Frederick Jackson Turner: Frontier ThesisAPUSH - Spiconardi
Arguments• As the U.S. expanded, America
experienced a rebirth with each new expansion (Alleghenies, Mississippi River, Missouri, Rocky Mountains)
• European customs and mores conflicted with the primitive frontier• America had to form a new national
identity• Americans had to adapt or be conquered by
the wilderness • Frontier caused America to be less
dependent on England• The West transformed Jeffersonian
democracy into the national republicanism of Monroe and Jacksonian democracy
“Political Institutions and the Frontier” – Benjamin F. Wright Jr.
“Sections – or Classes?” – Louis M. Hacker
“The Frontier and American Institutions” –George Wilson Pierson
“The American Frontier – Frontier of What?” – Carlton J.H. Hayes