Cynthia Clampitt, author of Midwest Maize: How Corn Shaped the U.S. Heartland, will speak at the Orange City Public Library.

About 10,000 years ago, a weedy grass growing in Mexico was transformed into a larger and more useful grass—the cereal grass that we would come to know as maize and then corn. This grain would in time span the globe, with mixed results, but for newcomers in North America, it expanded its influence from rescuing a few early settlers to creating the Midwest. Today, it is more important than ever. As Margaret Visser noted in her classic work Much Depends on Dinner, “Without corn, North America—and most particularly modern, technological North America—is inconceivable.” Come learn how and why corn transformed the Heartland and helped create today’s world.

This program is a part of the series of programs being held throughout Sioux County as a part of One Book, One Sioux County.