the frontier thesis frederick jackson turner summary

July 12, 1893 Historian Frederick Jackson Turner presented his “frontier thesis” in an address in Chicago, the site of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Turner pointed to expansion as the most important factor in American history. He claimed that “the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development.” In 1890, however, the Census Bureau stated that all the land within the United States was claimed, and there was no longer a frontier. “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,” Turner asserted, questioning how American culture and history would develop and whether Americans would retain “that coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and acquisitiveness. . . that dominant individualism” bred by expansion now that the frontier was closed. Make Gilder Lehrman your Home for History Already have an account? Please click here to login and access this page. How to subscribe Click here to get a free subscription if you are a K-12 educator or student, and here for more information on the Affiliate School Program, which provides even more benefits. Otherwise, click here for information on a paid subscription for those who are not K-12 educators or students. Make Gilder Lehrman your Home for History Become an Affiliate School to have free access to the Gilder Lehrman site and all its features. Click here to start your Affiliate School application today! You will have free access while your application is being processed. Individual K-12 educators and students can also get a free subscription to the site by making a site account with a school-affiliated email address. Click here to do so now! Make Gilder Lehrman your.
The Frontier Thesis or Turner Thesis, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that American democracy was formed by the American frontier. He stressed the process—the moving frontier line—and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process. He also stressed results, especially that American democracy was the primary result, along with egalitarianism, a lack of interest in high culture, and violence. American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier, said Turner.[1] In the thesis, the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles, nor for landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents. Frontier land was free for the taking. Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled The Significance of the Frontier in American History , delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. He won wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals. Turner elaborated on the theme in his advanced history lectures and in a series of essays published over the next 25 years, published along with his initial paper as The Frontier in American History.[2] Turner's emphasis on the importance of the frontier in shaping American character influenced the interpretation found in thousands of scholarly histories. By the time Turner died in 1932, 60% of the leading history departments in the U.S. were teaching courses in frontier history along Turnerian lines.[3] Contents 1 Evolution 2 Closed Frontier 3 Comparative frontiers 4 Impact and influence 5 New frontiers 5.1.
FRONTIER THESIS, TURNER'S. Frederick Jackson Turner's The Significance of the Frontier in American History is arguably one of the most influential interpretations of the American past ever espoused. Delivered in Chicago before two hundred historians at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, a celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America, Turner's thesis discounted the then-dominant germ theory of American history, which argued that American political and social character evolved directly from European antecedents. Turner instead contended that Europeans had been transformed by the settlement of North America, a process that produced a distinct American mentality and culture far different from European precedents. Turner outlined progressive stages of settlement, dominated by the taming of the frontier from exploration through urban development, all the while maintaining that the experience of westward movement across the American continent was responsible for creating the independence and resourcefulness that comprised the heart of American character. The Turner thesis became the dominant interpretation of American history for the next century, although after the early 1980s new western historians, who rejected Turner's grand theory for its lack of racial inclusiveness and overly triumphant paradigm, emphasized a more inclusive approach to frontier history. Nonetheless, the Turner thesis remained a popular albeit widely debated assessment of American development.BIBLIOGRAPHYBillington, Ray Allen. The Genesis of the Frontier Thesis: A Study in Historical Creativity. San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1971.Faragher, John Mack, ed. Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner: The Significance of the Frontier in American History and Other Essays. New York: Henry Holt, 1994.Limerick, Patricia Nelson, Clyde A. Milner II, and Charles E.
an explanation for why Turner's Thesis is worth.