The Frontier In American Culture Summary

Frontiersmen have existed throughout America’s history. According to Turner’s hypothesis, they push forwards for civilization and have shaped America. The stories All the Pretty Horses, The Gift of Cochise, and The Martian are all works of frontier literature. Each in their own way show frontiersmen during different times in America’s history with characters that interact with their respective frontiers in different ways. Through these three books one can see how the core interactions between frontiersmen and the frontiers call out the qualities of frontiersmen stated in Turner’s frontier hypothesis.

Thus the census of 1890 shows, in the Northwest, many counties in which there is an absolute or a relative decrease of population. These States have been sending farmers to advance the frontier on the Plains, and have themselves begun to turn to intensive farming and to manufacture. A decade before this, Ohio had shown the same transition stage. Thus the demand for land and the love of wilderness freedom drew the frontier ever onward.

Faragher, John Mack. Re-reading Frederick Jackson Turner: “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”

There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough

In the beginning the frontier was Atlantic coast. The frontier was Europe in some sort of real sense. While moving towards the west the frontier became more American. Form the frontier being advanced it meant a steady movement away from any influence from Europe, a constant growth of independence in American lines. The only way to study the frontier’s advance, the men who were growing up in the conditions, and the economic, and social results of it, is really the study of American part of our

There are many factors that made the West, from government, politics, wars, climate and geography. So why are all these factors matter, because when the people wanted to expand their settlements they have to deal with the consequences that they have to risk. Each part of this paper will give you history of each individual era from the expansion of the West, Civil War and the reconstruction of the nation, Home on the Ranch, and rise of the industrial America

The Frontier Thesis may play a heavy part in U.S. history, but there are implications for truly understanding the outlines of this thesis. Fredrick Jackson Tuner during a great meeting of American Historical Association on July 12th, 1893 in Chicago, a paper named “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” This paper introduced an innovative way of astonishment to understanding the construction of America. Turner envisioned that the history of America was not focused one the prominence of the Frontier and the America established many trades and accomplishments from this voyage. Such as Tuner laid out the foundation of his thesis, he also didn’t account for the flaws that were overlooked from his discernment of the Frontier. (Tuner, pg. 1-9)

The subject of tariff and internal improvement is the main question that had to do with the slavery struggle in the west. The first frontier had to meet “Indian questions,” and those questions dealt with the composition of the public domain, the intercourse with other older settlements, of the political extension organization. There were land policies such as having to know the mining experience in regions like Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa, and the Indian policy had been a series of experiments on successive frontiers.

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.

As the 19th century closes, the west held the reputation of mythical proportion and defined the United States’ identity during the gilded age. Promises and dreams of having free land, your own freedom, and wealth for all people infatuate the nation and those who hear of the frontier; these myths created a “golden gilding “ which masks the actual turmoil and issues in the United States. In 1863, historian, Frederick Jackson Turner lectured, “‘The Significance of the Frontier in American History,’ in which he argued that on the western frontier the distinctive qualities of American culture were forged: individual freedom, political democracy, and economic mobility.” These tall tales created in the country a drive to push and inhabit the west

The subject of this chapter summary will be the eighteenth chapter of Alan Taylor’s American Colonies. The chapter is called “The Great Plains” and discusses the history of that geographical region from 1680-1800. Taylor begins by explaining how warfare both sustained and weakened New Mexico. It maintained unity, because without an external enemy to focus on, the Pueblo people would rise up in revolt against Mexico. However, the constant warfare discouraged any new settlers from putting down roots there. Spain's holdings in North America were weakened by the foreign policy of the motherland, which focused on the colonial core of the territory, not the exterior regions. For Mexico, New Mexico was just a buffer zone between itself and other

Furthermore, they announce his claims as valid and reasonable, defending Turner's notions that during the great American frontier "the thinkers were restless and inquiring, but what they lacked was room in which to try out their innovations…The frontier offered them the room and the opportunity." (Webb, 53) While Turner's critics are valid in the sense that Turner's account on the frontier did not reveal the environmental determinism and his lack of revealing the presence of natives with his narrative as profound flaws within his claims, nevertheless, his thesis remains extremely influential within

This text is a sampling of times, places, and people of the Westward Expansion. A teacher teaching the Westward Expansion will find historical images and stories behind the historical times and the sheet music that correlates to the topics. This cross-curricular resource allows for the stories to be read and the pictures to study, and ultimately the music to be incorporated into the classroom learning. Ultimately this book can be utilized to bring adventure, danger, dreams, and the realities of American life during the Westward Expansion to come alive for students. This will make history fun for all students, allowing students to build more of a connection to the past. This is another great resource but because I don’t teach Western Expansion

Over the years, the idea of the western frontier of American history has been unjustly and falsely romanticized by the movie, novel, and television industries. People now believe the west to have been populated by gun-slinging cowboys wearing ten gallon hats who rode off on capricious, idealistic adventures. Not only is this perception of the west far from the truth, but no mention of the atrocities of Indian massacre, avarice, and ill-advised, often deceptive, government programs is even present in the average citizen’s understanding of the frontier. This misunderstanding of the west is epitomized by the statement, “Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis was as real as the myth of the west. The development of the west was, in

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.