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The '''Frontier Thesis''' or '''Turner Thesis''' is the conclusion of [[Frederick Jackson Turner]] that the wellsprings of American character and vitality have always been the [[American frontier]], the region between civilized society and the untamed wilderness. In the thesis, the frontier created freedom, "breaking the bonds of custom, offering new experiences, [and] calling out new institutions and activities."
The '''Frontier Thesis''' or '''Turner Thesis''' is the conclusion of [[Frederick Jackson Turner]] that the wellsprings of American character and vitality have always been the [[American frontier]], the region between civilized society and the untamed wilderness. In the thesis, the frontier created freedom, "breaking the bonds of custom, offering new experiences, [and] calling out new institutions and activities."
[[Image:DEMOCRATIC.JPG|thumb|350px|Turner's frontier made for democracy]]
==Origins==
==Origins==
Writers such as [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] had speculated on the importance of the west, and [[Theodore Roosevelt]] wrote a full-scale history of the Tennessee frontier that argued the experience formed a new "race" -- the American people. Turner drew on his knowledge of evolution, and his own research into the fur trade frontier. He first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered to the [[American Historical Association]] in 1893 at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The thesis dominated much of scholarship until the 1960s. It was then challenged by the "New Western Historians," who ignored its valid conclusions but instead charged that it ignored ethnic minorities and women and was too praiseworthy of the pioneers.
Writers such as [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]] had speculated on the importance of the west, and [[Theodore Roosevelt]] wrote a full-scale history of the Tennessee frontier that argued the experience formed a new "race" -- the American people. Turner drew on his knowledge of evolution, and his own research into the fur trade frontier. He first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered to the [[American Historical Association]] in 1893 at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The thesis dominated much of scholarship until the 1960s. It was then challenged by the "New Western Historians," who ignored its valid conclusions but instead charged that it ignored ethnic minorities and women and was too praiseworthy of the pioneers.