The Frontier Thesis is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that settler colonial exceptionalism, under the guise of American democracy, was formed by the appropriation of the rugged American frontier.
He stressed the process of “winning wilderness” to extend the frontier line further for U.S. colonization, and the impact it had on pioneer culture and character. A modern simplification describes it as Indigenous land possessing an “American ingenuity” that settlers are compelled to forcibly appropriate to create cultural identity that differs from their European ancestors.
Turner’s text follows long line of thought within the framework of Manifest Destiny established decades earlier. He stressed in this thesis that American democracy was the primary result, along with egalitarianism, of a lack of interest in bourgeois or 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.
In the thesis, the American frontier established liberty from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. Turner’s ideal of frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles; there was no landed gentry who controlled the land or charged heavy rents and fees. Frontier land was practically free for the taking according to Turner.
The Frontier Thesis was first published in a paper entitled “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago.
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.[4]
Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie the vital forces that call these organs into life and shape them to meet changing conditions. The peculiarity of American institutions is, the fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of an expanding people to the changes involved in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier into the complexity of city life.
American progress has repeatedly undergone a cyclical process on the frontier line as society has needed to redevelop with its movement westward. Everything in American history up to the 1880s somehow relates the western frontier, including slavery. In spite of this, Turner laments, the frontier has received little serious study from historians and economists.
The frontier line, which separates civilization from wilderness, is “the most rapid and effective Americanization” on the continent; it takes the European from across the Atlantic and shapes him into something new. American emigration west is not spurred by government incentives, but rather some “expansive power” inherent within them that seeks to dominate nature. There is a need to escape the confines of the State.
The most important aspect of the frontier to Turner is its effect on democracy. The frontier transformed Jeffersonian democracy into Jacksonian democracy. The individualism fostered by the frontier’s wilderness created a national spirit complementary to democracy, as the wilderness defies control. Therefore, Andrew Jackson’s brand of popular democracy was a triumph of the frontier.
Turner sets up the East and the West as opposing forces; as the West strives for freedom, the East seeks to control it. He cites British attempts to stifle western emigration during the colonial era and as an example of eastern control. Even after independence, the eastern coast of the United States sought to control the West. Religious institutions from the eastern seaboard, in particular, battled for possession of the West. The tensions between small churches as a result of this fight, Turner states, exist today because of the religious attempt to master the West.
American intellect owes its form to the frontier as well. 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.”
American History: Turner, Frederick Jackson–“The Significance of the Frontier in American History”
The Frontier Thesis is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that settler colonial exceptionalism, under the guise of American democracy, was formed by the appropriation of the rugged American frontier.
He stressed the process of “winning wilderness” to extend the frontier line further for U.S. colonization, and the impact it had on pioneer culture and character. A modern simplification describes it as Indigenous land possessing an “American ingenuity” that settlers are compelled to forcibly appropriate to create cultural identity that differs from their European ancestors.
Turner’s text follows long line of thought within the framework of Manifest Destiny established decades earlier. He stressed in this thesis that American democracy was the primary result, along with egalitarianism, of a lack of interest in bourgeois or 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.
In the thesis, the American frontier established liberty from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. Turner’s ideal of frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles; there was no landed gentry who controlled the land or charged heavy rents and fees. Frontier land was practically free for the taking according to Turner.
The Frontier Thesis was first published in a paper entitled “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago.
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.[4]
Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie the vital forces that call these organs into life and shape them to meet changing conditions. The peculiarity of American institutions is, the fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of an expanding people to the changes involved in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of the primitive economic and political conditions of the frontier into the complexity of city life.
American progress has repeatedly undergone a cyclical process on the frontier line as society has needed to redevelop with its movement westward. Everything in American history up to the 1880s somehow relates the western frontier, including slavery. In spite of this, Turner laments, the frontier has received little serious study from historians and economists.
The frontier line, which separates civilization from wilderness, is “the most rapid and effective Americanization” on the continent; it takes the European from across the Atlantic and shapes him into something new. American emigration west is not spurred by government incentives, but rather some “expansive power” inherent within them that seeks to dominate nature. There is a need to escape the confines of the State.
The most important aspect of the frontier to Turner is its effect on democracy. The frontier transformed Jeffersonian democracy into Jacksonian democracy. The individualism fostered by the frontier’s wilderness created a national spirit complementary to democracy, as the wilderness defies control. Therefore, Andrew Jackson’s brand of popular democracy was a triumph of the frontier.
Turner sets up the East and the West as opposing forces; as the West strives for freedom, the East seeks to control it. He cites British attempts to stifle western emigration during the colonial era and as an example of eastern control. Even after independence, the eastern coast of the United States sought to control the West. Religious institutions from the eastern seaboard, in particular, battled for possession of the West. The tensions between small churches as a result of this fight, Turner states, exist today because of the religious attempt to master the West.
American intellect owes its form to the frontier as well. 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.”