THE

HUNTINGTON LIBRARY
QUARTERLY
VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 3 MAY 1960
COPYRIGHT I960 BY THE HENRY E. HUNTINGTON LIBRARY AND ART GALLERY

The AmericanFrontierThesis*
By RAY ALLEN BILLINGTON

FEW TOPICScould more appropriatelycommemorate the one hun-

dred tenth anniversaryof the birth of Henry E. Huntington
than that suggestedto me by the geniallypersuasiveDr. Pomfret.
Frontieringwas in Mr. Huntington'sblood; his ancestorsin 1633
helpedplantAmerica'sfirstfrontieron the shoresof Massachusetts
Bay; he heardthe call of the West when he movedto Californiain
I892 to aid in the conquestof America'slastfrontieron the Pacific.
The fortunethat he accumulatedpersonifiedthe hope for material
gain that turned men's faces toward the setting sun for the three
hundredyearsneededto settle the continent;his magnificentbene-
faction to this institutionsymbolizedthe idealismthat sustained
thosepioneersas they marchedwestward.For Mr. Huntington,like
the frontiersmen,believedthatwealthwas not the finalgoal. In this
Libraryand Art Gallery he paidtributeto culturethat is the ulti-
mate in humanendeavor,to ideasthat dwarf all other creationsof
man.
My purposethis afternoonis to discusswith you one of those
ideas-one intimatelyassociatedwith the Henry E. HuntingtonLi-
brary and Art Gallery. Living as we do in an age of materialistic
*An addressdelivered on Founder'sDay, Feb. 29, 1960, at the Henry E. Hunting-
ton Library and Art Gallery, San Marino,Calif. Researchnecessaryfor the prepara-
tion of this paper was made possible by a faculty research grant from the Social
Science Research Council.
201
202 HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY

