page_title: Frontier thesis
section_title: Evolution
hierarchical_section_title: Frontier thesis / Evolution
caption_attribution_description: English: Frederick Jackson Turner, c.1890 en:Category:United States history images Born in en:Portage, en:Wisconsin in en:1861, Turner began his career in newspapers, and in 1880 entered the en:University of Wisconsin. Following his graduation with an MA in History, he went on to en:Johns Hopkins University for his doctorate, returning to Wisconsin as Professor of History in en:1889. It was there tha he developed his most famous work "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" which became recognised as a seminal work in the understanding of the reasons for, and the benefits of territorial expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts. He describes the effects of the expansion of the frontier on the American character, its nationalism and individualism and so on, much of which he attributed to this frontier mentality. Turner died in en:1932.
context_page_description: 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.
context_section_description: Turner set up an evolutionary model (he had studied evolution with a leading geologist, Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin), using the time dimension of American history, and the geographical space of the land that became the United States. The first settlers who arrived on the east coast in the 17th century acted and thought like Europeans. They adapted to the new physical, economic and political environment in certain ways—the cumulative effect of these adaptations was Americanization.
  Successive generations moved further inland, shifting the lines of settlement and wilderness, but preserving the essential tension between the two. European characteristics fell by the wayside and the old country's institutions (e.g., established churches, established aristocracies, standing armies, intrusive government, and highly unequal land distribution) were increasingly out of place. Every generation moved further west and became more American, more democratic, and more intolerant of hierarchy. They also became more violent, more individualistic, more distrustful of authority, less artistic, less scientific, and more dependent on ad-hoc organizations they formed themselves. In broad terms, the further west, the more American the community.
caption: Frederick Jackson Turner, c. 1890
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