How Advertising Brought Our Ancestors to the Midwest

What motivated our ancestors to move to the Midwest? We’ll examine how newspaper advertising, broadsides, pamphlets, and books were aimed at prospective migrants from other parts of the U.S. and from Europe to get them to come, work, buy land, and settle in sparsely-populated frontier areas. We'll look at what kinds of messages these ads used to make hard work and pioneer living seem attractive. Attendees will come away with an appreciation of how this particular spur to migration shaped the growth of the Midwestern region.