| 
Midwesterners Who Changed The World
Lightbulbs, Model T's and Airplanes, Oh My!
(Originally Published: January/ February 2007)
WE MAY NOT TALK BIG very often, but Midwesterners certainly make an impact by doing. In researching this story, we realized that nearly every piece of society owes much to our region. Presidents and scientists, inventors and musicians. The steel plow (John Deere) and defining the American western (John Wayne). Famous common sense (Erma Bombeck and Ann Landers) and famous aeronautics (Amelia Earhardt, Charles Lindbergh, John Glenn). Even dancing (Fred Astaire) and magic (Harry Houdini). How to choose only 20? Though it would've been easier to wait for our 100th anniversary, it is our 20th, so we had to narrow. Here are our choices.
Tell us when to stop: light bulb, phonograph, electric power plant, electric light&In fact, Milan, Ohio, native THOMAS EDISON held more than 1,000 patents despite only three months of formal education in Port Huron, Michigan. (Still, we recommend you stay in school.)
HENRY FORD was an Edison protege of sorts. He joined Detroit's Edison Illuminating Company in 1891, working as an engineer and tinkering with plans for an internal combustion engine. In 1903, he struck out on his own and founded Ford Motor Company; by 1918, half of America's cars were Model Ts, thanks to Ford's revolutionary assembly lines. Other car manufacturers sprouted in Detroit, making it-—until recently—the world's car-making capital.
The first black woman billionaire is known simply by her first name. But in 1984, little-known OPRAH WINFREY started a Chicago-based TV talk show that revised the genre, becoming a champion of self-improvement and encouraging viewers to lead healthier lives, read books (gasp!) and be charitable.
Our pick for the lofty contribution of flight? The WRIGHT BROTHERS, self-taught engineers from Ohio, changed travel in 1903 when their powered, piloted aircraft took off from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Microbiologist and geneticist NORMAN BORLAUG was a practical scientist with a simple goal: feeding the world! Born in 1914 on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, he led the Green Revolution, a movement in the 1960s to increase crop yields and combat hunger. The result? More meals, a Nobel Prize in 1970 for improving wheat strains and production, and the ongoing World Food Prize program.
It's hard to hide the cultural effects of a billion burgers. A 1954 visit to a California hamburger joint owned by the McDonald brothers (get it?) inspired Oak Park, Illinois, native RAY KROC to franchise the place, revolutionizing the fast-food industry worldwide and expanding waistlines well into the 21st century.
