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Cumberland Gap: a Symbol of American Identity

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Cumberland Gap: a Symbol of American Identity Cumberland Gap: A Symbol of American Identity An Honors Thesis (HONRS 499) by Marianne C. Butcher Thesis Advisor Dr. Gail S. Terry Ball State University Muncie, Indiana May 2002 May 4, 2002 c r 1 Abstract ~~'OJ.+ , e l'l This thesis argues that the Cumberland Gap has served as an important symbol in shaping American national identity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the nineteenth century, the Gap became intertwined with the legend of Daniel Boone. In the twentieth, it became an icon in Frederick Jackson Turner's interpretation of the American frontier. The introduction briefly discusses Turner's thesis, The Significance ofthe Frontier in American History, and its application to Cumberland Gap. Part I examines the history of Cumberland Gap and the historical activities of Daniel Boone in earliest Kentucky. Boone's legendary exploits as a pathfinder on the frontier before, during, and after the American Revolutionary Era provided Americans with one component of their national identity. Part II focuses on the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park and the preservation of the historical landscape. The park links its interpretation of the Gap to the mythical Boone, but in its efforts to return the Gap to its eighteenth-century appearance, it perpetuates a Turnerian view of the frontier. The National Park Service has transformed the region into a symbol of American identity on two levels. The park symbolizes the role of the frontier in American history. The tunnel, a grand feat in the field of civil engineering, resonates with the words of Turner. It is now literally possible to stand at Cumberland Gap and watch the waves of progress pass by. In its entirety, this thesis reveals the continuous role of the dual mythologies of Daniel Boone and Frederick Jackson Turner in shaping American national identity. Acknowledgements Many thanks are due to Dr. Gail S. Terry, my thesis advisor, for her role in this rigorous process. She encouraged me to take on a project that focused on the Wilderness Road. She guided my reading and research while encouraging me to explore the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park to see what we could find. There was no specific topic at the onset of this project. With Dr. Terry's guidance, I found a road, a park, and a town that symbolizes American identity. Her comments and superior editorial advice were invaluable. Thank you for your patience and understanding in this quest for scholarship. Many thanks also go to Lawrence Seabolt, the man who took me there. Lawrence and his wife Gloria are excellent tour guides of the Eastern Tennessee region. When I told them of this project, they drove me all over Cumberland and Clinch Mountains to retrace the Wilderness Road. I also thank them for the quotable information that they provided for the body of the paper. This project could not have been completed without the help of my parents. Although my mother, Patricia Ann Butcher, was not alive to see the fruition of this work, her love for history and family vacations provided the essential tools needed to complete this project. Thank you Mom for taking me to Cumberland Gap. In loving memory of Patricia Ann Butcher (April 10, 1949 to August 25,2001) Although my mother, Patricia Ann Butcher, was not alive to see the fruition ofthis work, her love for history and family vacations provided the essential tools needed to complete this project. Thank you Mom for taking me to Cumberland Gap. - Since the era of the American Revolutionary War, the once British colonists have struggled to shed their British identity and establish a distinctively American one. 1 Pictures of Benjamin Franklin before and after 1776 show the change. As a British citizen living in the American colonies, Franklin dressed according to British custom. After the war for independence, Franklin dressed in the fashions of the frontier. 2 On a quest to shape its own identity, America exchanged a powdered wig for a coonskin cap. America turned to the frontier. In his late nineteenth-century essay, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, the premier historian of the American frontier Frederick Jackson Turner asserted that, "The frontier is the line of most rapid and effective Americanization."J For Turner the frontier was the outer edge of a wave of white settlement, the meeting point between - savagery and civilization. Every time the edge of the wave moved forward, the outcome became less like an old product of Europe and more like a new product of America. "The isolation of the region increased its peculiarly American tendencies, and the need of transportation facilities to connect it with the East called out important schemes of internal improvement ... The "West" as a self-conscious section, began to evolve." 