Frederick Jackson Turner
.png)
Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861 – March 14, 1932) was an American historian during the early 20th century, based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison until 1910, and then Harvard University. He was known primarily for his frontier thesis. He trained many PhDs who went on to become well-known historians. He promoted interdisciplinary and quantitative methods, often with an emphasis on the Midwestern United States.
Quotes
[edit]- The West, at bottom, is a form of society, rather than an area. It is the term applied to the region whose social conditions result from the application of older institutions and ideas to the transforming influences of free land. By this application, a new environment is suddenly entered, freedom of opportunity is opened, the cake of custom is broken, and new activities, new lines of growth, new institutions and new ideals, are brought into existence. The wilderness disappears, the "West" proper passes on to a new frontier, and in the former area, a new society has emerged from its contact with the backwoods. [...] Decade after decade, West after West, this rebirth of American society has gone on, has left its traces behind it, and has reacted on the East.
- "The Problem of the West", in The Atlantic Monthly (September 1896). Reprinted in The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry Holt and Co, 1920) ch. 7, p. 205
- American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Sarah Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier. 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.
- "The West and American Ideals", Commencement Address, University of Washington, June 17, 1914. Printed in The Washington Historical Quarterly (October 1914). Reprinted in The Frontier in American History (1920) ch. 11, p. 293
External links
[edit]
Encyclopedic article on Frederick Jackson Turner on Wikipedia
