Frederick Jackson Turner Frontier Thesis

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner, a historian of the American West, delivered a famous speech at the American Historical Association’s Meeting in Columbia. Turner earned a doctoral degree from Harvard University three years prior and went on to become a professor. His speech titled “The Significance of the Frontier on American History” mainly focuses on his frontier line theory and what it means to be a true American. He gives credit to the creation of several industries, as well as the creative and innovative spirits that sparked the unique development of the American Society. In addition, poets, Sam Foss and Carl Sandburg, touch on aspects of “Americanness” in their poems. As the US Census Bureau declared the frontier “closed” and ultimately

Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis leaves many Americans questioning what is to come, while Sam Foss and Carl Sandburgs’ poems support Turner’s view. The dissolution of the frontier ignited a fear in many Americans because it is what initially gave settlers a sense of prosperity and independence from the industrialized world. For several, the West offered the opportunity for a fresh start from the ongoing wage cuts and layoffs. Turner explains in his speech that the frontier forced settlers to adapt to new ways of life due to the fact that there was no aristocracy in America as there had been in Great Britain for many years. It was essentially the “meeting point between savagery and civilization” (Turner). According to Turner, as the frontier line moved further west, European norms were abandoned and settlers had to rely on their own strengths, which in turn resulted in individualism. From this innovation, new ways of governing and democracy evolved. The audience can infer that Turner was fearful that the characteristics unique to being American such as, “strength, inventiveness, and dominant individualism,” would diminish with the disappearance of an apparent

Sandburg writes about Chicago and the negative aspects of the city. Although Chicago is being seen as a dangerous place, Sandburg declares it is still a prosperous city with people proud to be a part of it and its accomplishments. He challenges those to find a city that has a more “lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse” than Chicago does (Sandburg). He praises the Americans as they are “fierce as a dog with a tongue lapping for action…planning, building, breaking, and rebuilding” (Sandburg). Likewise, Foss writes in his poem about the type of character needed for the American society to conquer the vast array of land in the West. He says that to be an American it must be a man whose “thoughts shall pave a highway up to ampler destinies” (Foss). Foss suggests that there is indeed still a frontier to conquer in the world as he repetitively repeats “bring me men”, answering the question left after Turner’s speech about a possible frontier elsewhere (Foss). Despite the question left by Turner’s speech about what will happen to the American society now that there are no more frontiers, these two poems seem to show that the American traits of strength, inventiveness, coarseness and dominant individualism are still