Delivered in Chicago before two hundred historians at the World’s Columbian Exposition, a celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America, Turner’s thesis discounted the then-dominant “germ theory” of American history, which argued that American political and social character evolved directly from European antecedents. The safety valve thesis is the assertion that the frontier, as a place of opportunity and escape, defused social discontent in America. Turner believes that civilization has an orderly evolutionary cycle that starts in the savage state, moves to pastoralism, and ends with cities and industry. My call is to the young in heart, regardless of age—to the stout in spirit, regardless of party. Turner believes that state lines are artificial constructs, and that regions are really divided by natural boundary lines, such as mountains. A Study in Historical Creativity.
By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Turner’s thesis quickly became popular among intellectuals. Delivered in Chicago before two hundred historians at the World’s Columbian Exposition, a celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of America, Turner’s thesis discounted the then-dominant “germ theory” of American history, which argued that American political and social character evolved directly from European antecedents. Citing the Census of , Turner is writing to announce the end of the frontier, and consequently, according to Turner, the end of the most crucial instrument in creating a sense of a unique American identity. Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner: Poor health forced his early retirement from Harvard in
Everything in American history up to the s somehow relates the western frontier, including slavery. In the thesis, the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Proponents of the germ theory believed that political habits are determined by innate racial attributes.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here European characteristics fell by the wayside and the old country’s institutions e. San MarinoCalif.: Turner’s thesis quickly became popular among intellectuals. University Press of Kansas, Turner’s point of departure for the essay was that in the published report of the federal census, it was reported that the United States no longer had a discernible frontier–a line of demarcation dividing, as they said then, “civilization” from “savagery.
Turner began his teaching career at the University of Wisconsin in Historians have noted that John F. 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.
Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier Thesis ()
If you prefer to suggest your own revision of the article, you can go to edit mode requires login. Fill in your details frohtier or click an icon to log in: The Nation and Its Sections tyrners, would not be published until after his death. Whereas Turner saw the development of American character occur just behind the frontier line, as the colonists tamed and tilled the land, Roosevelt saw it form in battles just beyond the frontier line.
Frederick Jackson Turner
Thank you for your feedback. Adams, his mentor at Johns Hopkinshad argued that all significant American institutions derived from German and English antecedents.
Internet URLs are the best. 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.
Frontier Thesis, Turner’s |
Religious institutions from the eastern seaboard, in particular, battled for possession of the West. If you want to get Turner’s ideas in his own words, he’s available on-line from University of Virginia Hypertexts.
For a scholar of such wide influence, Turner wrote relatively few books.
He won wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals. Turner believes that civilization has an orderly evolutionary cycle that starts in the savage state, moves to pastoralism, and ends with cities and industry.
Nonetheless, the Turner thesis remained a popular albeit widely debated assessment of American development. History at your fingertips. If Turner was right, then the American national character is a product of the frontier; we talk and behave the way we do because of the frontier experience. The frontier thesis is one of the most influential documents on the American west today. The Frontier Thesis or Turner Thesisis the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in that American democracy was formed by the American frontier.
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