The Frontier Thesis

The emergence of westerly narration as an alpha handle of scholarship started with Frederick Jackson turners (1861-1932) famous essay The Significance of the Frontier in the Statesn history. 1 This dissertation shape both popular and scholarly catch up withs of the tungsten for the next both generations. In his thesis, food turner argued that the horse opera hemisphere had to be taken seriously. He mat that up to his time there had non been enough research of what he in his essay c all told told the fundamental, dominating fact in the U. S. istory the territorial reserve magnification from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. The term onetime(prenominal) was, according to turner, the let onperform way to describe the distinctive the Statesn history and disposition. To this day, food turners thesis remains one of the most widely discussed interpretations of the the Statesn past and it still continues to influence historians. Even though homophiley scholars watch q uestioned the thesis as an acceptable theory of explaining American history and culture, the thesis has its strengths.food turner explained what made America bizarre. America as a unique domain was already a belief when the first colonies were established on the atomic number 99 coast. And the whim that America was exceptional would continue to be re-created over again and again on the bourn. The bourne was closely related to the romance that prolong the American faith, the exaltations and images that represent the American Dream as fountainhead as America as an exceptional nation.The purpose of this paper is to explore at the essence of food turners argument in his essay, as healthful as discuss his strongest and weakest arguments. The paper will end with a look at the West as a myth. The essence of food turners thesis In Turners mind, the settlement of the West by white people the existence of an area of rationalise priming, its endless recession, and the set up of American settlement tungsten was the most important disassemble of American history. 2 This is the major theme in Turners essay and the summation of the marches thesis.Turner did not define the West as a geographical place or region still as a process, which defined what he looked upon as uniquely American. According to Turner, the westward expansion had trans make the savage and wild province into a modern civilization. This westward expansion could explain the American development, the national character as easy as its democracy. Turner believed that this subsiding of a wild area of free land was an important factor in shaping the American character.American characteristics bid identity, democracy and a strong pop off ethnic, which Turner looked upon as typical American qualities had all been actual when unexampledcomers settled the wilderness. These special qualities would posterior influence the whole nation. Other historians and philosophers such as Tocqueville a nd Hegel maintain to a fault talked closely the impact of the margin on the American experience, but the Turner thesis was the first to be accepted by sore(prenominal) historians. Turner insisted upon the margin as the number one explanation of American history. but it is difficult to understand what he really meant by explanation. As argued by Joshua Der serviceman, it is almost impossible for the reader of Turners naturalise to deduce whether he intended the boundary to be the prime factor in American political history, the single best explanation for why American cultural and political institutions developed the way they did, or a dogmatic rule for interpreting all events in American history. 3 The notion that democracy arose because of the bourn is also weak.For example, both Russia and China have vaster bournes than America, but they deprivation democracy. And in his essay, Turner has not showed what made the American frontier experience dissimilar from some new(p renominal) countries with considerable frontiers. To say that the frontier shaped American popular institutions is vague and laborious to prove. It is clear that the new land and communities in the wilderness demanded greater give wayicipation in political activities (than in Europe) and because of this ordinary people had to step in and contribute. 4 This notion that the common man should contribute in civil life became an important fate of American society. 5 It was not only American democracy that Turner estimation had developed go forth of the unique frontier experience. There were also several other values that owed the frontier its striking characteristics, for example the complex nationality ( subsequently termed the melting pot), identity and stinting mobility (the American Dream). The result, Turner reason, was that to the frontier the American brain owed its striking characteristics(100).Individualism was one of the most important and distinctive qualities created by the frontier, as stated in the essay That coarseness and strength feature with acuteness and acquisitiveness that practical inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients that masterly grasp of material things. the suspireless, nervous energy that dominant someoneism, working for unspoilt and evil, and withal the buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier. (100)As we can see from these lines, frontier laissez faire did not only promote positive things, it had negative traits as well. On the frontier, newcomers had to rely on themselves. This feeling created the traditional, individualistic feeling. Since life was so hard on the frontier one could not carry ones ancestry into the wilderness. As a consequence, Turner thought, social life became to a greater extent informal than in the erstwhile(a) and more than settled communities. According to the frontier thes is, all the resources on the frontier as well as its lack of an established socio-political structure provided opportunities for the settlers.They could now pursue their dreams of limitless wealth and self-betterment. 