Frederick Jackson Turner
Encyclopedia
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
in the early 20th century. He is best known for his essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History
The Significance of the Frontier in American History
"The Significance of the Frontier in American History" is a seminal essay by the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner which advanced the Frontier Thesis of American history...
", whose ideas are referred to as the Frontier Thesis
Frontier Thesis
The Frontier Thesis, also referred to as the Turner Thesis, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that the origin of the distinctive egalitarian, democratic, aggressive, and innovative features of the American character has been the American frontier experience...
. He is also known for his theories of geographical sectionalism. In recent years western history has seen pitched arguments over his Frontier Thesis, with the only point of agreement being his enormous impact on historical scholarship and the American mind.
Early life, education, and career
Born in Portage, WisconsinPortage, Wisconsin
Portage is a city in and the county seat of Columbia County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 10,662 at the 2010 census making it the largest city in Columbia County...
, the son of Andrew Jackson Turner and Mary Olivia Hanford Turner, Turner grew up in a middle class Yankee
Yankee
The term Yankee has several interrelated and often pejorative meanings, usually referring to people originating in the northeastern United States, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region.The...
family. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin (now University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
) in 1884, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity.
He gained his Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
in 1890 with a thesis on the Wisconsin fur trade, directed by Herbert Baxter Adams
Herbert Baxter Adams
Herbert Baxter Adams was an American educator and historian.Adams was born to Nathaniel Dickinson Adams and Harriet Adams in Shutesbury, Massachusetts. On his mother's side, he was a descendant of Thomas Hastings who came from the East Anglia region of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in...
. As a professor of history at Wisconsin (1890–1910), and later Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
(1911–1924), Turner trained scores of disciples, who in turn dominated American history programs throughout the country. Turner did not publish extensively; his influence came from tersely-expressed interpretive theories (published in articles), which influenced his hundreds of disciples. Two theories in particular were influential, the "Frontier Thesis
Frontier Thesis
The Frontier Thesis, also referred to as the Turner Thesis, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that the origin of the distinctive egalitarian, democratic, aggressive, and innovative features of the American character has been the American frontier experience...
" and the "Sectional Hypothesis".
Although he published little, he did more research than almost anyone and had an encyclopedic knowledge of American history, earning a reputation by 1910 as one of the two or three most influential historians in the country. He proved adept at promoting his ideas and his students, whom he systematically placed in leading universities. He circulated copies of his essays and lectures to important scholars and literary figures; he published extensively in highbrow magazines; he recycled favorite material, attaining the largest possible audience for key concepts; and he wielded considerable influence within the American Historical Association
American Historical Association
The American Historical Association is the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States. Founded in 1884, the association promotes historical studies, the teaching of history, and the preservation of and access to historical materials...
as an officer and advisor for the American Historical Review. His emphasis on the importance of the frontier in shaping American character influenced the interpretation found in thousands of scholarly histories. His model of sectionalism as a composite of social forces, such as ethnicity and land ownership, gave historians the tools to use social history as the foundation for all social, economic and political developments in American history. At the American Historical Association
American Historical Association
The American Historical Association is the oldest and largest society of historians and professors of history in the United States. Founded in 1884, the association promotes historical studies, the teaching of history, and the preservation of and access to historical materials...
, he collaborated with J. Franklin Jameson
J. Franklin Jameson
John Franklin Jameson was an American historian, author, and journal editor who played a major role in the professional activities of American historians in the early 20th century.-Early life:...
on major projects.
Annoyed by the university regents who demanded less research and more teaching and state service, Turner sought out an environment that would support research. Declining offers from California, he accepted a call to Harvard in 1910 and remained a professor there until 1924. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
in 1911. Turner was never comfortable at Harvard; when he retired in 1922 he became a visiting scholar at the Huntington Library
The Huntington Library
The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens is an educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington in San Marino, in the San Rafael Hills near Pasadena, California in the United States...
in Los Angeles, where his note cards and files continued to pile up, but few monographs got published. His Pulitzer-Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning The Frontier in American History (1920) was a collection of older essays.
Frontier thesis
Turner's "Frontier ThesisFrontier Thesis
The Frontier Thesis, also referred to as the Turner Thesis, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that the origin of the distinctive egalitarian, democratic, aggressive, and innovative features of the American character has been the American frontier experience...
", was put forth in a scholarly paper in 1893, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", read before the American Historical Association in Chicago during the Chicago World's Fair
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
. He believed the spirit and success of the United States was directly tied to the country's westward expansion. Turner expounded an evolutionary model; he had been influenced by work with geologists at Wisconsin. The West, not the East, was where distinctively American characteristics emerged. The forging of the unique and rugged American identity occurred at the juncture between the civilization of settlement and the savagery of wilderness. This produced a new type of citizen - one with the power to tame the wild and one upon whom the wild had conferred strength and individuality. As each generation of pioneers moved 50 to 100 miles west, they abandoned useless European practices, institutions and ideas, and instead found new solutions to new problems created by their new environment. Over multiple generations the frontier produced characteristics of informality, violence, crudeness, democracy and initiative that the world recognized as "American".
