Historian Frederick Jackson Turner presented his famous paper, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History," at a meeting of the American Historical Association at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. In his paper, he reiterated the significance of frontier, which revolutionized American intellectual and historical thinking. Turner argued that the expansion of the western frontier was one of the U.S. fundamental experiences that shaped the nation’s characteristics. [1] The characteristics include individualism, self-reliance, persistence and a strong sense of initiative, openness to new experience, innovativeness, voluntarism, faith in technology, suspicion of authority and national pride in accomplishment that …show more content…
As John L O’Sullivan coined the phrase, “manifest destiny,” in 1845, the U.S. expansionist movement gained its momentum and justified its expansion with a sense of mission and purpose, believing American expansion was inevitable, just, and divinely foreordained. The expansion eventually added Texas and Oregon to the U.S. territory as well as the acquisition of large area in the Southwest, including modern day California. The U.S. expanded rapidly in the west resulted in demographic, economic and political pressures from the northeast. For instance, the U.S. population grew tremendously between 1800 and 1850 from about five million to more than twenty million, which also whetted their appetite for more land. Some believed that the westward expansion could provide solutions to the problems caused by industrialized and urbanized northeast and make sure that the ideals and values of the Founding Fathers would continue thriving. The expansion also deeply impacted on the U.S. economy. For example, American merchants were also eager to trade with people in Asia as they moved westward. Consequently, the Americans embraced the concept of Manifest Destiny and justified their expansionism. Leaders such as President Polk pursued his aggressive expansionist policies and the Americans firmly believed that their mission was to spread democratic institutions ‘from sea to shining sea’ and take political and