6 seedy or free land meant more opportunities for the self-made man, and provided a synthetic rubber valve for the newcomers Since the day when the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters of the New World, America has been other name for luck, and the people of the join States have taken their tone from the ceaseless expansion which has not only been open but has even been squeeze upon them. (100)Free land led to new opportunities, and it was up to each individual and their desire to work hard and climb the economic and social rivulet 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(Turner, 100). Everything was open to the man who knew how to seiz e the opportunity. The self-made man became the persuasionl of the West, and eventually every man in the U. S. A. should be akin him. It was the work ethic of the frontier, not of the South or East, Turner thought, that had contributed the most to the American character.The frontier culture concentrated on the dollar and it became important to drag something out of your life. People were constantly moving in search of big acreage and new opportunities. The large amount of unclaimed western land offered huge opportunities for those who were willing to take a risk. It could, if they worked hard, give them even more wealth and money. This gospel of wealth has continued to be a part of American society. The idea of the American Dream was already a part of the Puritan faith, but it gained even more strength as a modern conception of the frontier. The frontier became the American Dream.To some extent, Turner is compensate when he talks somewhat the opportunities on the frontier. Ne wcomers came to the U. S. A. because of new opportunities, and America earn described all the opportunities the frontier offered those who were willing to take a risk. 7 Whereas family tree shared out classes in the Old World, money from hard work divided classes on the American frontier. This became uniquely American. And this myth of America as a place of opportunity and optimism is still a part of the American character. Also, the American tradition of competition and self-betterment was born on the frontier and continues in America even today. provided a weakness of the frontier thesis is that Turner ignored the fact that numerous Americans have neer or would never live on the frontier. The West was not a place of opportunity and freedom for everyone, as it seems in Turners essay. For example, to many women and minorities and of course the Indians, the West was no promised land. Life was hard. It was not as romantic and idealistic as Turner made it seem in his essay. And no t all men benefited from the frontier. For example, the apostrophize of starting a off the beaten track(predicate)m in West was high and hardly a(prenominal) poor urban workers of the East could afford to get a minute of arc chance in the West.Also, the largest migration was actually to the city and not to the farm. 8 Historians have concluded that the American West was not some rough-hewn egalitarian democracy, where every man had a piece of land and the promise for prosperity, but a sphere quickly predominate by big money and big government. 9 patronage shortcomings in Turners essay, the frontier myth meant social and economic mobility. As argued by Degler, precisely because it the frontier was believed to be a safety valve, careless(predicate) of what it was in fact, the western frontier worked an influence upon the attitudes of Americans.It left its mark in the optimism, the belief in progress, the promise of the future and the second chance all of which have been deeply embedded in the American character (142). Turner also ignored the fact that the land was not free (which is illustrated by all the Indian wars). And the essay does not say much about the violence and lawlessness of western expansion. Clearly, opportunities aided the development of democratic ideals in America. But the availability of opportunities should not be confused with the origination of democratic ideas (Degler, 137).The idea of starting over is closely connected with opportunity and an important part of the frontier thesis. As stated in the thesis American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnished the forces dominating American character (Turner, 88). The wilderness overwhelmed the newcomers and reduced them to a sort of primitiveness. It is a reversed ontoge nesis of civilization Turner explains in his thesis.But this step backwards was overshadowed by the hope for a new and better society. Euro-Americans turned the wilderness into civilization, and in doing so they themselves were transformed. In the contest between nature and the colonists emerged a unique American character and a distinctive political culture individualism and democracy. 10 Turner addressed all these new opportunities the frontier created as a social rebirth. America became a sign of a new start to many. People were willing to lie their past behind in search of new opportunities.Turner also set the stage for what would later get going cognize as the melting pot. He looked upon the frontier as a crucible where people with different backgrounds came together and formed a distinct American character In the crucible of the frontier the immigrants were Americanized, liberated and fused into a mixed race, English in uncomplete nationality nor characteristics. The resu lt was the formation of a composite nationality for the American people (94-95). But Turner as well as many others were wrong since the West was not a homogeneous as they thought.Many thought the newcomers would be Americanized, but the reality was that many newcomers kept their traditions and Americanization happened much more bit by bit than Turner believed. For example, Germans and English colonists differed in farming methods, crops and labor systems even though they lived on the same frontier. And many ethic groups settled in areas dominated by their own people and showed resistance to change. Another central horizon of Turners frontier thesis was that the frontier had made the United States different from Europe.According to Turner, the frontier remade the Europeans who entered it The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization. The frontier finds him the settler a European in dress, industries, tools, modes of travel and thought little by little he t he settler transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old European, not simply the development of Germanic germsbut a new product that is American (89). The only uniquely American part of American history is the history of the frontier regions, since the other regions are too influenced by European institutions, Turner thought.He broke away from the notion that America was an extension of European culture and the so-called Germ Theory of American historical development, which stated that American institutions had their roots in ancient Teutonic forests (European roots of American institutions). 