(n): the physical property of a substance that enables it to flow American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This rebirth, this of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character. The true point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is the Great West.. . . | (n): fence made of wooden stakes | The wilderness masters the colonist. It finds him a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel, and thought. It takes him from the railroad car and puts him in the birch canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and the moccasin. It puts him in the log cabin of the Cherokee and Iroquois and runs an Indian palisade around him. Before long he has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick, he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion. In short, at the frontier the environment is at first too strong for the man. He must accept the conditions which it furnishes, or perish, and so he fits himself into the Indian clearings and follows the Indian trails. . . . |
(adj): made up of various parts or elements (adv): dominantly | First, we note that the frontier promoted the formation of a nationality for the American people. The coast was English, but the later tides of continental immigration flowed across to the free lands. This was the case from the early colonial days. . . . |
(n): a deep-seated feeling of dislike | But the most important effect of the frontier has been in the promotion of democracy here and in Europe. As has been indicated, the frontier is productive of individualism. Complex society is precipitated by the wilderness into a kind of primitive organization based on the family. The tendency is anti-social. It produces to control, and particularly to any direct control. The tax-gatherer is viewed as a representative of oppression. . . . |
(n): the quality of being inquisitive; curiosity (n): an optimistic and cheerful disposition (n): the quality of being full of energy | From the conditions of frontier life came intellectual traits of profound importance. The works of travelers along each frontier from colonial days onward describe certain common traits, and these traits have, while softening down, still persisted as survivals in the place of their origin, even when a higher social organization succeeded. The result is that to the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and ; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that and which comes with freedom—these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier. . . . |
| But never again will such gifts of free land offer themselves. For a moment, at the frontier, the bonds of custom are broken and unrestraint is triumphant. There is not tabula rasa. The stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there; and yet, in spite of environment, and in spite of custom, each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier. . . . And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history. |
Comprehension Questions
- What did Turner say was officially closed?
- According to the author, American history had been the history of what process? Why?
- In your own words, describe what the author meant in this quote.
- Turner said Americans “must accept the conditions which it [the frontier] furnishes, or perish.” What did he mean?
- What did the frontier promote for the American people?
- Turner said the frontier was productive of what?
- To what did American intellect owe its striking characteristics?
- With the closing of the frontier, what else closed?
Historical Reasoning Questions
- Summarize the Turner Frontier Thesis in one or two sentences in your own words. Discuss the validity of the author’s argument.
- In what ways do you agree or disagree with Turner’s thesis, on the basis of what you have learned about U.S. history thus far?
“The Significance of the Frontier in American History” http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/gilded/empire/text1/turner.pdf
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Claim B. Young historian Frederick Jackson Turner presented his academic paper, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago on July 12, 1893. He was the final presenter of that hot and humid day, but his essay ranks among the most influential arguments ever made regarding American ...
The Frontier Thesis, also known as Turner's Thesis or American frontierism, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that the settlement and colonization of the rugged American frontier was decisive in forming the culture of American democracy and distinguishing it from European nations. He stressed the process of "winning a wilderness" to extend the frontier line ...
How the Myth of the American Frontier Got Its Start. Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis informed decades of scholarship and culture. Then he realized he was wrong. On the evening of July 12, 1893 ...
Quick answer: Frederick Jackson Turner's "frontier thesis" argued that the American frontier was the key factor in shaping the nation's character, fostering traits like individualism and ingenuity ...
While Turner did not create the myth of the frontier, he gave voice to it, and his frontier thesis was a major contribution to the general acceptance of the myth by scholars in the twentieth century. ... but Slotkin argues that the myth of the frontier distorted the historical reality that the methods for attaining the wealth were developed in ...
Step 1. Carefully read the two claims made by historians about Turner's thesis. Then answer the corresponding questions within the worksheet. Claim A (Author: Andrew Fisher, William & Mary) Every nation has a creation myth, a simple yet satisfying story that inspires pride in its people. The United States is no exception, but our creation ...
of the current ruling class or government. I classify Turner's thesis as a grand narrative since it informed scholarly and popular interpretations of the frontier throughout much of the twentieth century (and since it continues to be debated today). In addition, Turner assisted greatly in creating myths surrounding the West, cowboys, pioneers ...
