The civilization of the Old Northwest

The author states in the preface that [his aim] has been to present a composite view of the civilization that arose in the formative period of the Old Northwest, between the first settlement at Marietta in 1788 and the outbreak of the War of 1812. In this quarter of a century the foundations of an American civilization were laid in this region… At the same time an American colonial system was tested in this same area, and so successfully was it adapted to practical needs that the precedents set up in the Old Northwest, along with the distinctive civilization which developed there, were later transplanted into the Trans-Mississippi country.”