prosperitywherethe acquisitionof bodily comfortsassumesa trans-

cendentrole in humanmotivation,we areinclinedto forget thatthe
pages of history prove ideas to be more dangerousthan nuclear
weapons, more constructivethan all the sources of energy har-
nessedby man. Disciplesof force-from Alexanderand Caesarto
Napoleon and Hitler-have alteredthe lives of men and reshaped
the map of the globe, but no more so than Nikolaus Copernicus,
Karl Marx, CharlesDarwin, and Albert Einstein.Thoughts, not
swords or guns or hydrogen bombs,have proven themselvesthe
most powerful forces for good and evil in mankind'shistory.
The idea that is my themetoday-the Americanfrontierthesis-
can hardlybe rankedin influencewith the evolutionaryhypothesis
or the theory of relativity,yet it has,for almostthreequartersof a
century, stirred usually placid historiansinto passionatecontro-
versy,radicallyalteredthe teachingof our nation'shistory,inspired
a veritableflood of publication,served as a justificationfor such
diversediplomaticprogramsasPhilippineimperialism andthe "Tru-
man Doctrine' and been utilized by propagandiststo rationalize
such conflictingconcepts as "ruggedindividualism"and the New
Deal. A thesisthat helpscreatethe imageof theircountryabsorbed
from teachersandschoolbooksby generationsof young Americans,
and thus alterstheir behavioralpatternas citizensof the Republic,
is surely worthy of more than passingattention.
The man responsiblefor this revolutionin historicalinterpreta-
tion, FrederickJacksonTurner,may have been known to some of
you, for he spent his last years living happilyin Pasadenaas a re-
searchassociateof the HuntingtonLibrary.Hence I shouldlike to
tell you somethingof this remarkableindividualand of the evolu-
tion of his frontier thesis, as the story is revealedin his recently
openedmanuscriptsat the Library,before returningto the theory
that he originated.
Born in Portage, Wisconsin, in 1861, the son of a politically
prominentnewspapereditor,young Turnerwas won to the histori-
cal professionby ProfessorWilliamF Allen while a studentat the
Universityof Wisconsin.ProfessorAllen'semphasisuponthe inter-
pretationof historicaldataandthe evolutionarygrowthof medieval
institutionsprofoundlyimpressedthe young student;he confessed
many yearslaterthat wheneverhe wrote "Allenhas alwayslooked
 AMERICAN FRONTIER THESIS 203
over my own shoulder, and stirred my historical conscience!''
Under his master'sprodding, Turnerin i888 departedfor that
mecca of all young scholarsof the day, JohnsHopkinsUniversity,
to returna year later with the coveted doctorate.Yet that year at
JohnsHopkinswas thoroughlydisquieting.Someof his instructors
he liked-Woodrow Wilson, who lecturedon politics;RichardT
Ely, who introducedhim to the historicalapproachto economics;
AlbionW Small,an advancedgraduatestudentwho led aninformal
discussiongroup into the problemsof Americannationalism-but
the venerated dean of the profession,ProfessorHerbert Baxter
Adams,arousedmoredoubtthanenthusiasmin the young manfrom
the West.Adams,a firmbelieverin the then-popular"germ"theory
of history,advisedhis studentsto turn from the study of America
to Europe,for the originsof every Americaninstitutionhad been
tracedback to its "germ"in the Germanfolkmoots,and hence the
subjectwas exhausted!
This absurdityTurnerrefusedto accept;he confessedlater that
many of his historicalideasstemmedfrom his indignantreactionto
ProfessorAdams'suggestion.2 He agreedthatthe similaritybetween
European andAmerican customs andinstitutionscouldbe explained
by the transplanting Europe'scivilization,but what of the differ-
of
ences? These were especiallyclear to Turnerthat year, for they
stood forth in exaggeratedrelief in his own MiddleWest, and,as a
visitor to anotherregion for the first time, he could, as he wrote,
"get a more detachedview of the significanceof the West itself"
than ever before.3Had the institutionson which ProfessorAdams
discoursedso learnedlysimply evolved in the United Statesfrom
their medieval"germs"?Or had they been alteredby the unique
environmentin which they grew to maturity?
Turner'smemoriesof his own boyhood helped supply the an-
swer, for the Wisconsinof his youth was just emergingfrom the
frontierstageand provideda soil for the seedsof civilizationunlike
anythingin Europe or the East. He later recalled:
'Frederick Jackson Turnerto Carl Becker, Oct. 26, 1920, TurnerPapers,Hunting-
ton Library (hereafter referred to as HEH), TU Box 30, Correspondence.
2"The frontier was pretty much a reaction from that due to my indignation"
Turnerto Becker, Dec. I6, I925, HEH, TU Box 34,Corresp.
3Turner to William E. Dodd, Oct. 7, 1919, HEH, TU Box 29, Corresp.
204 HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY
I have polled down the Wisconsin [River] in a dug-out with Indian
guides ..., seeing deer in the river,-antlered beautieswho watched us
come down with curiouseyes and then broke for the tall timber.... I
haveseen a lynched manhangingto a tree as I camehomefrom school in
Portage,... have seen the red shirtedIrishraftsmentakethe town when
they tied up and came ashore, . . . have seen Indians come in on their
poniesto buy paintand ornaments,andsell their furs;havestumbledon
their camp on the Baraboo,where dried pumpkinswere hung up, and
cooking muskratswere in the kettle, and an Indianfamily were bathing
in the river.4

Surely such a wild, free land would have some effect on newcomers
and their imported institutions.
So also, Turner believed, would the blending of races that oc-
cured in those middle western frontier communities, where north-
erners and southerners, Yankees and Cavaliers, Englishmen and
Irishmen and Germans and Norwegians met and mingled. Again
his childhood memories could be trusted:
There was an Irish ward, into which we boys venturedonly in com-
panies. There was a Pomeranianward where women wore wooden
shoes, kerchiefs on their head, red woolen petticoats.... There were
Norwegian settlements,Scotch towns, Welsh, and Swiss communities
in the county.... In the city itself we hadall types from a negro family
namedTurner,to an Irish "keener"who looked like a Druid andwhose
shrillvoice could be heardover impossiblespaceswhen an Irishsoul de-
parted.... They mixed too. And respectedand fought each other.5
Would not traditional institutions be corroded in such a hodge-
podge of races and peoples?
Asking himself these questions, Turner began to wonder whether
Europe's transplanted civilization had not been modified by the
unique American environment, just as the medieval cultures that he
had studied under Professor Allen had been changed by their ex-
pansion in the dark forests of Germany. Woodrow Wilson had
talked to him of institutions as living, growing things, as "vehicles
of life,' and of change as "breaking the cake of custom'" The Ger-
man historianJohann Gustav Droysen, whose Principles of History
4Turnerto Becker, Dec. x6, I925, HEH, TU Box 34, Corresp.
5Ibid.
6Turner to Dodd, Oct. 7, 1919, HEH, TU Box 29, Corresp.
 AMERICAN FRON'I'IERTHESIS 205

