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Podcast: New Books in Literary Studies
Episode: Charles Delgadillo and James Stacey, eds., "Heartland Utopia: William Allen White on the Ideal Midwestern Town" (UP of Kansas, 2026)
Description: For William Allen White, the ideal Midwestern community was a utopian vision of what America could be: a prosperous, happy community built on equality, opportunity, and neighborly generosity. This anthology collects White’s famous and obscure writings and presents him as the iconic voice of the Midwestern small town.
William Allen White, the editor of The Emporia Gazette in Kansas, was an American institution. When he died in 1944, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt commented that America had lost one of its “wisest and most beloved editors.” White understood the value of his unique brand as “the voice of Main Stree...