosts the
Birkebeiner Cross Country Ski Marathon. More than
8,000 skiers from all over the world compete in
different races and lengths over three days. It is North
America’s largest Cross-Country ski race.
Every September, Chesterton Indiana holds an
enormous Wizard of Oz festival . Since 1926, Traverse
City, Michigan has a hosted the National Cherry
festival.
The first ice cream cone was probably invented at the
St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. An ice cream vender
and a waffle salesman teamed up to create the first
ice cream cone.
Americans eat 17 billion quarts of popcorn each year.
Most of it comes from the Midwest with Indiana and
Nebraska producing the most!
An Amazing Region
• We learned a lot while studying the
Midwest. The Midwest has places to
visit, a rich history, different cultures, a
lot of businesses, and a big landscape.
• Many famous television broadcasters
and show hosts come from the
Midwest such as David Letterman, Tom
Brokaw, Johnny Carson, Oprah Winfrey
and lots more! Also, Abraham Lincoln
lived in Illinois, that’s why its called the
Land of Lincoln.
• We learned about many important
places such as the Sears Tower, the
Mackinack Bridge, the Cherry Spoon
Bridge, The Underground Railroad, and
the Mississippi River.
Works Cited
• Curry, Elizabeth and Judson. Regions of the
United States: The Midwest: Chicago, Illinois:
Raintree, 2006.