Download or read book The Frontier in American History Annotated written by Frederick Jackson Turner and published by . This book was released on 2020-01-30 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-The Frontier thesis or Turner thesis, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that American democracy was formed by the American frontier. He stressed the process-the moving frontier line-and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process. He also stressed results, especially that American democracy was the primary result, along with egalitarianism, a lack of interest in 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 by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles. There was no landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents and fees. Frontier land was practically free for the taking. Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. He won wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals. Turner elaborated on the theme in his advanced history lectures and in a series of essays published over the next 25 years, published along with his initial paper as The Frontier in American History.

Download or read book An Analysis of Frederick Jackson Turner s The Significance of the Frontier in American History written by Joanna Dee Das and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 essay on the history of the United States remains one of the most famous and influential works in the American canon. That is a testament to Turner's powers of creative synthesis; in a few short pages, he succeeded in redefining the way in which whole generations of Americans understood the manner in which their country was shaped, and their own character moulded, by the frontier experience. It is largely thanks to Turner's influence that the idea of America as the home of a sturdily independent people – one prepared, ultimately, to obtain justice for themselves if they could not find it elsewhere – was born. The impact of these ideas can still be felt today: in many Americans' suspicion of "big government," in their attachment to guns – even in Star Trek's vision of space as "the final frontier." Turner's thesis may now be criticised as limited (in its exclusion of women) and over-stated (in its focus on the western frontier). That it redefined an issue in a highly impactful way – and that it did so exceptionally eloquently – cannot be doubted.

Download or read book The Significance of the Frontier in American History written by Frederick Jackson Turner and published by . This book was released on 2014-02-13 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2014 Reprint of 1894 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. The "Frontier Thesis" or "Turner Thesis," is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1894 that American democracy was formed by the American Frontier. He stressed the process-the moving frontier line-and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process. He also stressed consequences of a ostensibly limitless frontier and that American democracy and egalitarianism were the principle results. In Turner's thesis the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles, nor for landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents. Frontier land was free for the taking. Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. He won very wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals. 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.

Download or read book The Frontier in American History written by Frederick Jackson Turner and published by Henry Holt. This book was released on 1921 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Frontier in American Culture written by Richard White and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1994-10-17 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Log cabins and wagon trains, cowboys and Indians, Buffalo Bill and General Custer. These and other frontier images pervade our lives, from fiction to films to advertising, where they attach themselves to products from pancake syrup to cologne, blue jeans to banks. Richard White and Patricia Limerick join their inimitable talents to explore our national preoccupation with this uniquely American image. Richard White examines the two most enduring stories of the frontier, both told in Chicago in 1893, the year of the Columbian Exposition. One was Frederick Jackson Turner's remarkably influential lecture, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"; the other took place in William "Buffalo Bill" Cody's flamboyant extravaganza, "The Wild West." Turner recounted the peaceful settlement of an empty continent, a tale that placed Indians at the margins. Cody's story put Indians—and bloody battles—at center stage, and culminated with the Battle of the Little Bighorn, popularly known as "Custer's Last Stand." Seemingly contradictory, these two stories together reveal a complicated national identity. Patricia Limerick shows how the stories took on a life of their own in the twentieth century and were then reshaped by additional voices—those of Indians, Mexicans, African-Americans, and others, whose versions revisit the question of what it means to be an American. Generously illustrated, engagingly written, and peopled with such unforgettable characters as Sitting Bull, Captain Jack Crawford, and Annie Oakley, The Frontier in American Culture reminds us that despite the divisions and denials the western movement sparked, the image of the frontier unites us in surprising ways.

Download or read book The Significance of the Frontier in American History written by Frederick Jackson Turner and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-08-07 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This hugely influential work marked a turning point in US history and culture, arguing that the nation’s expansion into the Great West was directly linked to its unique spirit: a rugged individualism forged at the juncture between civilization and wilderness, which – for better or worse – lies at the heart of American identity today. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

Download or read book The Frontier Thesis Valid Interpretation of American History written by Ray Allen Billington and published by New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston. This book was released on 1966 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Guide for further reading": p. 119-122.

