Frontier Thesis Essay

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Frontier Thesis The rise of western history as an important field of our American history started with Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American history.” This thesis shaped both popular and scholarly views of the West for the next two generations. In Turner’s thesis, Turner argued that the West had to be taken more seriously. He felt that up to his time there had not been enough research of what he called in his essay “the fundamental, dominating fact in the U.S. history” which was the territorial expansion from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. The frontier past was, according to Turner, the best way to describe the distinctive American history and character. Turner’s thesis still remains as one of the most widely discussed interpretations of the American past and it still continues to influence historians in our present day. Even though many scholars have questioned the thesis as an acceptable theory of explaining American history and culture, the thesis has its strengths. Turner demonstrated what made America unique. America as a unique nation was already a belief when the first colonies were established on the East coast. The notion that America was exceptional would continue to be re-created again and again on the frontier. The frontier was closely related to the myth that sustained the American faith, the ideals and images that represent the American Dream as well as America as an exceptional nation. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development. In his thesis, the frontier created independence and liberty, breaking the bonds of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities. According to Turner, he felt the frontier is the “line of most rapid Americanization.” Ultimately,

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