he readin 1890,had impressedupon him that "Historywas the self

consciousnessof humanity"'and that man could understandthe
present only by familiarizinghimself with the past.7Could not
Americansunderstandthemselvesbetter if they realizedthat they
were, in part, productsof an environmentthat had placedits dis-
tinctive stampupon them? And, if so, what were the distinguish-
ing featuresof that environment?
His answerswere containedin two remarkableessays, "Prob-
lems in AmericanHistory,' publishedin 1892, and "The Signifi-
cance of the Frontierin AmericanHistory,'readbeforea congress
of historiansat the ColumbianExpositionin Chicago duringthe
summerof I893.8The first was a pronouncementof Turner'shis-
toricalcredo;in it, he statedmanyyearslater,"I saidpretty nearly
everythingI havesincesaid'"One sentenceis worth quoting:"The
peculiarityof Americaninstitutionsis the fact that they are com-
pelled to adaptthemselvesto the changesof a remarkablydevelop-
ing, expandingpeople''.0This concept was raisedto full staturein
his secondessaya yearlater.The key to an understanding of Amer-
ican history,he argued,was "the existenceof an areaof free land,
its continuousrecession,and the advanceof Americansettlement
westward"''lAs men moved westward,they shed their "cultural
baggage"along the way; as they plantedtheirsettlementsin forest
clearings,the repeated"beginningover again"alteredtheir habits
and institutions.An "Americanization" of man and society had
takenplace.
7Turnerto Merle Curti, Aug. 8, 1928,HEH, TU Box 38, Corresp.Turner in 1928
presentedtwo copies of this work to the Huntington Library.One, Droysen's Grun-
driss der Historik (Leipzig, I882), he autographedand dated "1890"; the other, an
English translation, Outline of the Principles of History (Boston, 1893), is dated
in Turner's hand "I893' In the latter he has marked several passagesin which this
concept is expressed.
8The former essay first appearedin the Sgis (Madison, Wis.), Nov. 4, I892, and
has been reprinted in Turner, The Early Writings of Frederick Jackson Turner
(Madison,Wis., 1938), pp. 7 -83. The second essay, "The Significanceof the Frontier
in American History:' was first printed in the Proceedings of the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin, XLI (Madison, 1894), 79-112. It has been reprinted several
times and is most readily available in Turner, The Frontier in American History
(New York, 1920), pp. I-38.
9Turner to Max Farrand, Oct. 13, I196, HEH, TU Box 26, Corresp.
loThe Early Writingsof FrederickJackson Turner,p. 73.
"The Frontier in American History, p. i.
206 HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY
This frontierthesis,revolutionaryas it was in a day when history
was concernedonly with past politics,attractedpreciouslittle at-
tention at first.Turner'sfatherdid not feel impelledto describeits
receptionwhen he wrote of his experiencesat the ColumbianExpo-
sition,l2and only one Chicagopaperdeemedit worthy of mention
-on page three.13Printed copies of the essay, circulatedwidely
among historians,arousedlittle more enthusiasm.EdwardEverett
Hale condescendedto acknowledge"your curiousand interesting
paper"T4and TheodoreRoosevelt,then laboringon his Winningof
the West, admittedthat Turnerhad "strucksome first classideas,
and ... put into definiteshapea good deal of thoughtwhich has
been floating around rather loosely'"15 There was little enough
solacefor Turnerin such remarks,or in the letter from the editors
of Henry Holt & Companyassuringhim that they discoveredin
the essay "indicationsthat you may be the coming man who is to
write the needed college history of the United States'"1
Time, however, soon broughthim his due, for as younger and
freshermindsgraspedthe significanceof his theory,and,asstudents
trainedin his seminarat the Universityof Wisconsinspreadhisgos-
pel over the nation, his staturemounted remarkably.University
after universitybid for his services,but none succeededin luring
himfromhis preciousmanuscripts in the statehistoricalsocietyuntil
910o,when he accepteda call to Harvard.This move,he explained
to a friend,"was dictatedneitherby ambitionnor by avarice"' but
of
in the hope performing "a service to the cause of highereduca-
tion" at Wisconsinby convincingthe regentsto end their attack
upon pure research.17Studentpressuresat Harvardso hinderedhis
writing that he resignedin 1924, two yearsbefore the compulsory
retirementage of 65, and three years later settled in Pasadenaas
researchassociateof this Library.During the next years he lived
l2Andrew Jackson Turner to Helen Mae Turner, July 23, 1893, HEH, TU Box i,
Corresp.