4 Turner's frontier thesis gave a powerful boost to the frontier as an important locus of the American identity.5 According to contemporary historian David Lowenthal, "Up to the end of the nineteenth century, pioneer environments were seen as debilitating and 1 For a discussion of this process see Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob, Telling The Truth About History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1994), chap. 3. 2 Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography o/Benjamin Franklin. ed. Louis P. Masur (Boston & New York: Bedford Books, 1993), 19-24. 3 Frederick Jackson Turner, Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner, commentary John Mack Faragher (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1994),33. 4 Turner, 35. 5 For recent criticisms of Turner's conception of the frontier, see Richard W. Etulain, ed., Does the Frontier Experience Make America Exceptional? (Boston & New York: Bedfordl St. Martin's, 1999). - corrupting, not virtuous or enlivening.,,6 Turner's essay transformed America's perception of the frontier. It was no longer seen as a handicap, to be overcome, but as a heritage, something to be revered. Nestled in the corner where Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee meet, the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park represents the epitome of the American identity as described by Turner. One can almost literally "stand at Visitors can stand at the Pinnacle Cumberland Gap and watch the procession of Overlook and see three states, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. From this angle, one civilization, marching single file - the buffalo following can see the town of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee and the the trail to the salt springs, the Indian, the fur-trader and Tennessee side of the tunnel. Picture Taken October 200 1 hunter, the cattle raiser, the pioneer farmer - and the - frontier has passed by.,,7 The area surrounding Cumberland Gap offers visitors the opportunity to bask in American achievement. In their efforts to preserve the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap, the United States Department of the Interior has created an experience that allows tourists to see how American pioneers have progressed from a narrow footpath over a mountain to a four-lane highway running through a mountain. The attempt of the national park to capture the true American experience actually perpetuates several American myths. The efforts of the park to restore the Wilderness Road to its eighteenth-century state links the gap to the legendary of figure of Daniel Boone, and the park's interpretation of this historic site encourages the Turnerian 6 David Lowenthal "Pioneer Museums" History Museums in the United States: A Critical Assessment, ed. Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig. (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 119. Although Lowenthal makes a distinction between a frontiersman and a pioneer my contention is that in this instance Boone is both. Cumberland Gap National Historical Park is also a frontier and - pioneer museum. Therefore Lowenthal's analysis of pioneer museums applies. 7 Turner, 39. - image of pioneers as self-reliant individuals who had an unfailing zest for life and a confidence in achievement. 8 A Cumberland Gap Area Guidebook asserts that, "This passage through the mountains set the stage for one of the greatest stories recorded by mankind. It was the prelude to manifest destiny. It is pure American history!,,9 Although it may be to the financial benefit of the museum and the region to portray these myths as truths, the role of the wilderness road through the Cumberland Gap in perpetuating an American identity cannot be fully understood without probing the myths associated with Daniel Boone and the settlement of Kentucky and those associated with the Turnerian idea of the frontier. Part I Cumberland Gap, The Wilderness Road, and the Legend of Daniel Boone - "The opening of the West really begins with Daniel Boone ... Daniel Boone broke the chain that had confined settlers to a ribbon of shoreline for nearly two centuries. With Boone, Americans took off and created a continental empire."l0 Dr. Robert V. Remini, emeritus professor of history in the University of Illinois at Chicago, spoke these words at the annual Boone Day celebration in Frankfort, Kentucky, on June 6, 1992. His words, laden with myth and legend, capture why Americans celebrate the life of Daniel Boone. Americans celebrate Boone because he is a hero, an oversimplified hero used by Americans to commemorate monumental events that shaped the American identity. Boone gained legendary status in Kentucky during his own lifetime, but Boone's biographers and contemporaries attributed many activities to him that were not 8 Lowenthal, 120-121. 9 Tom N. Shattuck, A Cumberland Gap Area Guidebook, 2d ed. (Middlesboro, KY: Wilderness Road Company, 1999), 3. 10 Robert V. Remini, "The Early Heroes of Kentucky," Register ofthe Kentucky Historical Society 90, no. 3 (1992): 226, 225-235. - Boone's to claim. Boone did forge a road through Kentucky and he did start a settlement, but neither of his contributions were the first in Kentucky and neither were created by the sole efforts of Boone.
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