This is the frontierthe Americawe have set ourselves to reclaim. 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. WebIn The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893) he asserted that the American character had been shaped by frontier life and the end of the frontier era. Explains that formal education in the 1890s was supposed to be the great equalizer of social groups, but schools did not always fulfil their promise as agents of equal opportunity for all. It had also continually renewed American ideas of ", Hofstadter, Richard. The bison herd still lives on the grounds of Fermilab. Deeply influenced by his Wisconsin childhood, Turner rejected the doctrine that U.S. institutions could be traced mainly to European origins, and he demonstrated his theories in a series of essays. Moving westward, the frontier became more and more American. Release Date: October 14, 2007 [eBook #22994] Language: English. He questioned why historians should limit themselves to choosing between a region or a frontier when the true 1 Turner, Frederick Jackson. Later he focused on sectionalism as a force in U.S. development. 0000002314 00000 n This view dominated religious historiography for decades. 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. t!p/G>Q]y wh4R}b]Z,SqCES7J.2U|?}=8lD7{A+[/SW7i|9vtB3X[gY.~0u83cRuq[v5^>Vq6Vwt1gcY vy_>rs&^*s[&=u{{ >0cGL%i&yb|&zb2tVVVAQ4fY)6^;bb/" 0i 1n eplg\tCKGHAXb-s1Z4&34z 'q9q!$`>HNq|HB. Ax4HR&6DH&A)E@o On the tide of the Father of Waters, North and South met and mingled into a nation. Other historians, who wanted to focus scholarship on minorities, especially Native Americans and Hispanics, started in the 1970s to criticize the frontier thesis because it did not attempt to explain the evolution of those groups. An example of this concern is in George Wilson Piersons influential essay on the frontier. [10], A similarly race-based interpretation of Western history also occupied the intellectual sphere in the United States before Turner. Arthur Unobskey Professor of American History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticutt. Turner begins the essay by calling to attention the fact that the western frontier line, which had defined the entirety of American history up to the 1880s, had ended. In 1893 a young historian addressed the American Historical Association, which was meeting at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Frederick Jackson Turner presented his thesis, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History." He began by quoting from the Census of 1890: WebIn 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner presented his thesis, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" at Columbian Exposition in Chicago. [26], Turner's thesis quickly became popular among intellectuals. Moving westward, the frontier became more and more American. 1-4,22-23,29-31,32,37-38. 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. Every generation moved further west and became more American, more democratic, and more intolerant of hierarchy. American emigration west is not spurred by government incentives, but rather some expansive power inherent within them that seeks to dominate nature. While Turner provided the idea for an empire, Mahan provided the more practical guide. Hb```a``7e`c`db@ !V(G/un0}:gn_p0 WebIn The Significance of the Frontier in American History (1893) he asserted that the American character had been shaped by frontier life and the end of the frontier era. 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. Each issue contains reviews and notices of significant books in the field, as well as bibliographic lists of recent articles and dissertations. WebFrom Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1920), pp. Turner held that the American character was decisively shaped by conditions on the frontier, in particular the abundance of free land, the settling of which engendered such traits as self-reliance, individualism, inventiveness, restless energy, mobility, materialism, and optimism. . Most notably, in 1867, Seward obtained the Alaskan Territory from Russia for a purchase price of $7.2 million. The Dilemma of the West, African Americans in the Antebellum United States, The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States, An Awakening of Religion and Individualism, The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Republican Party, The Dred Scott Decision and Sectional Strife, The Origins and Outbreak of the Civil War, Congress and the Remaking of the South, 1865-1866, The Loss of American Indian Life and Culture, The Impact of Expansion on Chinese Immigrants and Hispanic Citizens, Building Industrial America on the Backs of Labor, The African American Great Migration and New European Immigration, Political Corruption in Postbellum America, The Key Political Issues: Patronage, Tariffs, and Gold, The Origins of the Progressive Spirit in America, New Voices for Women and African Americans, The Spanish-American War and Overseas Empire, American Isolationism and the European Origins of War, Demobilization and Its Difficult Aftermath, Prosperity and the Production of Popular Entertainment, Republican Ascendancy: Politics in the 1920s, Assessing the Hoover Years on the Eve of the New Deal, The Origins of War: Europe, Asia, and the United States, The African American Struggle for Civil Rights, Jimmy Carter in the Aftermath of the Storm, Chapter 22: Age of Empire: American Foreign Policy, 1890-1914. 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. The individualism fostered by the frontiers wilderness created a national spirit complementary to democracy, as the wilderness defies control. Turner (Figure 22.4) and naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan were instrumental in the countrys move toward foreign expansion, and writer Brooks Adams further dramatized the consequences of the nations loss of its frontier in his The Law of Civilization and Decay in 1895. By the end of this section, you will be able to: During the time of Reconstruction, the U.S. government showed no significant initiative in foreign affairs. 