l3Chicago Tribune,July 13, I893.
4Hale to Turner, April 2 , I894, HEH, TU Box i, Corresp.
'SRoosevelt to Turner, Feb. 10, 1894, HEH, TU Box i, Corresp.
16Henry Holt & Co. to Turner, Feb. 14, 1895, HEH, TU Box 2, Corresp. The
contract for such a book, which Turner finally signed on Nov. 3, I897, is in this
folder.
17Turner to Becker, Dec. 5, 1909, HEH, TU Box 12, Corresp.
 AMERICAN FRONTIER THESIS 207
happily,fillinghis letterswith enrapturedproseon the perfectionof
southernCalifornia'sscenery and climate;but he had never been
robust, and his health steadily worsened. On March 14, 1932, the
end came, suddenly and mercifully, after a morning of work in the
Library.
To know Frederick Jackson Turner was to love him; to read the
letters and documents that he left behind is to share in that love. A
man of infinite compassion and selflessness, he gave of himself so
freely to friends and students that his own material accomplish-
ments were minor. He was, one of his disciples noted, never a
"teacher";instead he "was himself studying history up there behind
the desk before our eyes, for our benefit no doubt, but just continu-
ing the labors of the morning''18Turner consciously cultivated this
approach. To him the young scholars who sat at his feet were not
students, to be stuffed with information, but companions "on the
adventure after historical truth" who, with a little encouragement,
would "outstrip their guide in finding the trail and the new hori-
zons''19His method, if he had one, was to "take the student into the
workshop where the chips are flying and where he can see the
workman cut his finger and jam his thumb"20They were never to
be recast into their master'smold; "I have been;' Turner confessed,
"a porter at the gate, rather than a drill sargent'.21
These attitudes were fatal to his own ambitious plans for rewrit-
ing American history. He was both a perfectionist and an intellec-
tual pioneer, never content to set pen to paper until the last scrap
of evidence had been gathered, the last phrase polished to perfec-
tion. "Some of my own difficulty in publishing" he wrote a student
who was similarly afflicted, "arisesfrom my realizationof the many
factors essential to a fundamental treatment, and a dislike to issue a
partial survey"22 Thirty-four large file drawers in the Manuscript
Department of this Library, all stuffed with notes on his volumi-
nous reading, testify to the truth of that statement. To make matters
worse, his pioneering instincts constantly led him from the main
18Beckerto Turner, [Nov. I925], HEH, TU Box 34, Corresp.
19Turner to Becker, Oct. 25, 1928, HEH, TU Box 40, Corresp.
20Turnerto Becker, Nov. 7, 1898, HEH, TU Box 2, Corresp.
21Turnerto Curti,Aug. 8, 1928, p. 20, HEH, TU Box 38, Corresp.
22Turnerto Arthur H. Buffinton,Feb. 26, 1921, HEH, TU Box 31, Corresp.
208 HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY
roadinto fascinatingbypathsof learning.His endlessquestwas for
new explanations,new meansof understanding andilluminatingthe
story of his country'sgrowth; narrativehistory and oft-told tales
intriguedhim not at all. To composea brilliantessayor address,to
cast a ray of light on a misunderstoodproblem,to formulatea chal-
lenging hypothesisor a scintillatingnew interpretation-thesewere
Turner'sstrengths.
These virtuesmeant that he would write few books; his entire
reputationrested on one publishedvolume and some thirty essays
or lesser works. They meant also that he would be constantly
frustrated,for his publicationplanswere as large as his ability to
fulfill them was small.In 1897,in the optimismof youth, he signed
a contractto preparea one-volumecollege history of the United
States. When, seven years later, the publishersbegan prodding
him for a manuscript,he put them off by promisingto do a high
school textbook in addition!23Neither volume was ever written,
althoughthe contractsworriedTurnerthroughouthis lifetime;he
often whimsicallyremarkedthat he wished he could declarein-
tellectualbankruptcyand thus be free to work out his own salva-
tion.24Often, too, he longedfor the financialsecuritythattextbooks
provided. Once a graduatestudent at Harvard showed him a
quarterlyroyalty check from a successfulschool text. "It was"
Turnerconfidedto a friend,"for moremoney thanall my writings
togetherever broughtme!""
Experienceshould have taught him that his mind was ill-suited
to the productionof books. The one volume that he completed
during his lifetime, his Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 in the
AmericanNation series,26 was a monumentnot only to its author's
