An Analysis of

Frederick Jackson Turner’s

“The Significance of the Frontier in American History”

by

Joanna Dee Das

with

Joseph Tendler
WAYS IN TO THE TEXT

Key Points

• Frederick Jackson Turner (1861–1932) was an American historian

whose writing on the American frontier* helped define how we look at
history.
• “The Significance of the Frontier” stated that modern America itself
originated from European and American experiences of settling in
North America.
• The essay combined a new method of studying history with a powerful
concept—the frontier—to create a classic in American history that is
still relevant over 120 years later.

Who was Frederick Jackson Turner?

Frederick Jackson Turner was born in 1861 and lived at an important time in
the development of America. He reshaped how we look at history through his
writings on the American frontier (often defined as the line beyond which the
open, free land had a population of fewer than two people per square mile).
By 1890, Americans had settled all North America, making the geography of
the modern USA secure. Yet Turner didn’t just study this slice of history: he
lived it as well. His hometown of Portage, Wisconsin, once sat on the frontier
itself but in Turner's youth it became a settled town. Social and economic
developments took place almost daily and this directed Turner's attention to
the life of ordinary Americans from an early age.

Turner's father was a journalist and, in political terms, a radical Republican;*

his mother was a teacher. Turner himself studied history at the University of
Wisconsin and at Johns Hopkins University. In his career as a historian he
went a step further than most of his colleagues by persuading politicians to
put social reforms in place to improve the lives of Americans. He believed
historians could help this process and had a duty to discover the truth about
the past, using all available methods. Only in this way, he thought, could
progress take place. Turner’s timing couldn’t have been better—in the early
twentieth century calls for social reform were on the increase. And as World
War I* approached, so demand grew for intellectuals to explain America's
past. As a public intellectual himself, Turner promoted the study of history. He
also knew and lobbied many politicians, considering it his duty to bring about
positive change.

What Does “The Significance of the Frontier” Say?

What made modern America the way it is? Turner asks this bold question in
“The Significance of the Frontier.”i His answer insists that frontier life shaped
the modern American character and its values. In the seventeenth century
large numbers of European settlers arrived in America—a land without towns
or cities. The Native American* inhabitants roamed the continent, farming to
feed their people. In contrast, the first settlers who arrived on the American
East Coast built towns that reflected the way they lived in Europe. Then the
more adventurous Europeans and their children moved further west in search
of farmland and building materials, and so a frontier emerged where settled
America met unsettled wilderness. The settlers’ experiences taught them
determination and also fed a love of individual effort. Yet they also embraced
democracy as they learned to live together and confront the difficulties they
encountered as a group.

In crafting a precise argument to explain these developments, Turner used

science as a model. He thought historians could write history objectively by
looking at sources and extracting facts from them. Such sources should cover
a variety of topics, including politics, population, social customs, and trade. By
unearthing a range of diverse facts historians would then be able paint a
complete picture of what had happened in the past. In this way Turner also
became an educational reformer. He pushed historians to practice their trade
with the same professionalism as lawyers or businessmen.

Turner’s approach broke the mold. Before him, historians had considered
America's history as simply an extension of Europe's. However, Turner
claimed that the development of America began a new era. This meant that
Americans, with their distinctive American ways, held a unique place in the
world. As a result, Turner's work gave rise to three new subdisciplines:
agricultural history (the story of food supply); environmental history (how the
natural world shapes people's lives); and Western history—referring
specifically to Western US geography as opposed to the Western world
including Europe. This demonstrated the importance of the West at a time
when scholars often paid more attention to the East.

Turner made it credible to look at American History in isolation—bringing

about a revolution in the way history was studied. He also provided a powerful
example for today’s American historians by changing the focus of history, as
he looked to the mass experience of Americans. Beyond the politics, he
asked how everyday life on the frontier shaped American customs and
American ideas. It is through Turner that a new approach to history gathered
steam in the twentieth century.

Why Does “The Significance of the Frontier” Matter?

You don’t have to look far to see the lasting significance of Turner’s work. It’s
not just a matter of how he changed the working methods of historians. He
also held a mirror up to America, allowing a nation to see itself clearly for the
first time. And his impact remains, reflected in many different fields, from
professional scholarship to pop culture.

“The Significance of the Frontier” matters in three ways. First, it supplied a

popular version of American identity. Second, it created a new way of writing
history. And, third, it developed an idea of the frontier that could be useful in
everyday life.

The ideals of intrepid exploring cut to the heart of America’s way of life and
Turner shows how this relates to the settlement of modern America. His
explanation is incomplete on its own, given what we now know, but life on the
frontier—cowboys, Indians, and railroads—provides mass entertainment
today. And these stories become richer as, for example, knowledge of the
African American slave York,* or the Native American Sacajawea,* and their
contributions to the history of the frontier filter down to us. They capture the
imagination.

Just as a talented journalist might someday make headlines, Turner's work as

a historian changed history itself. He organized professional bodies, he
encouraged cooperation and he reformed teaching methods. His vision of
professional scholarship is now common, while the research-and-
development sector, policy analysts, journalists, and businesses all adopted
these processes too. Turner's essay shows what focused, professional
practice can achieve.

The idea of a frontier is a fertile concept and it appears in many contexts: the
“final frontier” of TV’s Star Trek, for example, owes a debt to Turner. We also
see it in the frontiers of knowledge or the frontier between two countries. It
evokes exciting images that can range from braving the unknown to
transforming a technology or a way of doing things. This makes Turner's work
powerful. It shows how history shapes the way we see the world.

“The Significance of the Frontier” is not just a classic history text, it is integral
to American history. It explains it, yet is also part of it. What’s more, it
spotlights the chance to create something new that comes with a new way of
life. So the essay forms a touchstone to promote critical thought. It beckons
readers to face a problem and push on in search of exciting answers—as did
the frontier itself.
i
Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in The
Frontier in American History (New York: Holt, 1921).