11 Turner looked upon the frontier as a decently force. It shaped European settlers into something different from the European character. 12 The settling of the New World, particularly the American frontier, had shaped an exceptional country, different from the Old World. The United States was something new and unique, something independent of European experience.As argued before , America as exceptional was a part of the American republic from the beginning and the frontier thesis carried this view even further. 13 The American frontier became something different and made a calculative contrast to the shadows of urban Europe. America became the land of European dreams. And this is not all, the frontier actually influenced not only America, but Europe as well Steadily the frontier settlement advanced and carried with it individualism, democracy and nationalism, and heftyly affected the East and the Old World (Turner, 99).One weakness in Turners essay is that he puts too much emphasis on the effect on the frontier and because of this fails to mention other important features that have formed both the West and America as a whole. The frontier clearly contributed, but other factors are important as well, like slavery, immigration, agriculture, violence, industrialization, urbanization as well as women and ethnic minorities. For example, Indians received far too little attention. Turner considered Native Americans to be of little significance.They were part of that wild frontier environment and posed a common risk of exposure and served as a consolidating agent in our history, faceless obstacles to be quash and subdued in the process of westernizing (Milner, 213). Turners estimated effect of the frontier on American politics and institutions was also exaggerated. As Turner puts it The statute which most developed the powers of the national government, and played the largest part in its activity, was conditioned on the frontier (Turner, 95). But actually, the frontier state was not that different from easterly models in state government and legislation.For example, the constitution of both Tennessee and Kentucky were sculptural after the Pennsylvania constitution of 1790. Just some clauses had actually originated in the West (Degler, 136). In fact, regarding property qualifications for balloting and the structure of state legislat ure, the western states modeled their government and legislation after older eastern States. The western states were also more reluctant than eastern states to permit black suffrage and even to allow them to enter their states both before and after the Emancipation. 14 benjamin F. Wright, Jr. , argues that democracy had emerged in the Old World and had generally travel from east to west, rather than visa versa. Turner has also been criticized when he defines the frontier. To him, the frontier means different things. Sometimes it is an area where the civilization and wilderness meets, and other times the western part of the United States. It can even imply to a process a way of life for those participating the settling of the land or a place full of natural resources.Critics have argued that if the frontier is the edge of civilization, it cannot also be the western part of the ground forces at a stage of social evolution (Degler, 135). The Western myth The frontier has become ess ential to Americans becoming who they are as a people. As argued by Faragher, the belief that westernizing defines our unique national heritage, and that it amounted to the purest expression of American idealism, has been what historian Warren Susman called the official American ideology(Faragher, 230).Henry Nash smith and other specialists in American studies demonstrated that reality did not eternally rule in thinking about the West and that myths, symbols, images and stereotypes developed in response to the conditions of a particular time, could become a part of American culture and be transmitted to subsequent generations (Milner, 12). It was on the western frontier that America formed its own independent identity. Americans have located their nation-building myths and heroes out west, and the west has connected Americas to a national culture through a common story.The frontier thesis had, and continues to have, a powerful hold on popular and scholarly imagination. It reinforc ed the American spirit of uniqueness and accomplishment, and strengthen the American nationalism (Milner, 21). The frontier played a role in endowing the people of the United States with distinguished character traits. closing With his frontier thesis, Turner wanted to get away from the notion that America was mediocre an extension of Europe. Instead, he emphasized the importance of the frontier as the promotion of distinctive American characteristics.It was on the western frontier you could force the uniquely American character traits like, for example, individualism, opportunity and democracy. The West would be known as a place for opportunity and success for millions of Americans throughout the frontier, eastern cities and soon rest of the world. America became the New Eden and the land of opportunity. The cornucopia in America made Americans unique to Europe and also the rest of the world. The frontiers work ethic and individualism spread crosswise the country because it spo ke to all Americans. And American frontier values like individualism continue to be important even today.No other country in the world would use the word frontier as Americans do it convey so many different things to them. Most of all it means optimism. It is not strange that people were encouraged to go West for example during the depression of 1857, where they were promised more opportunities. 15 Despite shortcomings and weaknesses in Turners essay, the frontier thesis has a lasting appeal and the frontier idea keeps turning up in new forms, for example in everything from western movies, commercials and politics. The frontier has become an important part of American consciousness.There is something of hard merit at the core of Turners views. The characteristics we think about when we hear the name America, even if its true or just a myth is qualities Turner described in his thesis. The frontier has become a symbolic repository of American values and characteristics. Turner suppl y the American myth that people already thought was true and what many thought was a distinctive American characteristic. The West became an image of a mythmaker and a preserver of distinctive American values. Clearly, the West continues to live one, and it is a distinctive American characteristic.