brilliancebut to the tenacity of the serieseditor, Albert Bushnell
Hart. "One thing I do owe to Hart"Turnerwrote somewhatrue-
fully, "and that is the steadfastway in which he has worked the
23An extended correspondence on this matter between Turner and Henry Holt &
Co. is in HEH, TU Box 5, Corresp.He succeeded in writing only three incomplete
chapters, in rough draft, which are in HEH, File Drawer No. 15, folder marked
"College History of United States''
24MaxFarrand,"FrederickJackson Turner at the Huntington Library:'Hunting-
ton LibraryBulletin, III (Feb. 1933), 159.
25Turnerto E. E. Dale, Jan. 29, 925, HEH, TU Box 34,Corresp.
26Vol. XIV (New York, I906).
 AMERICAN FRONTIER THESIS 209
reel and finallylandedthe Ms. It's a poor suckerinsteadof a trout,
but it fought like the devil againstcoming to the landing net'"27
Yet Turnernever learnedthat lesson;always the next few months
would finishthe currentmanuscriptandmuch of the next. In 1923
he sent to the publishersthe first three chaptersof the book that
he intendedas his magnumopus, a sectionalinterpretationof the
period between 1830 and I850, at the same time cheerfully in-
forming a friend, "The book should be out sometimewithin the
year'28
Four years later when he joined the HuntingtonLibrarystaff,
it was no nearer completion,but Turnerwas confident that his
new leisurewould solve all problems."So far as my plansgo' he
wrote a friend, "I want to finishthat, continuestudiesfor a book
on sectionalismin Americanhistory, possibly also a book on the
struggle between rural and industrialelementsin America, and
the relationsof labor and capitalin their class consciousness,and,
using these and other studies,possiblywind up, if I live, with an
interpretativegeneralsurvey of Americanhistory:'29 A few weeks
later Turnerhad discoveredthe rich resourcesof the Libraryand
was off on the joyous questfor new information.His The United
States, 1830-185o did not appear until 1935, three years after his
death,andthen only throughthe lovinglaborof friendswho under-
took its completion.30
FrederickJackson Turner erected few literary monumentsto
himself,but the concept for which he is best known-the frontier
thesis-was sufficientto stamp him forever as one of the nation's
most acute interpreters.That thesishas recastthe study and teach-
ing of Americanhistory in a new mold; it has alteredthe views
of statesmenand diplomats;and it sheds light on the murky path
into the future that the United Statesis following today. For Tur-
ner's theory, assumingas it does the alterationof men and their
institutionsin the New World environment,helps explainthe dif-
ferencesbetween the Americanpeople and those of the nationsof
the Old World from which they came. Americans,it holds, have
27Turnerto Farrand,Dec. 29, I905, HEH, TU Box 5, Corresp.
28Turnerto John M. Gaus, May 9, 1923,HEH, TU Box 32, Corresp.
29Turnerto Farrand,March 8, 1927, HEH, TU Box 36, Corresp.
30The United States, 1830-1850:The Nation and Its Sections (New York, 1935).
210 HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY
been endowedwith certaintraits (mobility,wastefulness,material-
the spirit of innovation,optimism,a faith
ism, anti-intellectualism,
in the idea of progress)andwith certainbasicvalues(a ferventbe-
lief in democracyandsocialmobility,an intensifiednationalism)as
a resultof their pioneeringheritage.Turnernever maintainedthat
the frontierwas solely responsiblefor these characteristicsor for
the uniquenessof the Americancharacter;he didinsistthatthe col-
onizingexperienceintensifiedcertaininheritedcustomsor attitudes
while weakeningothers.PerhapsI can best illustratehis thesisby
discussingwith you a few typical traitsand attitudesthat visitors
from abroadrecognizeas peculiarlyAmerican.
One is our mobility.We are constantlymovingabout,with little
attachmentto place or tradition.Few of us in this room live today
in the housesin which we were born; fewer still in the housesin
which our parentsor grandparentswere born. Yet in Europethis
is the normalpattern,disruptedonly by the catastropheof war.
The New York Times a few years ago believed newsworthy an
item to the effect that a man in Californiahad lived in the same
housefor fifty years-a journalisticjudgment,I assureyou, thatany
Europeanwould considerincomprehensible.31 But thisis the Ameri-
can way of life; we arepermanentlytransitory.SangStephenVin-
cent Benet in his WesternStar:
Americansare alwaysmoving on.
It's an old Spanishcustomgone astray,
A sort of Englishfever, I believe,
Or just a mere desireto takeFrenchleave,
I couldn'tsay. I couldn'treally say.
But, when the whistle blows, they go away.32

