Editor's Note: A very special thanks to Sisty Behmer for writing this synopsis of Dr. Reigelman's book on The Midland. Our sincerest thanks for her very hard work and her enthusiasm in supporting this website. Also, our very sincere thanks to Dr. Reigelman for graciously allowing us to use his book to highlight the history of the magazine. His enthusiastic support makes this entire page possible.

Around 1912 in America a quiet literary movement began. It was started by those readers and writers, editors and publishers who, dissatisfied with New York publishing houses, large commercial magazines, and what they felt was the profiting from literary talent, decided to create their own ‘little’ magazines which would focus attention on writers outside the pale of the East. They encouraged regional editors to support and publish their local writers, and suggested that native regional writers ‘stay at home’ rather than strive for a writing life in New York City publishing houses, characterized once by H.L. Mencken as ‘publishers’ bordellos’.

By 1920, over 150 ‘little’ magazines were publishing all over the United States. Their writing stressed the diversity, creativity, ruralism, and regionalism of America. To keep their magazines free from the ogre of commercialism, many took no advertisements and had no endowments or financial backing from anyone other than their subscribers. They were truly independent, and their reading audiences were, indeed, ‘little’ as their name implied. They deliberately focused on stories that had their settings in the Midwest. Such a little magazine was “The Midland”. Its origin and history were the lifework of John Towner Frederick. A native Iowan, he first conceived of the journal when he was an undergraduate at the University of Iowa (UI). He and his literary friends saw the need for such a journal; they had often met to read and write their own works about life in rural settings. They were concerned that universities emphasized European writing and spent too much time on the academics of literature rather than the creative process itself. “Frederick once said that he thought a writer should concern himself with something smaller than the whole nation, but larger than the confines of an individual or perhaps atypical village.”

Frederick credits C.F. Ansley, chairman of the English Department at UI, as the inspiration behind the journal. Ansley envisioned the University of Iowa as a center of creative writing in the U.S. He was a strong proponent of regional writing, and he too feared that the larger publishing houses of the East were standardizing American writing. Many others, including Frederick, feared that the urban industrialization of America destroyed the individuality, diversity and creativity of its citizens. Frederick and Ansley conceived their magazine, planned its content, solicited its readers, writers, and supporters, and published their first issue of “The Midland: a Magazine of the Middle West” on Jan. 6, 1915. They had 190 supporters who had paid $l.50 for twelve monthly issues. The first issue contained one essay, one short story, and one poem. Later the magazine would concentrate on stories, but include some poetry.

John Frederick was the Editor-in-Chief, but his jobs for “The Midland” were many and varied. He collected, edited, chose or rejected the submitted manuscripts, then sent them to his trusted co-worker John Springer who oversaw the layout and printing of the journal by the local Economy Advertising Company. The magazine was returned to Frederick, who proofread everything, and sent the journal on to subscribers. This casual system became more complicated as the subscribers and magazine grew, and as Frederick traveled around the Midwest, living in several different areas. He left his first teaching job in Minnesota, bought property in Michigan, and after several other moves, returned to Iowa. In 1930, he moved the magazine to Chicago. All of his work for the “The Midland” relied on the U.S. Postal system and his faith in Springer. He did, however, give a special nod to his home in Glennie, Michigan, calling it “the spiritual home of ‘The Midland’”.

Frederick had associate editors, most of whom were located at universities in the Midwest: Bloomington, Evanston, Lincoln, Nebraska, and elsewhere. A local associate was Prof. Edwin Ford Piper, who taught Chaucer, wrote poetry, and collected folklore and ballads of the area; he stayed in Iowa. Ansley left for new property in Michigan. One of the most important workers for the journal, however, was a serendipitous ‘find’ by the name of Esther Paulus. She came to do clerical work, but stayed to marry John Frederick, therein becoming one of its greatest supporters, workers, and companions. She was of invaluable help in raising funds, reading manuscripts and doing anything else that was needed, all the time raising two sons, allowing John to travel wherever he needed to sustain the magazine.

By 1925, because of teaching responsibilities, greater volume in submissions, and a larger “Midland”, Frederick chose a co-editor, Frank Luther Mott. Mott was the editor of a small Iowa newspaper, and had been following the writing in “The Midland” often writing of its excellence and importance. One of his own stories had been published there. Later Frederick helped obtain a teaching position for Mott at UI. Mott was assertive, lively, and offered new energy to the journal; he and Frederick were happy working together. And….Mott accepted responsibility for half of the financial burden of the journal!

Throughout the history of “The Midland” Frederick had accrued many debts. Hoping to offset costs, he created his own printing company, The Midland Press, but though it helped to expose new writers, it didn’t help the magazine. “The Midland” never paid for itself fully, and was largely sustained by the personal family income of the Frederick family. John’s farm in Glennie, Michigan, Esther’s money, several generous donors, and John’s lecture circuit (the most lucrative source) kept the magazine afloat, but it always struggled.

By 1930 Frederick decided to challenge New York’s prominence by moving the magazine to Chicago. He found a source of free advertising, and at first, did well. After a while, however, the Depression crept over the Midwest, and Frederick had to cut his rental space and appeal to his readers. “Time Magazine” did an article on the plight of little magazines and even had a picture of Frederick which brought in some help, but the inevitable happened: the last issue of “The Midland” came out in June of 1933.

Evaluating the influence of writing movements is always a qualitative thing, difficult to assess, and wide-ranging in scope. But there is no doubt that John Frederick’s ‘little’ magazine influenced ‘big’ writers and writing of the 20th century in America. Those writing in regions heretofore ignored by the large publishing houses, found their voice in the pages of “The Midland”. Wallace Stegner says about Frederick, “….his work had been done in and for Iowa and the Middle West and made this unselfish and helpful critic and editor the greatest single force in Iowa letters in the past 25 years.”

All writers benefited from Frederick’s sense of excellence as he advised, encouraged, and accepted or rejected work sent to him. All were answered in handwritten notes. He looked for rich descriptions of regional settings, mostly rural, and listened for clear, honest, and natural tones in their stories and poems. He offered his writers freedom from artificial limitations on manuscripts due to advertising space; their pieces could be as long or short as the storytelling demanded. He freed them from the sentimentality and stereotypes that often characterized popular magazines; he asked for serious literary pieces, and he got them. He gave voice to many native writers of the Midwest: James Farrell, John G. Neihardt (Black Elk Speaks), Phyllis McGinley, Sherwood Anderson, and MacKinlay Kantor among others. These writers, in turn, influenced many more, until a whole new body of American writing evolved.

Frederick was the first professor of American literature at UI, but would not be the last. Universities around the U.S. embraced the new American writing, studying regional writers right along with the European classics. Part of this evolution began in the movement known as the ‘little’ magazines. Slowly realism developed, leaving Victorian romance and manners behind. “The Midland” and John T. Frederick were at the forefront of this literary movement. Other very great writers would follow. H.L.Mencken said about “The Midland” that it was “probably the most influential literary periodical ever set up in America”.

About John Towner Frederick, one can only surmise that here was a man of strength, courage, dignity and intelligence who spent his life encouraging those qualities in others. He was a modest giving man, and those readers and writers of his time were the happy recipients.