Rereading Frederick Jackson Turner

In 1893 a young Frederick Jackson Turner stood before the American Historical Association and delivered his famous frontier thesis. To a less than enthusiastic audience, he argued that "the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development"; that this frontier accounted for American democracy and character; and that the frontier had closed forever with uncertain consequences for the American future. Despite the indifference of Turner's first audience, his essay would soon prove to be the single most influential piece of writing on American history, with extraordinary impact both in intellectual circles and in popular literature. Within a few years his views had become the dominant interpretation of the American past.