Frederick Jackson Turner - Significance of the Frontier in American History

About this Episode

Turner argues that the frontier area of free land and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American democracy. Up to the late 1800s, American social development had been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities furnish the forces dominating American character. He says the true point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic coast, it is the Great West.