The American frontier was settled by rough-hewn individuals and families migrating in search of the best free land to homestead, wanting to get away from coastal or regional elites. Settlement typically created a new type of American, as descendants of Puritan New England, Germans from Pennsylvania, and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians from the Piedmont South merged together into communities which were helpful to one another, but ultimately individualists who did not much trust government. Jacksonian democracy, with its eponymous hero, was its first political expression. Settlement of the old Northwest and Midwest of the country — roughly, Big 10 country — was the most significant phase as the region first tipped the balance between north and south toward the free soil, then produced the greatest generals and politicians (including Lincoln) of the age, and finally yielded the great resources for America’s industrial rise. Interestingly, the far Great Lakes and upper plains states (eg, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas) were often heavily peopled by immigrants — Germans and Scandinavians. Free land served as a natural outlet for low-wage earner of the cities. By the time the frontier closed in 1890, the migrants had switched to favoring government intervention to protect individuals from the economic power of consolidating industrialists. Another important outlet was the Midwest’s rise of the state university, to cultivate the talents of the new citizen.