“The Significance of the Frontier in American History”
American Social Intellectual History
March 14, 2007
Colt Pickett
“The Significance of the Frontier in American History”
Historical Context:
Frederick Jackson Turner (b. November 14, 1861-d. March 14, 1932)
A Professor at Harvard and Wisconsin University, Turner’s collection of essays entitled
The Significance of Sections in American History won the Pulitzer Prize in History in
1933.
Turner delivered this essay at the World Fair in Chicago on July 12, 1893 (not long after
the Great Fire ravaged the city in October of 1871).
Main Points
1. The study of the Western frontier reveals the truly American side of our history.
“And to study this advance, the men who grew up under these conditions, and the
political, economic, and social results of it, is to study the really American part of our
history…”
2. One of America’s strong points is her ability to adapt to her surroundings.
“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 in the complexity of city life…”
3. The frontier Americanized the colonists, and defined their mental temperament.
“Our history is the study of European germs developing in an American
environment…The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization.”
“Thus the advance of the frontier has meant a steady movement away from the
influence of Europe, a steady growth of independence on American lines.”
“From the conditions of frontier life came intellectual traits of profound
importance…Since the days when the fleet of Columbus sailed into the waters of the
New World, America has been another name for opportunity, and the people of the
United States have taken their tone from the incessant expansion which has not only
been open but has even been forced upon them.”
4. The Indian wars and skirmishes unified the American people under one cause.
“This frontier stretched along the western border like a cord of union. The Indian
was a common danger, demanding united action…”
5. Americans were no longer just English, but were made up of a variety of European
settlers.
“The frontier promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the American
people. The coast was preponderantly English, but the later tides of continental
immigration flowed across to the free lands…”
6. Democracy was born out of the difficulties of the frontier.
“But the most important effect of the frontier has been the promotion of
democracy here and in Europe. As has been indicated the frontier is productive of
individualism. Complex society is precipitated by the wilderness into a kind of
primitive organization, based on the family. The tendency is anti-social. It produces
antipathy to control, and particularly to any direct control…The frontier
individualism has from the beginning promoted democracy…”
7. The western frontier no longer exists.
“And 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.”
The Significance of the Document
This document gave Americans a strong sense of national pride and
accomplishment. In just a short time since declaring freedom from Britain, Americans
had “tamed” the wilderness; they had faced the challenges and difficulties of the
frontier victoriously, and in so doing, they had developed their own sense of
nationality and history. Turner, in effect, gave Americans a pat on the back. The first
chapter of colonial history, though long and arduous in the making, had ended well,
and offered a bright future to the hopeful Americans.
Source for Historical Context: Wikipedia.com