In recent years one in every five persons has moved each year, one
in every fourteen has shifted from one county to another, one in
every thirty from one state to another. Today some 24 per cent of
us live outside the state in which we were born; if children are
omitted from this group, the figure rises to two of every five.33
31New York Times, June I4, 1942.
32 (New York,
1943), p. 3.
33EverettS. Lee, "A Sociological Examinationof the Turner Thesis;'unpublished
paper read at the meeting of the American Historical Association, New York, 1957.
 AMERICAN FRONTIER THESIS 2I I

"If God were suddenlyto call the world to judgment,'observed

a South Americanvisitor, "He would surprisetwo-thirdsof the
American population on the road like ants'.34
We learnedthis game of musicalchairsfrom our pioneerances-
tors. Moving on was a habitwith them, for good landslay ahead,
and good landswere an irresistiblelure.As earlyas the seventeenth
century the Reverend Cotton Matherwas complainingthat his
Boston flocks showed an alarmingtendency to "Go out from the
institutionsof God, Swarminginto New Settlements,where they
and their untaughtFamiliesare Like to Perish for Lack of Vi-
sion";35 a hundred years later a Virginia governor lamented that
the people "acquireno attachmentto Place: But wanderingabout
Seemsengraftedin theirNature;andit is a weaknessincidentto it,
that they Should for ever imaginethe Landsfurtheroff, are Still
better than those upon which they have already Settled'.36A trav-
elerin frontierOhioin the earlynineteenthcenturynoteda number
of good farmsalongthe road,desertedby pioneerswho hadpressed
on to find better land in Indianaor Illinois;37explorerson the remote
edge of the Missouri Valley settlements in 8 I9 were eagerly ques-
tioned aboutthe fertility of the PlatteRivervalley by an old fron-
tiersmanwho obviously had every intention of moving there.38
The West was in the eyes of those frontieringgenerations;if any-
thing in history approximatedan irresistibleforce, it was the pio-
neer when good landslay ahead."Afterthey have passedthrough
every part of the land of promise,'a travelerprophesied,"they
will, for the sake of mere change,returnto the seaboardagain"39

34Quoted in George W Pierson, "The Moving American' Yale Review, XLIV

(Autumn 1954), I03.
35Mather,The Short History of New-England. A Recapitulation of Wonderful
PassagesWhich Have Occurr'd, First in the Protections, and Then the Afflictions,
of New-England (Boston, 1694), p. 45.
36Quotedin Pierson, "The Moving American' p. Ioo.
37ThomasHulme, "Journalof a Tour in the Western Countries of America:'in
William Cobbett, A Year'sResidence, in the United States of America, 3rd ed.
(London, I822), p. 286.
38EdwinJames, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Moun-
tains, Performed in the Years1819and '20 (Philadelphia,I823), I, io6.
39Estwick Evans, A Pedestrious Tour, of Four Thousand Miles, through the
WesternStates and Territories(Concord, N.H., I819), p. 39.
212 HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY
-a consolingthought,perhaps,for those of you who bemoanthe
continuinginfluxinto southernCalifornia.
If the habit of playingleapfrogwestwardwas bred into Ameri-
cans by their frontierheritage,so alsowas theirbuoyantoptimism,
their infinitefaith in the future,and the relentlessimpulseto drive
ahead toward materialgoals. Visitors to the West noted the ac-
celeratedpace of life. "An American'one observed,"wantsto per-
formwithina yearwhat othersdo withina muchlongerperiod.Ten
years in America are like a century in Spain"40 Today that same
impulsedrivesus along the road to ulcers and heartattacks.As a
people we have never learnedto play; we pursuesports to win,
ratherthanfor the pleasureof the game,andstarton holidayswith
a grim determinationto have a good time if it kills us. Leisure,the
true leisurethat an Englishmanor Frenchmanenshrinesas his goal,
has traditionallybeen suspectin the United States.Popularin the
I890'swas the cartoonof a snobbishEnglishvisitorandhis Ameri-
can hostess."It'sa defect in your country"'sniffs the Englishman,
"thatyou have no leisuredclasses.""Butwe have them"'repliesthe
American,"onlywe call themtramps:'41 An acuteobserverof more
than a century ago might have been writing of today when he
noted: "The word money seems to stand as the representativeof
the word 'happiness'of other countries'42
The faith in progressthat underliesthe American"Go Ahead"
spirit,a faith traceablein partto the opportunityofferedby limit-
less unexploitednaturalresourceson the frontier,has been respon-
sible for accentuatingthe democraticimpulsesthat were trans-
plantedfrom Englandby the earlysettlers.In pioneercommunities
the absenceof a prior leadershipstructure,of firmly drawn class
lines tending to perpetuatecontrollinggroups or individuals,and
of traditionalsocial divisionsbasedon the unequaldistributionof
property tended to create a fluid society with virtuallylimitless
opportunityfor individualadvancement.The resultingattitudes
40Francis Lieber, ed. Letters to a Gentleman in Germany (Philadelphia, 1834),
p. 287.
41Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, "What Then Is the American, This New
Man?" American Historical Review, XLVIII (Jan. 1943), 232.
42George W Featherstonhaugh, Excursion through the Slave States (New York,
1844), p. 69.
 AMERICAN FRONTIER THESIS 213

