Frederick Jackson Turner

**Frederick Jackson Turner** (November 14, 1861 – March 14, 1932) was an American historian. He worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison until 1910. Then he worked at Harvard University.  People know him because of an idea he had which is called the frontier thesis. Also, he trained many other famous historians. He changed how people study history. His focus was the Midwestern United States.

Turner's most famous essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" shared his idea of frontier thesis. A frontier is an area near a country's borders. Turner argued that the United States' frontier had a big impact on the United States' government<nowiki/>and people.

Many historians argue about if Turner's idea was right. However, they agree that it was important to future writing about history.

## Early life and education

Turner was born in Portage, Wisconsin. His parents were Andrew Jackson Turner and Mary Olivia Hanford Turner. Turner read and learned from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and Julian Huxley. He was also interested in maps. He graduated in 1884 from the University of Wisconsin.

Turner was very much influenced by the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a poet known for his emphasis on nature; so too was Turner influenced by scientists such as Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and Julian Huxley, and the development of cartography. In 1884, he graduated from the University of Wisconsin. That school is now named the University of Wisconsin–Madison. While there, Turner was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity.

He earned his PhD in history from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1890 by writing about the fur trade in Wisconsin. His teacher there was Herbert Baxter Adams.

## Career

Turner did not share much writing. However, his ideas changed how many people thought. His most important ideas are named the Frontier Thesis and the Sectional Hypothesis.

Also, he knew much information about United States history. HIs students like Merle Curti and Marcus Lee Hansen learned from him. He also helped them get jobs.

Turner started to teach at Harvard in 1910 because he wanted to do more studying and less teaching. He stopped working in 1922. Then, he started studying at the Huntington Library in Los Angeles.

## Frontier thesis idea

Turner first wrote about his frontier thesis idea in 1893. He read a piece called "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" to the American Historical Association in Chicago during the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago World's Fair). His idea was that the United States was successful because it had taken land in the West from Native Americans. He argued that taking land changed the people of the United States because they needed to work in a new environment.

## Influence and legacy

At first, many people liked Turner's ideas. When he died, 3 out of every 5 colleges in the United States had classes that taught frontier history like he did. His ideas also affected popular culture ideas about the Western United States.

In the 1960s, historians started to disagree with Turner more. They said he needed to think about women and people of color in the frontier. The frontier was not always a place for freedom. However, the way he studied history was still copied.

Turner's theories became unfashionable during the 1960s, as critics complained that he neglected regionalism. They complained that he claimed too much egalitarianism and democracy for a frontier that was restrictive for women and minorities. After Turner's death his former colleague Isaiah Bowman had this to say of his work: "Turner's ideas were curiously wanting in evidence from field studies...He represents a type of historian who rests his case on documents and general impression rather than a scientist who goes out for to see." His ideas were never forgotten; indeed they influenced the new field of environmental history. Turner gave a strong impetus to quantitative methods, and scholars using new statistical techniques and data sets have, for example, confirmed many of Turner's suggestions about population movements. Turner believed that because of his own biases and the amount of conflicting historical evidence that any one method of historical interpretation would be insufficient, that an interdisciplinary method was the most accurate way to analyze history.

The Frederick Jackson Turner Award is given annually by the Organization of American Historians for an author's first scholarly book on American history.

Turner's former home in Madison, Wisconsin is in what is now the Langdon Street Historic District.

In 2009 he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

## Marriage, family, and death

Turner married Caroline Mae Sherwood in Chicago in November 1889. They had three children: only one survived childhood. Dorothy Kinsley Turner (later Main) was the mother of the historian Jackson Turner Main (1917–2003), a scholar of Revolutionary America who married a fellow scholar.

Frederick Jackson Turner died in 1932 in Pasadena, California, where he had been a research associate at the Huntington Library.

## Related pages

- Edward Alsworth Ross
- Charles Henry Ambler – historian of West Virginia and student of Turner
- Thomas Perkins Abernethy - student of Turner at Harvard; later a noted historian

## Turner's Writing

- Turner, Frederick Jackson. Edwards, Everett E. (comp.) _The early writings of Frederick Jackson Turner, with a list of all his works_. Compiled by Everett E. Edwards. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1938.
- Turner, Frederick Jackson.
- Turner, Frederick Jackson. ed. "Correspondence of the French ministers to the United States, 1791–1797" in _American Historical Association. Annual report ... for the year 1903._ Washington, 1904.
- Turner, Frederick Jackson.  "Is Sectionalism in America Dying Away?" (1908). _American Journal of Sociology_, 13: 661–675.
- Turner, Frederick Jackson.   "Social Forces in American History ," presidential address before the American Historical Association _American Historical Review_, 16: 217–233.
- Turner, Frederick Jackson.  _The Frontier in American History._ New York: Holt, 1920.
- Turner, Frederick Jackson. "The significance of the section in American history." _Wisconsin Magazine of History_, vol. 8, no. 3 (Mar 1925) pp. 255–280.
- Turner, Frederick Jackson. _The Significance of Sections in American History_. New York: Holt, 1932.
- Turner, Frederick Jackson. _"Dear Lady": the letters of Frederick Jackson Turner and Alice Forbes Perkins Hooper, 1910–1932._ Edited by Ray Allen Billington. Huntington Library, 1970.
- Turner, Frederick Jackson. "Turner's Autobiographic Letter." _Wisconsin Magazine of History_, vol. 19, no. 1 (Sep 1935) pp. 91–102.
- Turner, Frederick Jackson. _America's Great Frontiers and Sections: Frederick Jackson Turner's Unpublished Essays_ edited by Wilbur R. Jacobs. University of Nebraska Press, 1965.

