The individualism fostered by the frontiers wilderness created a national spirit complementary to democracy, as the wilderness defies control. [38], A 2020 study in Econometrica found empirical support for the frontier thesis, showing that frontier experience had a causal impact on individualism.[39]. The frontier helped shape individualism and opposition to governmental control. AS THE OPEN RANGE GAVE WAY TO RANCHING FEWER & FEWER COWBOYS WERE NEEDED IN THE Topic. -- Georgia's destiny / E. Merton Coulter. Turner concluded that the demands for a vigorous foreign policy, for an interoceanic canal, for a revival of our power upon our seas, and for the extension of American influence to outlying islands and adjoining countries are indications that the forces [of expansion] will continue. Such policies would permit Americans to find new markets. They highlighted the lack of Americans to populate the vast region and lamented the challenges in attempting to govern the native peoples in that territory. WebAuthor: schoolhistory.co.uk Date Submitted: 10/04/2019 04:51 PM Average star voting: 3 ( 13460 reviews) Summary: A distinguished historian finds that after 65 years Frederick Jackson Turners disputed frontier theory is still a valid key to understanding modern America Match with the search results: This news was a distinguished event in American In the United States, several newspaper editors openly questioned the purchase and labeled it Sewards Folly (Figure 22.3). If you don't remember your password, you can reset it by entering your email address and clicking the Reset Password button. Faragher, John Mack ed. generation, and it shaped the writing of western American history for even Sewards purchase added an enormous territory to the country-nearly 600,000 square miles-and also gave the United States access to the rich mineral resources of the region, including the gold that trigged the Klondike Gold Rush at the close of the century. [16], Successive generations moved further inland, shifting the lines of settlement and wilderness, but preserving the essential tension between the two. Urban historian Richard C. Wade challenged the Frontier Thesis in his first asset, The Urban Frontier (1959), asserting that western cities such as Pittsburgh, Louisville, and Cincinnati, not the farmer pioneers, were the catalysts for western expansion. Turner sets up the East and the West as opposing forces; as the West strives for freedom, the East seeks to control it. The essay summarizes Turner's views on how the idea of the American frontier shaped the American character in terms of democracy and violence. Every generation moved further west and became more American, more democratic, and more intolerant of hierarchy. Additionally, as late as 1890, with the U.S. Navy significantly reduced in size, a majority of vessels were classified as Old Navy, meaning a mixture of iron hulled and wholly wooden ships. Turner referred to the Germanic germ theory by name in his essay, claiming that too exclusive attention has been paid by institutional students to the Germanic origins.[9] Turner believed that historians should focus on the settlers struggle with the frontier as the catalyst for the creation of American character, not racial or hereditary traits. WebThe Closing of the American Wilderness. WebGalena, South Dakota, in the Black Hills, 1890 frontier of the seventeenth century; the Alleghanies that of the eighteenth; the Mississippi that of the first quarter of the [33] Indeed, their approach was to reject the frontier as an important process and to study the West as a region, ignoring the frontier experience east of the Mississippi River. In 1942, in "The Frontier and American Institutions: A Criticism of the Turner Thesis," Professor George Wilson Pierson debated the validity of the Turner thesis, stating that many factors influenced American culture besides the looming frontier. The Western Historical Quarterly is published for the Western Historical Association by Utah State University, and the Department of History, Utah State University. Jensen, Richard. WebJackson Turner Main (1917-2003) was a professor, historian and author who researched and wrote about the colonial American social order before, during and after the American Revolution.He was the grandson of Frederick Jackson Turner author of the influential Frontier Thesis.Main worked most of his adult life as a professor and author of American It had also continually renewed American ideas of This Germanic intelligence was only halted by civil and ecclesiastical restraints and a lack of free land.[8] This was Bancrofts explanation for the Dark Ages. Corrections? [35] However his ideas presented in his graduate seminars at Wisconsin and Harvard influenced many areas of historiography. [28] FDR, in celebrating the third anniversary of Social Security in 1938, advised, "There is still today a frontier that remains unconqueredan America unreclaimed. Foreword Auerbach P.S. In Australia, "mateship" and working together was valued more than individualism. Businesses were not the only ones seeking to expand. Yosemite Sentinel. Free shipping for many products! In the words of historian William Appleman Williams, it rolled through the universities and into popular literature like a tidal wave. While todays professional historians tend to reject such sweeping theories, emphasizing instead a variety of factors in their interpretations of the past, Turners frontier thesis remains the most popular explanation of American development among the literate public. Poor health forced his early retirement from Harvard in 1924. [48] advance of American settlement westward" - was the central story of American They emphasized the values of individualism, empiricism, simplicity, equality, courage, discovery, independence, and naturalism in the service of democratic access, human rights, ecological balance, and the resolution of social, economic, and political issues. The racial warfare theory was an emerging belief in the late nineteenth century advocated by Theodore Roosevelt in The Winning of the West. Turner first detailed his own interpretation of American history in his justly famous paper, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, delivered at a meeting of historians in Chicago in 1893 and published many times thereafter. