Alexander Kalsbeek, Heritage Christian High School, South Holland, Illinois
These high school level lessons lead students through a study of Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis, asking
students to analyze its relevance in the specific frontier experiences of trappers, miners, ranchers, and farmers.
Photographs, guided readings of primary and secondary sources, and music are among the methods employed.
Students are required to participate in group discussion, produce formal written responses, and create an advertisement
to demonstrate their mastery of the material.
Understanding the Frontiers of Turner
Intro—Turner’s Thesis
1. Primary Sources
a. Turner’s Thesis—read chapter 1 (this should be done as homework/preparation for class. Students
should be ready to summarize it in class)
i. “The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of
American settlement westward, explain American development."
b. For a good summary of Turner’s thesis see the introduction of Carol L Higham, and William H.
Katerberg’s Conquests & Consequences: The American West from Frontier to Region. Wheeling, IL:
Harlan Davidson, Inc., 2009.
2. Secondary Sources
a. Ray Allen Billington and Martin Ridge. Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier,
Abridged version, 6th edition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.
i. This is a good source for understanding Turner’s Thesis and forms the basis for much of the
work in these lessons
3. Questions
a. What is Turner’s Thesis? Summarize it.
b. What is the frontier? The west?
c. Where might/do Trappers/Traders, Miners, Ranchers, and Farmers fit into this thesis?
4. Looking ahead
a. We are going to look at four different groups of people who moved into the frontier—
Trappers/Traders, Miners, Ranchers, Farmers. Think about the following questions as we analyze
primary documents from each group.
i. Where do we see their frontier?
ii. What was life like for members of their group?
iii. How do members of each group portray themselves? What do they think of themselves?
iv. How does the frontier shape them?
v. How did they interact with people already there? Both natives and members of the other
groups?
vi. How are they different from members of the other groups? How are they similar?
vii. Who makes up each group? (Type I and Type II groups)
Part 1—Trappers/Traders
1. How are these people idealized?—class brainstorming
a. On a separate, blank (no name) sheet of paper write what you think of when you hear the word
“trapper.” E.g. what they wear, what they do, how they talk, how they interact with others, what
they want, etc.
b. Pass the sheet in, and then redistribute them to different students.
c. They can then read what their classmates wrote and we’ll put them on the board, or type them up
on a document projected at the front of the classroom.
2. Primary Sources
a. Fur Trade Business Records—records from various areas of the American west, listing a surprising
variety of trade goods
3. Secondary Sources
a. Utah History
b. True North—Minnesota history website
i. This is a good website that has students learn about the fur trade in Minnesota and asks
questions as they go through the material.
c. Billington and Ridge, chapter 4, pgs. 83-106
4. Questions—think of the seven questions listed in the intro to the unit
a. Are trappers/traders the first wave of whites onto the frontier?
b. Where were trappers/traders working? What were they buying?
5. Produce
a. A paragraph comparing the fur trade in Minnesota and Utah. A second paragraph explaining where
you would rather be involved in the fur trade with an explanation of why you prefer that area.
b. Or, work through the Minnesota history website and do the exercise at the end.
Part 2—Miners
1. Play “O My Daughter Clementine”
2. How are these people idealized?—think, pair, share
a. Jot a few ideas down individually
b. Compare them with a classmate, brainstorm together
c. Come together as a whole class, to put ideas on the board
3. Primary Sources
a. Reading from Woods, Daniel B. Sixteen months at the gold diggings [microform]. New York: Harper
& Brothers, 1851—see following pages
b. Photographs—see below
4. Additional sources
a. Calisphere—University of California
b. Billington and Ridge, chapter 12, pgs. 259-278
5. Questions
a. What do we see in the photographs? How are they different? Why are they different?
b. What is going on in the reading? Is the miner in the reading doing something you would like to do?
Why or why not?
c. How is the reading different from the photographs?
d. Think of the seven questions listed in the intro to the unit.
6. Produce
a. A diary entry of a day on the gold fields of California.
Gold miners at Auburn Ravine, 1852
Part 3—Ranchers
1. How are these people idealized?—class brainstorming
a. How are cowboys depicted in western movies and books?
2. Primary Sources
a. These two documents were printed up as broadsides in Chicago.
i. letter of J.A. Cooper to Congress
ii. response by others to J.A. Cooper’s letter to Congress
1. What do these people think about state government?
iii. What do these letters tell us about ranching in the West? (not haphazard, but big business;
looks to government for help; etc.)
b. Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982
i. Essays, photos, videos
3. Secondary Sources
a. Richard Slatta. "Long Hours and Low Pay: Cowboy Life on the Northern Plains.” South Dakota History
32:3 (Fall 2002): 194-216.
b. Richard Slatta’s website
c. Billington and Ridge, chapter 15, pgs. 321-340
4. Questions
a. How do the broadsides, pictures, and videos compare to our idealization of ranchers?
5. Produce
a. An advertisement for ranch hands in the local paper. How are you going to convince cowboys to
come and work for you?
Part 4—Farmers
1. How are these people idealized?—class brainstorming
a. Think Little House on the Prairie
2. Primary Sources
a. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award98/nbhihtml/pshome.html
i. Click on the Search button and type in such keywords as “sod house,” “settlers,” “farm
machinery,” “homestead”
ii. Students will be able to see pictures of life on the Nebraska prairie
iii. Pick out specific pictures, analyze them, compare them to other pictures
iv. For example, compare these two pictures
1. Troby Homestead – or see next page for photo
2. Nebraska Dugout – or see next page for photo
3. What do we see in these pictures? Why might one person be living in a sod house
while another is in a lumber house? (The one has two strapping sons, who no doubt
were a great help) What sort of farm tools do they have? What other noteworthy
things are evident in these pictures and in others on the site?
v. http://nebraskahistory.org/lib-arch/research/photos/highlite/butcher/photos.htm
1. This site has a few pictures from the collection above with descriptions of the
pictures
3. Secondary Sources
a. Billington and Ridge, chapter 17, pgs. 357-376
b. Billington’s description of life in a sod house—pg 362-3.
4. Produce
a. Put yourself in the place of a homesteader on the Nebraska prairie. Write a letter to a friend or
relative back home telling them about life on the homestead. Include things that you have learned
from the pictures you looked at.
Troby homestead in Happy Hollow, southeast of Ansley, Custer County,
Nebraska Dugout on the South Loup River, near Virge Allen Homestead, Custer County, Nebraska.
Part 5—Innis’ Metropolis
1. Primary Sources
2. Secondary Sources
a. For a summary of Innis’s thesis see the introduction of Carol L Higham, and William H. Katerberg’s
Conquests & Consequences: The American West from Frontier to Region. Wheeling, IL: Harlan
Davidson, Inc., 2009.
b. Comparison of Turner and Innis
3. Questions
a. What is Innis’ Thesis?
b. How do these groups (Trappers/Traders, Miners, Ranchers, Farmers) fit into this thesis?