Response to Turner's Essay on The Significance of the Frontier in American History

Many American’s dreamt of opportunity, salvation, and riches by expanding out to the American West. The region we refer to as the “American West” enveloped into the idea of freedom and became a catalyst for the minds of many Americans and immigrants throughout history to venture west. However, Historian John Mack Faragher observes that we often imagine the West as a place where Americans could become fully independent or “self-reliant individuals.” But, by the late nineteenth century, Westerners discovered that they were not self-sufficient and highly dependent on the federal government. The West found itself highly dependent on assistance from the federal government in the regulation of race relations, the management of natural resources,

According to Turner, “in the settlement of America we have to observe how European life entered the continent, and how America modified and developed that life and reacted on Europe.”(Turner, pg. 2) It is believed that America was an extension of Europe civilization just in a different land, but in Turner's thesis, is that we developed new techniques and faced broadened challenges that change the way we think in America. This is the key point of his argument, which the vast skills and knowledge we acquired from the excursion westward, created a new society and left the old influences behind. As stated by Turner, “the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development.” (Turner, pg. 1) He highly believes that the Frontier plays an indispensable role in American History throughout the colonization of the West. (Tuner, pg.

One of the most famous arguments made in the world of environmental history was sparked by Frederick Jackson Turner in his essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”. In his essay that came to be known as the Frontier/ Turner Thesis, he claimed that modern American culture and innovations had been developed by the growth of America into the western frontier. The migration of Americans to the western frontier originated through their desire for adventure as well as fertile and cheap land that was open for the taking. The frontier promised possibilities of expanding new markets in an unclaimed portion of the country. There are, however, several critics of the thesis, such as George Pierson, who disagree with Turner as to the

In 1893, at the 400th anniversary of the appearance of Columbus in the Americas celebrated in Chicago , Frederick Jackson Turner presented an academic paper entitled, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” In this essay, Turner proposes that, “The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development.” The group dynamic that Turner champions is the farmer. More directly it is white, male farmers. While the expansion of the west by white male farmers was a factor in the development of America, it is not the only explanation for this progression. Turner fails to incorporate all of the demographics present during this expansion which were essential to the evolution of America.

The closing of the frontier was introduced by Frederick Turner in the The Significance of the Frontier in American History. The western frontier created “American’s toughness, resourcefulness, and individualism” since it gave individuals new opportunities to start a new life such as finding new mining sites for precious minerals. The frontier was America’s “safety valve,” the idea that if employment was incapable in the east or overpopulation in the cities, that life can start over by moving west, and was basically America’s security in “political power.” However, with the unavailability of land, America believed it was one of their duties to expand their Anglo-Saxon superiority to other countries and to look for economic opportunities. Imperialism, additionally, was supported with Alfred Mahan book The Influence of Sea Power upon History in the interest of America for the country own interest. The idea of America becoming more involved in world affairs was encouraged by Mahan with “the creation of a powerful navy… (and)

From the time America first declared its independence, to the country we know it as today, the U.S. underwent many dramatic changes, as did American settlers. Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis stated that as each American generation moved West, the settlers became more American. The first settlers in America on the East Coast arrived thinking and acting like Europeans. However, as settlers began to move west, they started to loosen ties with European ways and develop a more American way of thinking and acting. Without a doubt, Turner’s frontier thesis can be proven upon examination of the growth of America and actions of Americans moving West because as settlers moved West, they became more democratic and less tolerant of hierarchy,

The frontier line was just the beginning of what was to become of America. Acres upon acres of land scarce of settlers allowed for easy expansion. “Frontier history tells the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of land, the development of markets, and the formation of states” (Hine and Faragher). One the expansion of the land started the formation of our own ways formed. For the first time we began to modify the ways of European life and make them into our own. Eventually as we continued to advance westward we began to leave the European ways of

Frederick Jackson Turner wrote the book “The Significance of the Frontier on American History”. The book’s basis was about his idea that American people created their own lifestyle. Until this time, most people believed that the way that America was was because when people founded the country, they brought their ways of life from Europe. Turner turned the U.S. on it’s head when he expressed that how Americans lived was from their own trial and error. As America expanded toward the West, they did not have any knowledge about the land. They didn't know how to live on it or farm it so they learned what worked and what did not. They didn't use any methods from other countries. They explored the land on their own. For example, If a boat shipwrecked on a desolate island, the people would not know anything about the land and there would be no one there to teach them. They would begin a new way of life. They would have to pick teams to do daily tasks and they would have to write