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Marvin K. Mikesell, "Comparative Studies in Frontier History," in Richard Hofstadter and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Alexander Petrov, "Russian History Re-Examined, Ten Years After The Dissolution Of The Soviet Union", published in Russian Moscow 2001, English translation London 2004, Gerald D. Nash, "The frontier thesis: A historical perspective,", Ann Fabian, "The ragged edge of history: Intellectuals and the American West,", Richard R. John, " Turner, Beard, Chandler: Progressive Historians,", William Appleman Williams, "The Frontier Thesis and American Foreign Policy,", Ray Allen Billington, "Why Some Historians Rarely Write History: A Case Study of Frederick Jackson Turner,", John B. Boles, "Turner, the frontier, and the study of religion in America,", Dan Moosd, "Reclaiming the Frontier: Oscar Micheaux as Black Turnerian,", Richard W. Slatta, "Taking Our Myths Seriously.". ", John Mack Faragher, "The frontier trail: rethinking Turner and reimagining the American West." U.S. History by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. [43], Subsequent critics, historians, and politicians have suggested that other 'frontiers,' such as scientific innovation, could serve similar functions in American development. The Great Depression, 1929-1932, Chapter 26: Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal 1932-1941, Chapter 27: Fighting the Good Fight in World War II, 1941-1945, Chapter 28: Post-War Prosperity and Cold War Fears, 1945-1960, Chapter 29: Contesting Futures: America in the 1960s, Chapter 30: Political Storms at Home and Abroad, 1968-1980, Chapter 31: From Cold War to Culture Wars, 1980-2000, Chapter 32: The Challenges of the Twenty-First Century. The farther West Americans pushed (the farther into the Frontier they went) the more unique of an American identity developed. As mentioned in the chapter opening, Turner announced his Frontier Thesis-that American democracy was largely formed by the American frontier-at the Chicago Worlds Colombian Exposition. Their germs were, directly and by way of England, carried to the New World where they were allowed to germinate in the North American forests. Turners thesis was enormously influential at the time but has subsequently been widely criticized by historians. A modern simplification describes it as Indigenous land possessing an "American ingenuity" that settlers are compelled to forcibly appropriate to create cultural identity that differs from their European ancestors. Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE Many of Turners best essays were collected in The Frontier in American History (1920) and The Significance of Sections in American History (1932), for which he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1933. WebIt was the frontier of Europe in a very real sense. The conquest of the American frontier is one of the most exciting and dramatic stories in American history. 0000033612 00000 n To update your cookie settings, please visit the, Illnesses and Injuries at a Remote American Residential Summer Camp Over 3 Seasons. WebFrederick Jackson Turner and the frontier. He won wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals. William Appleman Williams led the "Wisconsin School" of diplomatic historians by arguing that the frontier thesis encouraged American overseas expansion, especially in Asia, during the 20th century. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Turners frontier thesis rose to become the dominant interpretation of American history for the next half-century and longer. WebFrederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" 1893 This brief official statement marks the closing of a great historic movement. She fought against foot binding, a cultural tradition where girls feet were tightly bound to keep them from growing, and shared her personal food and money when those around her were suffering. Indeed, his influence was felt in American classrooms until the 1970s and 80s. "[46] He promoted his political platform as the "New Frontier," with a particular emphasis on space exploration and technology. Later he focused on sectionalism as a force in U.S. development. This was particularly true among women missionaries, who composed over 60 percent of the overall missionary force. Next: The Spanish-American War and Overseas Empire, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, Explain the evolution of American interest in foreign affairs from the end of the Civil War through the early 1890s, Identify the contributions of Frederick Jackson Turner and Alfred Thayer Mahan to the conscious creation of an American empire. What the world needed now, he argued, was a highly organized provincial life to serve as a check upon mob psychology on a national scale, and to furnish that variety which is essential to vital growth and originality. Turner never ceased to treat history as contemporary knowledge, seeking to explore the ways that the nation might rechannel its expansionist impulses into the development of community life. democracy and individualism and had, therefore, shaped not just the West but the 0000090328 00000 n The process of westward expansion had transformed a desolate and savage
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