## Sources

- Hall, Patricia Kelly, and Steven Ruggles. "'Restless in the midst of Their Prosperity': New Evidence on the Internal Migration of Americans, 1850–2000._ _Journal of American History_ 2004 91(3): 829–846.
- Hutton, T. R. C. "Beating a Dead Horse: the Continuing Presence of Frederick Jackson Turner in Environmental and Western History." _International Social Science Review_ 2002 77(1–2): 47–57. online
- Scharff, Virginia, _et al_. "Claims and Prospects of Western History: a Roundtable." _Western Historical Quarterly_ 2000 31(1): 25–46.  in Jstor.

## Further reading

- Billington, Ray Allen. "Why Some Historians Rarely Write History: A Case Study of Frederick Jackson Turner". _The Mississippi Valley Historical Review_, Vol. 50, No. 1. (June, 1963), pp. 3–27. in JSTOR.
- Billington, Ray Allen. _America's Frontier Heritage_ (1984).  detailed analysis of Turner's theories from social science perspective.
- Billington, Ray Allen. ed,. _The Frontier Thesis: Valid Interpretation of American History?_ (1966).  The major attacks and defenses of Turner.
- Billington, Ray Allen. _Frederick Jackson Turner: Historian, Scholar, Teacher_. (1973).  full-scale biography.
- Bogue, Allan G. _Frederick Jackson Turner: Strange Roads Going Down_. (1988) along with Billington (1973), the leading full-scale biography.
- Burkhart, J. A. "The Turner Thesis: A Historian's Controversy". _Wisconsin Magazine of History_, vol. 31, no. 1 (Sep 1947), pp. 70–83.
- Cronon, E. David. _An Uncommon Professor: Frederick Jackson Turner at Wisconsin_. _Wisconsin Magazine of History_, vol. 78, no. 4 (Summer 1995), pp. 276–293.
- Cronon, William. "Revisiting the Vanishing Frontier: The Legacy of Frederick Jackson Turner". _The Western Historical Quarterly_,  Vol. 18, No. 2 (Apr., 1987), pp. 157–176 online at JSTOR.
- Curti, Merle E. "Frontier in American History: The Methodological Concepts of Frederick Jackson Turner" in Stuart Rice, ed. _Methods in Social Science: A Case Book_ (1931) pp. 353–367. online edition .
- Faragher, John Mack (ed.) _Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner: The Significance of the Frontier in American History and Other Essays_. New York: Holt, 1994.
- Fernlund, Kevin Jon. "American Exceptionalism or Atlantic Unity? Frederick Jackson Turner and the Enduring Problem of American Historiography", _New Mexico Historical Review_, 89 (Summer 2014): 359–399.
- Hofstadter, Richard. "Turner and the Frontier Myth", _American Scholar_ (1949) 18#4 pp. 433–443 in JSTOR.
- Hofstadter, Richard. _The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington_ (1968); detailed critique of Turner.
- Jacobs, Wilbur R. _On Turner's Trail: 100 Years of Writing Western History_ (1994).
- Jensen, Richard. "On Modernizing Frederick Jackson Turner: The Historiography of Regionalism". _The Western Historical Quarterly_, vol. 11, no. 3 (July 1980), 307–322. in JSTOR.
- Limerick, Patricia N. "Turnerians All: The Dream of a Helpful History in an Intelligible World", _American Historical Review_, 100 (June 1995):697–716. in JSTOR.
- Nash, Gerald D.  _Creating the West: Historical Interpretations, 1890-1990._ (Calvin P. Horn Lectures in Western History and Culture, University of New Mexico).  Albuquerque:  University of New Mexico Press. 1991.
- Nichols, Roger L. _American Frontier and Western Issues: A Historiographical Review_ (1986) online edition.
- Ridge, Martin, ed. _Frederick Jackson Turner: Wisconsin’s Historian of the Frontier._ Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press; Reissue edition,  2016.
- Steiner, Michael C. "From Frontier to Region: Frederick Jackson Turner and the New Western History". _Pacific Historical Review'', 64 (November 1995): 479–501. in JSTOR.

## Other websites

- A biography of Frederick Jackson Turner
- Frederick Jackson Turner at the Wisconsin Electronic Reader