Frederick Jackson Turner
Frederick Jackson Turner
Frederick Jackson Turnerwas an American historian in the early 20th century, based at the University of Wisconsin until 1910, and then at Harvard. He trained many PhDs who came to occupy prominent places in the history profession. He promoted interdisciplinary and quantitative methods, often with a focus on the Midwest. He is best known for his essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", whose ideas formed the Frontier Thesis. He argued that the moving western frontier shaped American...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth14 November 1932
CountryUnited States of America
Frederick Jackson Turner quotes about
The frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.
The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement, explain American development.
So long as free land exists, the opportunity for a competency exists, and economic power secures political power.
Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development.
America has been another name for opportunity.
Each age tries to form its own conception of the past. Each age writes the history of the past anew with reference to the conditions uppermost in its own time.
That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom - these are the traits of the frontier.