Introduction : Midwestern small towns and the experience of place -- Frederick Jackson Turner : frontier historian -- William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan : battling for the soul of America -- Henry Ford : the revolutionary as nostalgist -- George Washington Carver and Oscar Micheaux : African American dreamers and doers -- Sinclair Lewis : the man from Main Street -- Carl Sandburg : the eternal seeker and people's poet -- Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, and John Steuart Curry : painting the American scene -- Ernie Pyle : Hoosier vagabond and GIs' friend -- Alvin Hansen : South Dakota farm boy turned Keynesian prophet -- Bob Feller : Iowa farm boy on the "Field of Dreams" -- James Dean : the Indiana rebel without a cause -- Meredith Willson : the music man from Mason City -- Walt Disney : memories of Marceline and dreams of an ideal tomorrow -- Lawrence Welk and Johnny Carson : dancing and talking the night away -- John Wooden : small-town values on the hardwood court -- Ronald Reagan : small-town dreamer on the stage of history -- Sam Walton : Main Street shopkeeper turned global behemoth -- Coda : small-town boys and the American dream.