0000122616 00000 n [17], Turner saw the land frontier was ending, since the U.S. Census of 1890 had officially stated that the American frontier had broken up. By 1898, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, American exports had reached a height of $1.3 billion annually. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Fearing future loss of the territory through military conflict, as well as desiring to create challenges for Great Britain (which they had fought in the Crimean War), Russia had happily accepted the American purchase offer. 0000033612 00000 n The content on this site is intended for healthcare professionals. It explained why the American people and American government were so different from their European counterparts. 0000120607 00000 n Project Gutenberg, 2007. The frontier helped shape individualism and opposition to governmental control. In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner argued that settlement of the west had ended the frontier era in the United States. Also mindful of the mitigating influence of a frontier-in terms of easing pressure from increased immigration and population expansion in the eastern and midwestern United States-he encouraged new outlets for further population growth, whether as lands for further American settlement or to accommodate more immigrants. (Ironically, Turner passed up an opportunity to attend Buffalo Bills Wild West show so that he could complete The Significance of the Frontier in American History on the morning that he presented it.) Therefore, Andrew Jacksons brand of popular democracy was a triumph of the frontier. They also became more violent, more individualistic, more distrustful of authority, less artistic, less scientific, and more dependent on ad-hoc organizations they formed themselves. Historians have noted that John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s explicitly called upon the ideas of the frontier. 1981 Oxford University Press He stresses how the availability of very large amounts of nearly free farm land built agriculture, pulled ambitious families to the western frontier, and created an ethos of unlimited opportunity. Though Turners view would win over the Germanic germ theorys version of Western history, the theory persisted for decades after Turners thesis enraptured the American Historical Association. 0000090328 00000 n Source: Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier in American History, 1919. You will then receive an email that contains a secure link for resetting your password, If the address matches a valid account an email will be sent to __email__ with instructions for resetting your password. 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. Adams, his mentor at Johns Hopkins, had argued that all significant American institutions derived from German and English antecedents. By forging new and stronger ties overseas, the United States would gain access to international markets for export, as well as better deals on the raw materials needed domestically. In so doing, the Anglo-Saxons and the Germanic peoples descendants, being exposed to a forest like their Teutonic ancestors, birthed the free political institutions that formed the foundation of American government.[7]. Historian and ethnologist Hubert Howe Bancroft articulated the latest iteration of the Germanic germ theory just three years before Turners paper in 1893. The traits of the frontier are coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; 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 buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom., Turner concludes the essay by saying that with the end of the frontier, the first period of American history has ended. 0000020399 00000 n Born in frontier Wisconsin and educated at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Turner did graduate work at Johns Hopkins University under Herbert Baxter Adams. Limerick pushes for a continuation of study within the historical and social atmosphere of the American West, which she believes did not end in 1890, but rather continues on to this very day. 0000100879 00000 n Turners theory of early American development, which relied on the frontier as a transformative force, starkly opposed the Bancroftian racial determinism. [1], Turner speculated how the frontier drove American history and helped shape American culture in the 1890s. "The emergence of western history as an important field of WebAmerica's imperial expansion in the twentieth century.2 One idea is Frederick Jackson Turner's concept that America's unique and true democracy was the product of an expanding frontier." Such an increased investment in overseas markets in turn strengthened Americans interest in foreign affairs. WebThe Closing of the American Wilderness. history. "[47] The frontier metaphor thus maintained its rhetorical ties to American social progress. As a new industrial United States began to emerge in the 1870s, economic interests began to lead the country toward a more expansionist foreign policy. 0000099528 00000 n [31], Many believed that the end of the frontier represented the beginning of a new stage in American life and that the United States must expand overseas. "On Modernizing Frederick Jackson Turner,", This page was last edited on 6 January 2023, at 16:57. 0000001707 00000 n by . Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. The Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and the National Park System were established to counter the demise of the frontier. WebAnd 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 WebIn 1890, the U.S. Census revealed that the frontier (defined as fewer than two people per square mile) was closed. Following decades of an official stance of isolationism combined with relatively weak presidents who lacked the popular mandate or congressional support to undertake substantial overseas commitments, a new cadre of American leaders-many of whom were too young to fully comprehend the damage inflicted by the Civil War-assumed leadership roles.

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