An industrial community, which was, comparatively speaking, well-organized and well-furnished with machinery, was taking the place of the agricultural community of 1830-1840, which was incoherent and scattered and which lacked everything except energy and opportunity.

Such an increase of organization, capital, and equipment necessarily modified the outlook and interests of the people of the Middle West.

While still retaining many of their local traits, their point of view had been approaching in certain respects that of the inhabitants of the East.

They had ceased to be pioneers.
During the two decades after the Civil War, the territory, which was still in the early stage of agricultural development, was the first and second tier of states west of the Mississippi River.

Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, and finally the Dakotas were being opened for settlement; but in their case the effect and symptoms of this condition were not the same as they had been with the earlier pioneer states.