Iowa History Center

Iowa & the Midwest Experience

 We partnered with the University of Iowa Press in 2009 to create Iowa and the Midwest Experience, a book series devoted to publishing books on state and regional history. Such a move was critical; when Iowa State University Press was taken over by a commercial press, it dropped its line of Iowa history books, and Iowa no longer had a significant publisher dedicated to soliciting and publishing books about Iowa and Midwestern history. We have filled this void.

The series seeks to publish innovative books on the social, cultural, economic, political, and geographical issues that have shaped the history of Iowa and other Midwestern states. In addition to presenting current research and suggesting future directions for scholars, the series aims to make Midwestern history more accessible to the general public.

William Friedricks, director of the center, serves as series editor. Please send inquiries or manuscript proposals to him, bill.friedricks@simpson.edu, or consult the submission guidelines for authors at the University of Iowa Press website, http://www.uiowapress.org/search/browse-series/index.html.

 

Publications:

Iowa Past to Present

 "In Iowa Past to Present, originally published in 1989, Dorothy Schwieder, Thomas Morain, and Lynn Nielsen combine their extensive knowledge of Iowa's history with years of experience addressing the educational needs of elementary and middle-school students. Their skillful and accessible narrative brings alive the people and events that populate Iowa's rich heritage. This revised edition brings the story into the twenty-first century and makes a paperback edition available for the first time." --University of Iowa Press

http://www.uiowapress.org/books/2006-fall/isu/schweider-past.html 

 

 Iowa: Past to Present
 Dorothy Schwieder, Thomas Morain, and Lynn Nielsen

 

Main Street Public Library

 "Wiegand challenges conventional interpretations of the role of public libraries in the community as 'arsenals of a democratic culture,' asserting instead that libraries served as 'uniquely negotiated cultural centers' that reinforced social cohesion, values, and taste at the local level. Based on exhaustive research in primary sources, this study sets a high standard of scholarship. It is a significant contribution to the literature of the history of libraries." --Robert S. Martin, professor emeritus, School of Library and Information Studies, Texas Women's University

http://www.uiowapress.org/books/2011-fall/main-street-public-library.htm

 

 Main Street Library
 Wayne Wiegand

 

 

 

 

 

Last Updated: 11/18/11