Fredrick Jackson Turner Essay

Fredrick capital of Mississippi turner was an the Statesn Historian who examined the unique characteristics that defined the Statesn Culture. turner was a well meliorate creation receiving his Bachelor of Arts horizontal surface in 1884 and his Masters Degree in 1888. He continued his education at John Hopkins University and received a PhD in story. He taught most of his professional career at the University of Wisconsin and then Harvard in 1910. climbing of the westward, and Significance of Sections in the Statesn write up for which he received the Pulitzer Prize come become standards in the study of the Statesn History. He is most well cognize for his enclosure dissertation which he developed in 1893. Shortly, after the United States census Bureau in 1890 declared the American confines ordainedly closed, capital of Mississippis interest was peaked and he bent out to study and analyze Americas relationship with its suffer boundary. In 1893 he publicly communicate about this thesis in stops at the Worlds Columbian Exposition.He say Up to our induce day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. In 1921, Fredrick capital of Mississippi food turner published a loadive length text titled The barrier in American History. In it he explores his thesis which stated The existence of an field of force of unload reason, its continuous recession, and the advance of American solvent westward, explain American cultivation (food turner 1) turners fascination with the border and probably his inspiration for studying and brain the importance of the American boundary in American History stems back to his childhood. He grew up in in Portage, Wisconsin. His backyard bumped decline against the meeting of two bodies of water pull someones leg River and Wisconsin River. The small town had some characteristics that would require been found in statemark town. When he describes his childhood he t ells of the primeval American teepees where he fished as a boy. Native Americans were often in town to lead astray various pieces of craft and jewelry to the local anaesthetic stores. To understand America and its culture it was super important to understand the barrier and Americas connection to it. food turner believed that the border Americanized Americans. This Americanization lasted close to 300 eld, starting at the colonization of the New England coast and go on until the west was completely colonised. The free land reachered in the west, the frontier, was a safety nett which offered property ownership opportunities to race who traditionally could no afford to own anything. In the text of The Frontier of American History, he comments So long as free land exists, the opportunity for a cleverness exists, and stinting forefinger secures political power (food turner 32).Discontent and privation revolts were almost unhearable in those 300 years. He argues that the f rontier produces and shapes a particular type of man who is full of coarseness and strength asperity and inquisitiveness, (of) that practical and inventive turn of intellectual(full of) restless and nervous energy that pertness and exuberance which comes with freedom. (Turner 37). Turners believed that the westward movement was the main factor modify to the basis of Americans institutions and culture. Conditions of aliveness and conquering the wilderness permanently adapted the European settlers of the New England coastline to a recent national breed. Turner goes on to canvas the American Frontier to Europe. In explaining their similarities, he states What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bonds of custom, religious offering upstart experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, the ever-retreating frontier has been to the United States directly (Turner 38). Turner continues to explain that to the while Europe had its own frontiers, it effecte d them much remotely. Turner believed that the frontier shaped the American character and the closing of the Western Frontier signified the United States graduating from its sign development into something much more mature.Turner summaries by commenting 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 loss has closed the first period of American history (Turner 38). In The Frontier of American History, while he writes about America as an example he gives a detailed general explanation that he believes could be used in crackment other nations ethnical growth patterns. Fredrick Turner believes that the growth and settlement is the first period of progress in any nations development. This blowup is followed by followed by periods of social and economic development. Each of which is frontier all its own. Turner explains with an exampleStand at Cumberland Gap and watch the progression o f civilization, marching music single filethe buffalo followers the trail to the salt springs, the Indian, the fur-trader and hunter, the cattle-raiser, the pioneer grangerand the frontier has passed by. Stand at southeastward Pass in the Rockies a atomic number 6 later and see the same procession with wider intervals between (Turner 12) He believed that the American West created the first really free man. The European Frontier was nothing more than multitude recreating Old World values and deferring to authority. The frontier in America had no law, no authority, and men lived by their wits. America thinks of its frontier as being in spite of appearance the country not at the edge. thither is no line which separates the frontier from settled land. Americas frontier is passing(a) and terrestrial. However, the European frontier is fixed, and completely permanent. Turners research and thesis contrasted strikingly with his historic contemporaries who believed that America was es tablish on Europe. And it was the European historical bequest brought over with the colonists that gave America its uniqueness. Fredrick Turner believed that the American Frontier and the surrounding experiences should be respected and spoke about of with dignity. Of bleed there are several flaws in his thesis. He failed to speak about the effect of the American Frontier on women and minorities. Turners theory was deemed ethnocentric and nationalistic. His insert also showed a large insularism between rural American and the prox urban or city culture. other problem with his safety net marriage offer is that it is not true for anything after the cultured War. In the thraldom ridden South many blacks sought refuge in the frontier before the Civil War. However, after the Civl War, the poverty stricken south it was impossible for people to have enough money for transportation, and screen background up homesteads in the West.It is important to bill that Turners Frontier thesis goes head to head with the theory that slavery was the defining factor in American history. The government actually gave away more free land after the official closing of the American Frontier than in all the years preceding 1890. Turners thesis and research were not, at the time of its original, publication embraced. such(prenominal) of that coldness he received from his peers was due(p) to his blunt, forceful nature and writing style. When he spoke about his Frontier Thesis, he commanded his fellow historians to turn their brain from European history to the American West. He comments often that American Historians had it all ill-use and he was right. His aggressive preaching whitethorn have turned other researchers off to even considering his thesis. Fredrick Jackson Turner does a good job of fleshing out his thesis. I do agree that the American Frontier had a huge effect on defining what America is and who Americans are. I do think that Turners Frontier Thesis has its proble ms which I stated above. I think it is important to capitulum out that understanding the birth of truly American Ideals you must look at several different theories developed by various Historians. I agree with the points that Fredrick Turner sort outs. Especially concerning how settlers of the frontier needed to be self sufficient and self governing. Regardless, if historians agree with Turner or agree to disagree the impact of his Frontier Thesis, is indisputable. He introduced the subject that daily events of regular people make up history that is it is true history. He nurtured and detailed his belief that the physical land can be a study factor in defining and influence a culture, particularly the American Culture. Fredrick Jackson Turner breathed life into the American Western landscape, letting the Frontier transfigure from a mere setting to a powerful tool in chiseling the Americas historical and cultural legacy.BibliographyHutton, T.R.C. overcome a Dead Horse? The go on Presence of Frederick Jackson Turner in Environmental and Western History. International brotherly Science Review (2002) 47+. Questia. 10 Dec. 2005 .Ritchie, Robert C., and Paul Andrew Hutton, eds. Frontier and Region Essays in mention of Martin Ridge. 1st ed. San Marino, CA Huntington depository library Press, 1997. Questia. 10 Dec. 2005 .Turner, Frederick Jackson. The Frontier in American History. New York Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1921. Questia. 10 Dec. 2005 .White, Richard, and Richard White. Chapter Ten When Frederick Jackson TurnerAnd Buffalo Bill Cody BothPlayed Chicago in 1893. Frontier and Region Essays in Honor of Martin Ridge. Ed. Robert C. Ritchie and Paul Andrew Hutton. 1st ed. San Marino, CA Huntington program library Press, 1997. 201-211. Questia. 10 Dec. 2005 .