Download or read book Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner written by Frederick Turner and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1999-02-08 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1893 a young Frederick Jackson Turner stood before the American Historical Association and delivered his famous frontier thesis. To a less than enthusiastic audience, he argued that "the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development"; that this frontier accounted for American democracy and character; and that the frontier had closed forever with uncertain consequences for the American future. Despite the indifference of Turner's first audience, his essay would soon prove to be the single most influential piece of writing on American history, with extraordinary impact both in intellectual circles and in popular literature. Within a few years his views had become the dominant interpretation of the American past. A collection of his essays won the Pulitzer Prize, and for almost half a century, Turner's thesis was the most familiar model taught in schools, extolled by politicians, and screened in fictional form at local movie theaters each Saturday afternoon. Now, a hundred years after Turner's famous address, award-winning biographer John Mack Faragher collects and introduces the pioneer historian's ten most significant essays. Remarkable for their truly modern sense that a debate about the past is simultaneously a debate about the present, these essays remain stimulating reading, both as a road map to the early-twentieth-century American mind and as a model of committed scholarship. Faragher introduces us to Turner's work with a look at his role as a public intellectual and his effect on Americans' understanding of their national character. In the afterword, Faragher turns to the recent heated debate over Turner's legacy. Western history has reemerged in the news as historians argue over Turner's place in our current mind-set. In a world of dizzying intellectual change, it may come as something of a surprise that historians have taken so long to overturn the interpretation of a century-old conference paper. But while some claim that Turner's vision of the American West as a great egalitarian land of opportunity was long ago dismissed, others, in the words of historian Donald Worster, maintain that Turner still "presides over western history like a Holy Ghost.". Against this backdrop, Faragher looks at what the concept of the West means to us today and provides a reader's guide to the provocative new literature of the American frontier. Rereading these essays in the fresh light of Faragher's analysis brings new appreciation for the richness of Turner's work and an understanding of contemporary historians' admiration for Turner's commitment to the study of what it has meant to be American.

Download or read book The Frontier in American History written by Frederick Jackson Turner and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2010-07-21 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1893 survey ranks among the most influential and important books about the impact of frontier life on a transplanted civilization. The author examines the frontier's role in promoting self-reliance, independence, democracy, immigration, and westward expansion. Students, teachers, historians, and anyone with an interest in American history will find this classic a fascinating resource.

Download or read book The Frontier in American History written by Frederick Jackson Turner and published by . This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861 - March 14, 1932) was an American historian in the early 20th century, based at the University of Wisconsin until 1910, and then at Harvard. He was primarily known for his "Frontier Thesis." He trained many PhDs who came to occupy prominent places in the history profession. He promoted interdisciplinary and quantitative methods, often with a focus on the Midwest. He is best known for his essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", whose ideas formed the Frontier Thesis. He argued that the moving western frontier shaped American democracy and the American character from the colonial era until 1890. He is also known for his theories of geographical sectionalism. In recent years historians and academics have argued strenuously over Turner's work; all agree that the Frontier Thesis has had an enormous impact on historical scholarship and the American soul.

Download or read book The Significance of the Frontier in American History written by Joanna Dee Das and published by Macat Library. This book was released on 2017-07-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Turner's much-anthologized 1893 essay argues that the vast western frontier shaped the modern American character--and the course of US history. Interacting with both the wilderness and Native Americans, settlers on the frontier developed institutions and character traits quite distinct from Europe.