have persistedin our civilization.The United Stateshas never had

a class struggle of the sort that Karl Marx observedin Germany
or England;the only class strugglehere, as one historianhas ob-
served,is to climb out of one classand into a higherone. Even to-
day, in our highly industrializedsociety, we refuseto acknowledge
such divisions;when I taught at Smith College a few years ago, a
poll showed that all but one or two studentsfelt they belongedin
the "middleclass' though some were daughtersof millionairein-
dustrialistsand others of day laborers.Sociologists,despairingof
using a traditionalvocabularywhen discussingpeople who refuse
to acknowledgea graded society, have been forced to substitute
the term "stratification"for "class structure,'and to stress the
"open-endedness" of each level.
These attitudes thrived in frontier communities.True, social
gradationwas apparentalmostfrom the start. Perhapsa traveler
in early Indianawas exaggeratingsomewhatwhen he noted that
two classes existed: "the superior and the inferior; the former
shavedonce a week, the latteronce in two weeks";43 but even the
frontiersmenwere conscious that the "better element" and the
"commonfolk" were clearly distinguishable. Two features,how-
ever, stamped the frontiersocial structure as unique.One was the
relativeease of accessto the "upperclass";the other was the stub-
born refusalof both groupsto admitthat any differencesexisted.
To the westerner,all men were equal,andhe defendedthat con-
cept belligerently.A strangerwho spoke of "servants"was sure
to be remindedthat "They are not servants,all are hiredhands";44
one who asked a worker where his masterwas was rudely told:
"I haveno master.Do you wish to see Mr. So-and-So?"45 Woe unto
the pioneerhousewifeunlessshe seatedher helperwith the guests
at table and invited her to tea with visiting notables."Did a girl
fancy . . herselfundervalued?"wrote a newcomerto the West,
"-was she not askedto the firsttablewith company?-notincluded
in invitationssent us from 'big bug' families?-notcalledMissJane

43[BaynardRush Hall], The New Purchase: or, Seven and a Half Yearsin the
Far West (New York,1843), I, 72.
44JamesFlint, Letters from America (Edinburgh, I822), p. 98.
45Quoted in Everett N. Dick, The Dixie Frontier (New York, 1948), p. 332.
214 HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY
or Eliza?-she was off in a moment!"46 A well-to-do easterner
newly arrived in the Ohio Valley lost a whole gang of hard-to-find
hired workers when he forgot to invite them to breakfast with the
family;47a honeymooning couple were abandoned by their hired
driver when they tried to have one meal by themselves.48Equally
resented was any touch of snobbery; to use a silver fork or to sport
gold buttons on a coat was to invite ridicule, slander, and even
near mayhem. "With us;' one frontiersman stoutly maintained,
"a man's a man, whether he have a silk gown on him or not?.49
This insistence on equality was not confined to the "common
folk"; the "better sort" were just as eager to prove that they were
honest democrats and no better than their neighbors. When a
newly arrived housewife in Michigan, distressedby the indiscrimi-
nate dipping of forks and spoons into the serving dishes at table,
offered to serve a visitor, she was told: "I'll help myself, I thank
ye. I never want no waitin' on."5 Those with a few more worldly
possessions than others constantly apologized, saying that carpets
were "one way to hide the dirt"'that a mahogany table was "dread-
ful plaguy to scour,' and that kitchen conveniences were "lumberin'
up the house for nothin'"51 Nowhere was the frontier spirit of
equality better demonstrated than in the taverns, where three or
four guests were assigned to each bed, in order of arrival and with
no thought of their social status. Because all Americans are gentle-
men, the pioneer argued, and because all gentlemen are alike, why
bother to separate judges from teamsters, generals from drovers-
or to change the sheets more often than once a month? "In the west;'
observed a French traveler, "all are equal; but not with a nominal
equality, not equal on paper merely. There every man with a coat
on his back is a gentleman; quite as good as his neighbor'"52
46[Hall], The New Purchase, II, ii.
47Flint, Letters from America, pp. 142-143.
48Frederick Marryat, A Diary in America (London, I839), II, I55-156.
49SimonA. O'Ferrall,A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States
of America (London, 1832), p. 243.
50[Caroline M. Kirkland], A New Home-Who'll Follow? or, Glimpses of
WesternLife (New York, I839), p. 86.
"I!bid., p. 309.
52Michael Chevalier, "The Western Steamboats' Western Monthly Magazine, IV
(1835), 414.
 AMERICAN FRONTIER THESIS 215