Turner and the Frontier thesis. The debate about the nature, extent and progress of the American west has its academic roots in the late nineteenth century. ... most historians consider that the Wisconsin historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, penned the original professional vision in 1893. Type Chapter Information The American West. Visions and ...
Turner's coherence in making use of evolutionism not as a model to be superimposed on reality, but as an ongoing process to be understood qualitatively step-by-step had important consequences for the structure of his work. This can be seen in the meaning given to movement, the main feature of frontier life. In the Frontier Thesis movement, both as
first rigorous empirical testing of Turner's safety-valve argument.12 The other historiographical trend that is especially relevant to any reassessment of Turner's thesis is the recent flurry of state, local, and regional studies of political culture during the American middle pe-riod. These studies, heavily influenced by the "republican synthesis"
As Americans, we live out our mythic dramas in terms supplied by Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis: "the democracy born of free land, strong in selfishness and individualism, intolerant of administrative experience and education, and pressing individual liberty beyond its proper bounds, has its dangers" (73).
No less familiar than the Turner thesis itself, of course, are the com-plaints against it made by Turner's critics.3 In the half century since Turner's William Cronon is an associate professor of history at Yale University. He would like to thank Allan G. Bogue, Merle Curti, Jay Gitlin, Howard R. Lamar, Patricia Limerick, ...
19 Turner, , "The Problem of the West," in Frontier and Section, Billington ed, 206 Google Scholar; also: "At first the frontier was the Atlantic coast. It was the frontier of Europe in a very real sense. Moving westward, the frontier became more and more American," Turner, , "The Significance of the Frontier," 4.Google Scholar
The "Turner thesis" or "frontier thesis," as his argument quickly became known, shaped both popular and scholarly views of the West (and of much else) for two generations. Turner stated his thesis simply. ... "The Western: Myth and Reality," Journal of the West, April 1990. The Problem of the West is Frederick Jackson Turner's 1896 Atlantic ...
derick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History. 1893This brief official statement marks the closing of a great historic movement. Up to our own day American h. story has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous rece.
Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861 - March 14, 1932) was an American historian during the early 20th century, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison until 1910, and then Harvard University.He was known primarily for his frontier thesis.He trained many PhDs who went on to become well-known historians. He promoted interdisciplinary and quantitative methods, often with an ...
the frontier, argued Turner, was in. promoting democracy. The fron tier produced a fierce individual. ism which opposed outside controls. and promoted a pure form of dem ocratic action. The West, according to Turner, had done more to devel op self-government and to increase. democratic suffrage than any other.
Turner concluded his thesis, "The frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history." As if to confirm Turner, the Columbian Exposition displayed a small log ...
The most significant thing about the American frontier is, that it lies at the hither edge of free land. In the census reports it is treated as the margin of that settlement which has a density of two or more to the square mile. The term is an elastic one, and for our purposes does not need sharp definition.
Chapter 17: The West: Myth or Reality? Using the information provided in the overview above, complete the following passage about the ways historians have debated the American West of the nineteenth century. Most historical debates about the American West begin with the Turner thesis, presented in 1893. Frederick Jackson Turner argued that "the ...
In the frontier thesis, Turner asserts that the settlement of the west had a considerable impact on American history; in fact, the frontier's influence was so significant that it was inseparably ...
out that Turner articulated a long-accepted myth. Insofar as myth-making aims to create and control a national reality, to operate as a source of power, the frontier myth succeeded for many years. Through acting out and retelling over generations, the myth came to 2 August Meier and Elliott M. Rudwick, Black History and the Historical Profes-
Frederick Jackson Turner was an American historian based at the University of Wisconsin until 1910, and then Harvard University. Turner is best known for his "Frontier Thesis," an idea put forth in the essay excerpted. This essay was presented to a special meeting of the American Historical Association during the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.