Download or read book Hollywood s West written by Peter C. Rollins and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2005-11-11 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner have argued that the West has been the region that most clearly defines American democracy and the national ethos. Throughout the twentieth century, the "frontier thesis" influenced film and television producers who used the West as a backdrop for an array of dramatic explorations of America's history and the evolution of its culture and values. The common themes found in Westerns distinguish the genre as a quintessentially American form of dramatic art. In Hollywood's West, Peter C. Rollins, John E. O'Connor, and the nation's leading film scholars analyze popular conceptions of the frontier as a fundamental element of American history and culture. This volume examines classic Western films and programs that span nearly a century, from Cimarron (1931) to Turner Network Television's recent made-for-TV movies. Many of the films discussed here are considered among the greatest cinematic landmarks of all time. The essays highlight the ways in which Westerns have both shaped and reflected the dominant social and political concerns of their respective eras. While Cimarron challenged audiences with an innovative, complex narrative, other Westerns of the early sound era such as The Great Meadow (1931) frequently presented nostalgic visions of a simpler frontier era as a temporary diversion from the hardships of the Great Depression. Westerns of the 1950s reveal the profound uncertainty cast by the cold war, whereas later Westerns display heightened violence and cynicism, products of a society marred by wars, assassinations, riots, and political scandals. The volume concludes with a comprehensive filmography and an informative bibliography of scholarly writings on the Western genre. This collection will prove useful to film scholars, historians, and both devoted and casual fans of the Western genre. Hollywood's West makes a significant contribution to the understanding of both the historic American frontier and its innumerable popular representations.

Download or read book The End of the Myth written by Greg Grandin and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE A new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall. Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, it was the foundation of the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation – democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, America hasa new symbol: the border wall. In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of U.S. history – from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016. For centuries, he shows, America’s constant expansion – fighting wars and opening markets – served as a “gate of escape,” helping to deflect domestic political and economic conflicts outward. But this deflection meant that the country’s problems, from racism to inequality, were never confronted directly. And now, the combined catastrophe of the 2008 financial meltdown and our unwinnable wars in the Middle East have slammed this gate shut, bringing political passions that had long been directed elsewhere back home. It is this new reality, Grandin says, that explains the rise of reactionary populism and racist nationalism, the extreme anger and polarization that catapulted Trump to the presidency. The border wall may or may not be built, but it will survive as a rallying point, an allegorical tombstone marking the end of American exceptionalism.

Download or read book The Frontier in American History written by Frederick Jackson Turner and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-10-07 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861 - March 14, 1932) was an American historian in the early 20th century, based at the University of Wisconsin until 1910, and then at Harvard. He trained many PhDs who came to occupy prominent places in the history profession. He promoted interdisciplinary and quantitative methods, often with a focus on the Midwest. He is best known for his essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," whose ideas formed the Frontier Thesis. He argued that the moving western frontier shaped American democracy and the American character from the colonial era until 1890. He is also known for his theories of geographical sectionalism. In recent years historians and academics have argued strenuously over Turner's work; all agree that the Frontier Thesis has had an enormous impact on historical scholarship and the American mind. Early life, education, and career: Born in Portage, Wisconsin, the son of Andrew Jackson Turner and Mary Olivia Hanford Turner, Turner grew up in a middle-class family. His father was active in Republican politics, an investor in the railroad, and was a newspaper editor and publisher. His mother taught school.Turner was very much influenced by the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a poet known for his focus on nature; so too was Turner influenced by scientists such as Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and Julian Huxley, and the development of Cartography.He graduated from the University of Wisconsin (now University of Wisconsin-Madison) in 1884, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. He earned his Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University in 1890 with a thesis on the Wisconsin fur trade, titled "The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin," directed by Herbert Baxter Adams. Turner did not publish extensively; his influence came from tersely expressed interpretive theories (published in articles), which influenced his hundreds of disciples. Two theories in particular were influential, the "Frontier Thesis" and the "Sectional Hypothesis." Although he published little, he did more research than almost anyone and had an encyclopedic knowledge of American history, earning a reputation by 1910 as one of the two or three most influential historians in the country. He proved adept at promoting his ideas and his students, whom he systematically placed in leading universities, including Merle Curti and Marcus Lee Hansen. He circulated copies of his essays and lectures to important scholars and literary figures, published extensively in highbrow magazines, recycled favorite material, attaining the largest possible audience for key concepts, and wielded considerable influence within the American Historical Association as an officer and advisor for the American Historical Review. His 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. Annoyed by the university regents who demanded less research and more teaching and state service, Turner sought out an environment that would support research. Declining offers from California, he accepted a call to Harvard in 1910 and remained a professor there until 1922, being succeeded in 1924 by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. In 1907 Turner was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society, and in 1911 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Turner was never comfortable at Harvard; when he retired in 1922 he became a visiting scholar at the Huntington Library in Los Angeles, where his note cards and files continued to pile up, although few monographs got published. His The Frontier in American History (1920) was a collection of older essays....

