Frontier thesis facts for kids
The Frontier Thesis, also known as Turner's Thesis, is a big idea from historian Frederick Jackson Turner. He wrote about it in 1893. His main point was that the unique spirit of America was shaped by its "frontier"—the wild, unsettled lands in the West. As settlers moved into these new areas, they had to be tough and self-reliant. Turner believed this experience made Americans different from their European ancestors.
He said that American democracy, where everyone is treated equally, grew stronger each time people moved to a new frontier. He felt that the frontier helped Americans break free from old European ways. It meant there was no need for kings, nobles, or powerful churches. Land was almost free for anyone to claim. Turner first shared his ideas in a paper called "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" in 1893. Many historians and thinkers really liked his ideas. By the time he passed away in 1932, many history classes in the U.S. were teaching about the frontier using Turner's ideas.
Contents
What Was the Frontier Thesis?
Turner's essay began by pointing out that the American frontier, which had been a key part of U.S. history, was officially closing by the 1880s. He explained that American society had always changed as people moved westward. They went from simple frontier life to more complex city life.
Turner believed that the frontier was like a "melting pot." It took people from Europe and shaped them into something new—an American. He thought that Americans moved west not because the government told them to, but because they had a strong desire to explore and control nature. They also wanted to escape strict rules from the East.
How the Frontier Shaped Democracy
One of Turner's most important ideas was how the frontier affected democracy. He said it changed Jeffersonian democracy (focused on farmers and small government) into Jacksonian democracy (focused on the common people). The wild frontier made people more independent. This spirit of independence worked well with democracy because the wilderness couldn't be controlled. So, Andrew Jackson's popular democracy was seen as a win for the frontier spirit.
Turner saw the East and West as different forces. The West wanted freedom, while the East tried to control it. He gave examples like Britain trying to stop settlers from moving west in colonial times. Even after America became independent, the East Coast tried to control the West. Religious groups from the East also fought to spread their influence in the West.
American Character from the Frontier
Turner also thought the frontier shaped American thinking. He described people from the frontier as strong, curious, and good at finding quick solutions. They were practical and good at dealing with real-world problems, even if they weren't very artistic. They had a lot of energy, were very individualistic, and had a hopeful, lively spirit that came from freedom.
Turner ended his essay by saying that with the frontier closing, the first major period of American history had come to an end.
How Turner's Ideas Evolved
Turner created a model that showed how Americans changed over time. He had studied evolution, so he thought about how people adapted to new environments. The first settlers who arrived on the East Coast in the 1600s acted like Europeans. But they slowly changed as they got used to the new land and its challenges. This process of adapting made them more "American."
As new generations moved further inland, the frontier kept shifting. But the main idea of people facing the wilderness stayed the same. European ways, like having kings, nobles, or strict governments, became less important. Each generation that moved west became more American, more democratic, and less accepting of strict social classes. They also became more independent and less trusting of authority. In general, the further west people went, the more "American" their communities became.
The Frontier Closes
Turner realized that the land frontier was ending. The 1890 United States Census officially announced that the American frontier no longer existed as a clear line.
By 1890, enough people had settled in the American West that the frontier line had disappeared. The Census Bureau said that the unsettled areas were now broken up by many smaller settlements. So, there was no longer a continuous frontier line to track.
Comparing Frontiers in Other Countries
Historians and scientists have looked at frontier-like situations in other countries, like South Africa, Canada, Russia, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia. They wanted to see if Turner's ideas applied there too. However, these other frontiers were very different. It was harder for them to develop democracy and individualism because they had strong kings, armies, churches, and nobles who owned most of the land.
For example, the Dutch settlers in South Africa were defeated by Britain. In Australia, people valued "mateship" (working together) more than individualism. In Russia, settlers moved across Siberia for centuries, facing nature just like Americans did. But Siberia became a symbol of harsh rule, not freedom. This shows that moving into wild land doesn't always create the same kind of culture or government as in America. Other things, like the original society the settlers came from, also matter a lot.
Impact and Influence of Turner's Thesis
Turner's ideas quickly became popular. They helped explain why Americans and their government were so different from Europeans. Even politicians like Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s used Turner's ideas. Roosevelt talked about finding "new frontiers" to solve problems like poverty and fear.
Many people believed that the end of the land frontier meant America needed to expand overseas. However, some historians argued that this idea led to America's expansion into other countries. Other historians, who focused on minority groups like Native Americans and Hispanic people, criticized Turner's thesis. They felt it didn't explain the experiences of these groups. They preferred to study the West as a region, not just as a frontier.
Turner never published a big book on the frontier, even though he researched it for 40 years. But his ideas influenced many areas of history. For example, in the history of religion, some scholars argued that churches changed to fit the frontier. This led to new religious groups like the Mormons and the Church of Christ. The frontier also shaped unique American religious practices like revivals and camp meetings.
Turner's ideas also influenced popular culture. Movies and novels often showed the West as a place of individualism, violence, and rough justice. Places like Disneyland's Frontierland celebrated this idea of rugged individualism. Even though academic historians have questioned Turner's ideas, the public often still holds onto these popular images of the West.
A study in 2020 even found scientific support for the idea that the frontier experience had a real impact on individualism.
Early Criticisms of Turner's Ideas
Even though Turner's work was very popular for a long time, it started to get criticized during World War II. One of his most famous and later controversial statements was:
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. Not the constitution but free land and an abundance of natural resources open to a fit people, made the democratic type of society in America for three centuries while it occupied its empire.
Some historians worried about the "racial overtones" in this statement, especially as Adolf Hitler and his ideas about race were rising in Germany. For example, historian George Wilson Pierson asked why the "American character" from the frontier only appeared in the Thirteen Colonies that formed the U.S. Why didn't the frontier create the same character among Native Americans or Spaniards in the New World?
Despite these criticisms, Turner's ideas remained important in American classrooms until the 1970s and 80s.
New Frontiers for America
Later thinkers, historians, and politicians suggested that other "frontiers," like scientific discoveries, could play a similar role in American development. For instance, John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s openly used the idea of the frontier. When he accepted the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1960, Kennedy told Americans, "I am asking each of you to be new pioneers on that New Frontier." He used this idea of a "New Frontier" to promote his political plans, especially for space exploration and technology.
Fermilab and the Frontier of Science
Scientists who built Fermilab, a particle physics lab, also used the idea of the "New Frontier." They wanted to bring back the excitement of the old frontier. They chose a location in a Chicago suburb on the prairie, away from the coasts. They even started a small herd of American bison at the lab. This symbolized Fermilab's place on the "frontier of physics" and its connection to the American prairie. The bison herd is still there today.
The lab's design also reflected Turner's themes. It focused on values like individualism, discovery, and independence. One of the lab's directors said in 1968 that reaching the "frontier of high energy" would be a big step in human history.
The Electronic Frontier
The idea of a "frontier" has also been used to describe cyberspace—the world of the internet and telecommunications. People like John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor called it an "electronic frontier." They saw it as a place beyond government control, where freedom and self-determination could truly happen. Scholars studying the internet often compare it to Turner's frontier model, wondering if it will develop in similar ways.
People Referenced by Turner
- Lyman Beecher
- Thomas Benton
- Edmund Burke
- John C. Calhoun
- Christopher Columbus
- Francis Grund
- Hermann von Holst
- Andrew Jackson
- James Madison
- James Monroe
- John Mason Peck
Images for kids
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Frederick Jackson Turner, around 1890.
