Frederick Jackson Turner
FameRank: 3

"Frederick Jackson Turner" was an American historian in the early 20th century, based at the University of Wisconsin until 1910, and then at Harvard. He trained many PhDs who came to occupy prominent places in the history profession. He promoted interdisciplinary and quantitative methods, often with a focus on the Midwest. He is best known for his essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", whose ideas formed the Frontier Thesis. He argued that the moving western frontier shaped American democracy and the American character from the colonial era until 1890. He is also known for his theories of geographical sectionalism. In recent years historians and academics have argued strenuously over Turner's work; all agree that the Frontier Thesis has had an enormous impact on historical scholarship and the American mind.

If you enjoy these quotes, be sure to check out other famous historians! More Frederick Jackson Turner on Wikipedia.

American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came stark and strong and full of life out of the American forest, and it gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier.

The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement, explain American development.

The West is now closed.

So long as free land exists, the opportunity for a competency exists, and economic power secures political power.

Stand at Cumberland Gap and watch the procession of civilization, marching single file - the buffalo following the trail to the salt springs, the Indian, the fur-trader and hunter, the cattle-raiser, the pioneer farmer - and the frontier has passed by. Stand at South Pass in the Rockies a century later and see the same procession with wider intervals between.

We've heard the parish is wiped out, totally wiped out. Its hospitals, schools, homes and civic center are all under water.

If we can see (the damage), we can have some ideas about it for when we get home.

What we see, it's going to be hard, but we can take it.