TURNER THESIS SUMMARY

Turner begins the essay by calling to attention the fact that the western In spite of this, Turner laments, the frontier has received little.

In , medieval historian Carl Stephenson published an extended article refuting the Germanic germ theory. How much do Puritan New England and the California of the transcontinental railroad really have in common? 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. This sectionalism had a great deal of influence on the development of the frontier. This view dominated religious historiography for decades. He traced the social evolution of frontier life as it continually developed across the continent from the primitive conditions experienced by the explorer, trapper, and trader, through maturing agricultural stages, finally reaching the complexity of city and factory. He cites British attempts to stifle western emigration during the colonial era and as an example of eastern control. The follow-up to that study, The United States, — The Nation and Its Sections , would not be published until after his death. Nonetheless, the Turner thesis remained a popular albeit widely debated assessment of American development. He retired in but continued his research until his death in Turner's point of departure for the essay was that in the published report of the federal census, it was reported that the United States no longer had a discernible frontier--a line of demarcation dividing, as they said then, "civilization" from "savagery. However, others viewed this interpretation as the impetus for a new wave in the history of United States imperialism. Williams viewed the frontier concept as a tool to promote democracy through both world wars, to endorse spending on foreign aid, and motivate action against totalitarianism. Turner's essay reached triumphalist heights in his belief that the promotion of individualistic democracy was the most important effect of the frontier. Women and minorities are not a part of his pretty picture. Europeans had long been trapped in the suffocating confines of the final stage, which had caused corruption and staleness both in Europe and in the eastern United States, where European traditions had continued to reign. Moreover, as the 19th century wore on, the role of the federal government and large corporations grew increasingly important. San Marino , Calif. Many such critics have sought to replace the idea of a moving frontier with the idea of the West as a distinctive region, much like the American South. Turner believes that state lines are artificial constructs, and that regions are really divided by natural boundary lines, such as mountains. The tensions between small churches as a result of this fight, Turner states, exist today because of the religious attempt to master the West and those effects are worth further study. He most cogently articulated this idea in "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," which he first delivered to a gathering of historians in at Chicago, then the site of the World's Columbian Exposition, an enormous fair to mark the four-hundredth anniversary of Columbus' voyage. Turner offered his frontier thesis as both an analysis of the past and a warning about the future. South Africa, Canada, Russia, Brazil, Argentina and Australia—and even ancient Rome—had long that were also settled by pioneers. Historians are still working under its shadow, even though many have been fighting for decades to dissolve its potency. The bison herd still lives on the grounds of . The public has ignored academic historians' anti-Turnerian models, largely because they conflict with and often destroy the icons of Western heritage.