Historian Fredrick Jackson Turner presented a thesis at the worlds Columbian Explosion in Chicago in 1893 to present his view on how the frontier shaped the American history of the westward movement and the expansion. The way that Turner explains the frontier is a space where individuals and society can be renewed, begin again, and seek

Deborah Epstein Popper, Robert E. Lang, and Frank J. Popper argue that the “explanation for Turner’s power lies in the way in which he joined apparently divergent traditions of knowledge to simultaneously invigorate, modernize, and mythology the concept of the frontier.” (92) By systemizing and bringing together cultural beliefs and ideas American already understood and generally accepted, Turner’s concept became the “cultural glue” (Popper, Lang, and Popper, 98) that united the nation. The power of Turner’s thesis in that sense lies in how it united and expressed some of the most enduring myths and beliefs many Americans have felt and to some degree still feel about their national identity. Turner’s language which has been criticized for being vague is also one of the thesis’ strengths; because Turner’s definition of ‘frontier’ is so vague it continues to be open to question and interpretation which allows the interpreter to inscribe his or her own beliefs and images into it even

Prior to the Civil War and the Reconstruction period, America and her states effectively ended east of the Mississippi River. During this time, the land to its west was inhabited by various Native American tribes, brave pioneers and scattered settlers. This land was awesome in its size while equally vast in opportunity. By 1890, the west and the “American frontier” became essentially, non-existent in comparison to what it previously was. Prior to and through the Civil War, Reconstruction period and the years that followed; the west became engulfed and consumed by American expansion from coast to coast.

Turner’s paper eulogized the frontier, coming on the heels of the U.S. Census Bureau’s announcement that there was no longer a discernable frontier line in 1890. Turner saw the West as a laboratory, where our nation truly created its own identity, away from the European influence felt in the East. There, “out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier,” were the settlers able to create something expressly American as they moved “into the complexity of city life,” founding a new “individualism, democracy and nationalism (Turner, 199; 225). Turner’s narrative of American expansion is well-illustrated by John Gast in his famous painting American Progress, which depicts Lady Progress bringing forth the light from the East to illuminate the dark, savage, and undiscovered West, guiding settlers who come by stagecoach and train as the Native Peoples retreat, fading out of the scene (Elmore, Sept. 12).

Showing the overwhelming American influence in the shaping of the frontier, this quote captures the general structure of the frontier, at the time, and one can easily bridge the likeness between the absence of the frontier line to the American aspects and dreams. Meaning, America motivates its citizens to spread and lay claim to the land because the American dream is to become successful and in the late 19th century, and before, land possession meant success. Attributing the expansion of the union and the suppressing of the frontier to the railroads and steamboats that allowed citizens to travel far westward, Turner explains that the western frontier no longer exists, and the frontier is scattered with no directionality as the settlements. “By 1880 the settled area had been pushed… and Montana and Idaho were receiving settlers,” (3 Turner). Turner credits the biggest effect of the frontier on American history as a central promotion for democracy, “…here and in Europe,” (6

It draws the global attention to the extend and the achievements of America concerning the major issues of development. However, it must be noted that the history of achievement takes its form of complexity that features the details and characters involved in the immediate past, as well as the ones who determined the current status of America. In the process, major issues like slavery, revolution and settlement served as major drawbacks that hampered development within the American boundaries. In the “Portrait of America”, the collective work done by Oates and Errico (2012) features an important section that avails more information headed “I Will Be Heard: William Lloyd Garrison And The Struggle Against Slavery” depicting the work of a humbled author Ian Berlin, who focused much on Nat Turner, who was by then considered a revolt following the prevailing conditions of slavery. Further details on antislavery reveal the true character of an abolitionist, Garrison. In addition, the work narrows down to the actions taken by Thomas Jefferson related to antislavery.

The emergence of western history as an important field of scholarship started with Frederick Jackson Turner’s (1861-1932) famous essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American history.”[1] This thesis shaped both popular and scholarly views of the West for the next two generations. In his thesis, Turner argued that the West had to be taken seriously. He felt that up to his time there had not been enough research of what he in his essay call “the fundamental, dominating fact in the U.S. history”: the territorial expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. The frontier past was, according to Turner, the best way to describe the distinctive American history and character.