Download or read book Wanderer on the American Frontier written by John Maley and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly two hundred years, a fragment of the journal of John Maley, an obscure explorer on the American frontier, resided at Yale University and was treated with some skepticism by historians. It was only in 2012, when the first half of the manuscript turned up at a barn sale in Pennsylvania and was acquired by Southern Methodist University’s DeGolyer Library, that the full story of Maley’s travels could be pieced together. Wanderer on the American Frontier makes the complete journal available for the first time, allowing readers to follow a contemporary of Lewis and Clark on his journey through the Ohio, Mississippi, and Red River valleys, and to reassess the account’s authenticity. Between 1808 and 1813, Maley covered more than 16,000 miles through thirteen present-day states. Much of that travel took him beyond the fringes of civilization, and his journal offers some of the earliest descriptions of the Ozark Plateau, the Ouachita Mountains, and the upper reaches of the Red River. His account also provides a firsthand look at life on the frontier in the tumultuous years following the Louisiana Purchase. Editor F. Andrew Dowdy has carefully retraced Maley’s steps and, with extensive use of maps, has reconciled some of the journal’s more confusing passages to give readers clear modern-day reference points. Numerous annotations and appendices provide necessary historical context, from the link between Maley’s 1809 Indiana copper exploration and the Treaty of Fort Wayne, to the ways his 1811 foray into Spanish Texas presaged further filibusters there during the Mexican War for Independence. The fascinating tale of one of the wider-ranging explorers in American history, Wanderer on the American Frontier is an invaluable resource that provides a unique window on the West in the early nineteenth century.

Download or read book Re Dressing America s Frontier Past written by Peter Boag and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2012-09 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans have long cherished romantic images of the frontier and its colorful cast of characters, where the cowboys are always rugged and the ladies always fragile. But in this book, Peter Boag opens an extraordinary window onto the real Old West. Delving into countless primary sources and surveying sexological and literary sources, Boag paints a vivid picture of a West where cross-dressing—for both men and women—was pervasive, and where easterners as well as Mexicans and even Indians could redefine their gender and sexual identities. Boag asks, why has this history been forgotten and erased? Citing a cultural moment at the turn of the twentieth century—when the frontier ended, the United States entered the modern era, and homosexuality was created as a category—Boag shows how the American people, and thus the American nation, were bequeathed an unambiguous heterosexual identity.

Download or read book Freedom s Frontier written by Stacey L. Smith and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2013-08-12 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most histories of the Civil War era portray the struggle over slavery as a conflict that exclusively pitted North against South, free labor against slave labor, and black against white. In Freedom's Frontier, Stacey L. Smith examines the battle over slavery as it unfolded on the multiracial Pacific Coast. Despite its antislavery constitution, California was home to a dizzying array of bound and semibound labor systems: African American slavery, American Indian indenture, Latino and Chinese contract labor, and a brutal sex traffic in bound Indian and Chinese women. Using untapped legislative and court records, Smith reconstructs the lives of California's unfree workers and documents the political and legal struggles over their destiny as the nation moved through the Civil War, emancipation, and Reconstruction. Smith reveals that the state's anti-Chinese movement, forged in its struggle over unfree labor, reached eastward to transform federal Reconstruction policy and national race relations for decades to come. Throughout, she illuminates the startling ways in which the contest over slavery's fate included a western struggle that encompassed diverse labor systems and workers not easily classified as free or slave, black or white.