These characteristicsand social attitudes,and a dozen othersas

well, can be ascribedat leastin partto the three-hundred-year-long
pioneeringexperienceof the Americanpeople. To those who be-
lieved, as did FrederickJacksonTurner,that these traitsendowed
the United Stateswith strengthand virtuesunrivaledthroughout
the globe, the end of the frontierera was an occasionfor genuine
alarm.In I890 the directorof the census announcedthat an un-
broken frontierline no longer separatedthe unsettledand settled
portionsof the continent;duringthe next few decadesthe supply
of free landsstill availableto pioneersdiminishedto the vanishing
point.
Turnerwatched this transitionwith mountinggloom. The ma-
terialprospectswere sufficientlyterrifyingwith no flow of newly
discoveredresourcesfrom the West to revitalizethe nation'secon-
omy; in notes for a lecture preparedin 1923 he predicted the
exhaustionof the country'soil reservesin twenty years,of its coal
and iron and phosphorusin fifty years,and of its food suppliesby
the year 2o00 as its expandingpopulationoutstrippedits produc-
tive capacity."The probablesolution"'he added,is an "eraof war,
friendly comet or chemistsbomb, or Doing late what might have
been done in time'"53
Even more disturbingto ProfessorTurnerwere the ideological
resultsof the frontier'sclosing. Sincerelybelievingas he did that
America's democraticinstitutionsneeded constant revitalization
throughfrontierrebirth,andthatthe diversesectionsof the United
States remainedunited only because the cohesive force of na-
tional partiesheld them together, he feared both the erosion of
populargovernmentand the Europeanizationof North America.
"Whenwe lost ourfreelandsandourisolationfromthe OldWorld"
he told a classat Harvardjust afterWorldWar I, "we lost our im-
munity from the resultsof mistakesof waste, of inefficiencyand
of inexperiencein our government"54 Those, Turnerbelieved,were
luxuriesthat could no longer be afforded,now that escapeto the
West was impossible.At the sametime he dreadedthe emergence
53HEH, TU File Drawer No. 15, folder marked "Notes for Shop Club Lecture
1923-Winter"'
54HEH, TU File Drawer No. io, folder marked "American Ideals of Liberty,
1900-1914'' in "History of Liberty Lectures-MSS''
2I6 HUNTINGTON LIBRARY QUARTERLY
of sectionalconflictswhich seemedto him possiblein a nonexpand-
ing land. "It is inconceivable"'
he wrote in a preliminarydraftof an
essay on sectionalism, "that we should follow the evil path of
Europeandplaceour relianceupon triumphantforce. We shallnot
become cynical and convincedthat sectionsand classes,like Euro-
pean nations,must dominatetheir neighborsand strike first and
hardest"55
Despite his fears, FrederickJacksonTurner'sbelief in the per-
sistenceof good was so deepthathe neverlost hope in democracy's
survival.The patternsof governmentmight be altered;the state
might assumethe protectiverole formerly played by free lands;
but he felt thatfreedomandequalitywould remainthe idealsof the
people in the closed-spaceworld of the future as they had in the
expandingworld of the past. "We shallnot' he wrote, "yield our
Americanidealsand our hopes for man,which had their originin
our own pioneeringexperience,to any mechanicalsolutionoffered
by doctrinaireseducated in Old World grievances.Rather we
shall find strengthto build upon our past a nobler structure....
[Rather] we shall continue to presentto our sister continent of
Europe the underlyingideas of America as a better method of
solving difficulties.We shallpoint to the Pax Americana"56

55HEH, TU File Drawer No. I5, folder marked"Essayon SectionalismI920'

56Ibid.