Turner's ideas influenced many areas of historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
. In the history of religion, for example, Boles (1993) notes that William Warren Sweet at the University of Chicago Divinity School
University of Chicago Divinity School
The University of Chicago Divinity School is a graduate institution at the University of Chicago dedicated to the training of academics and clergy across religious boundaries...
, argued that churches adapted to the characteristics of the frontier, creating new denominations such as the Mormons, the Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
The Christian Church is a Mainline Protestant denomination in North America. It is often referred to as The Christian Church, The Disciples of Christ, or more simply as The Disciples...
, and the Cumberland Presbyterians. The frontier, they argued, shaped uniquely American institutions such as revivals, camp meetings, and itinerant preaching. This view dominated religious historiography for decades. Moos (2002) shows that the 1910s to 1940s black filmmaker and novelist Oscar Micheaux
Oscar Micheaux
Oscar Devereaux Micheaux was an American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films...
incorporated Turner's frontier thesis into his work. Micheaux promoted the West as a place where blacks could transcend race and earn economic success through hard work and perseverance.
Slatta (2001) argues that the widespread popularization of Turner's frontier thesis influenced popular histories, motion pictures, and novels, which characterize the West in terms of individualism, frontier violence, and rough justice. Disneyland's Frontierland of the late 20th century reflected the myth of rugged individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
that celebrated what was perceived to be the American heritage. The public has ignored academic historians' anti-Turnerian models, largely because they conflict with and often destroy the icons of Western heritage. However, the work of historians during the 1980s-1990s, some of whom sought to bury Turner's conception of the frontier and others who have sought to spare the concept while presenting a more balanced and nuanced view, have done much to place Western myths in context and rescue Western history from them.
Turner ignored gender and race, downplayed class, and left no room for victims. His values represented a challenge to historians of the 1960s and later who stressed that race, class and gender were powerful explanatory tools. The new generation stressed gender, ethnicity, professional categorization, and the contrasting victor and victim legacies of manifest destiny and imperialist expansion. Some criticized Turner's frontier thesis and the theme of American exceptionalism. The disunity of the concept of the West, the similarity of American expansion to European colonialism and imperialism in the 19th century, and the realities of minority group oppression revealed the limits of Turnerian and exceptionalist paradigms.
Sectionalism
His sectionalism essays are collected in The Significance of Sections in American History, which won the Pulitzer PrizePulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in History in 1933. Turner's sectionalism thesis had almost as much influence among historians as his frontier thesis, but never became widely known to the general public as did the frontier thesis. He argued that different ethno-cultural groups had distinct settlement patterns, and this revealed itself in politics, economics and society.
Turner's theories slipped out of fashion in the 1960s, as critics complained, unfairly, that he neglected regionalism. They complained that he celebrated too much the egalitarianism and democracy of a frontier that was rough on women and minorities. His ideas never disappeared; indeed they influenced the new field of environmental history
Environmental history
Environmental history, a branch of historiography, is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time. In contrast to other historical disciplines, it emphasizes the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs. Environmental historians study how humans both shape their...
. 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.
Marriage, family, and death
Frederick Jackson Turner married Caroline Mae Sherwood in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in November 1889. They had three children: Dorothy Kinsley Turner (later Main), who lived to give them grandchildren; Jackson Allen Turner, who died in October 1899 and Mae Sherwood Turner, who died in February 1899. One of Main's grandchildren was historian Jackson Turner Main (1917–2003), a scholar of Revolutionary America who married Gloria Main, a fellow scholar.
Frederick Jackson Turner died in 1932 in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
where he had been a research associate at the Huntington Library.
Secondary sources
- Bogue, Allan G., Frederick Jackson Turner: Strange Roads Going Down, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998, ISBN 0-08061-3039-3
- 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.
- Faragher, John Mack (ed.) Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner: The Significance of the Frontier in American History and Other Essays. New York: Holt, 1994. ISBN 0805032983
- Hall, Patricia Kelly, and Steven RugglesSteven RugglesSteven Ruggles is Regents Professor Professor of History and Population Studies at the University of Minnesota, and the Director of the Minnesota Population Center....
. "'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. in History Cooperative - 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.
- Scharff, Virginia, et al. "Claims and Prospects of Western History: a Roundtable." Western Historical Quarterly 2000 31(1): 25-46.
External links
- A biography of Frederick Jackson Turner
- Another biography
- Frederick Jackson Turner at the Wisconsin Electronic Reader