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