Changes

As settlers poured in the new areas went through the territorial stage and became states, typically dropping the legalistic practices favored by eastern upper classes, and adopting more democracy and more egalitarianism.

As settlers poured in the new areas went through the territorial stage and became states, typically dropping the legalistic practices favored by eastern upper classes, and adopting more democracy and more egalitarianism.

==Later frontier, 1830s-1890==

==Later frontier, 1830s-1890==

[[Image:IMPACT-FRONTIER.JPG|thumb|400px]]

[[Image:IMPACT-FRONTIER.JPG|thumb|400px]]

Since the 1970s the "new western historians" have attacjed Turner's model. They have condemned the frontier thesis for its Euro-centric and racist assumptions, ridiculing Turner for his depiction of enlightened whites and savage natives and for discounting Indian agency. They assailed Turner's argument that the frontier created America character and ideology by revealing how Americans drew upon European antecedents and their own experiences in urban settings. Other maintain that the frontier was neither especially democratic nor equal. Nevertheless the Turnerians have counterattacked, saying that the critics confuse 21st century moralistic sensiblities with historical reality.  Turner's model, they note, was not about the Indians (who Turner wrote about elsewhere), but rather about the impact of the frontier on the frontiersmen and all Americans. Agreeing that the frontiersmen did not jettison all European ideas, the Turnerians argue they decisively remoulded and reshaped them to meet American conditions. The critics who suggest that democracy emerged from boss-ridden urban machines like Tammany Hall have surely misunderstood what American democracy means.

Since the 1970s the "new western historians" have attacjed Turner's model. They have condemned the frontier thesis for its Euro-centric and racist assumptions, ridiculing Turner for his depiction of enlightened whites and savage natives and for discounting Indian agency. They assailed Turner's argument that the frontier created America character and ideology by revealing how Americans drew upon European antecedents and their own experiences in urban settings. Other maintain that the frontier was neither especially democratic nor equal. Nevertheless the Turnerians have counterattacked, saying that the critics confuse 21st century moralistic sensiblities with historical reality.  Turner's model, they note, was not about the Indians (who Turner wrote about elsewhere), but rather about the impact of the frontier on the frontiersmen and all Americans. Agreeing that the frontiersmen did not jettison all European ideas, the Turnerians argue they decisively remoulded and reshaped them to meet American conditions. The critics who suggest that democracy emerged from boss-ridden urban machines like Tammany Hall have surely misunderstood what American democracy means.

==External links==

==External links==

* [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/TURNER/ Turner Thesis text]

* [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/TURNER/ Turner Thesis text]

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[[Image:BOONE.JPG|thumb|300px|Heroic image of frontiersman, late 19th century]]

[[Image:BOONE.JPG|thumb|300px|Heroic image of frontiersman, late 19th century]]

* Billington, Ray Allen. ''Land of Savagery / Land of Promise: The European Image of the American Frontier in the Nineteenth Century'' (1981)

* Billington, Ray Allen. ''Land of Savagery / Land of Promise: The European Image of the American Frontier in the Nineteenth Century'' (1981)

* Griffin, Patrick. ''American Leviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier.'' (2007). 368 pp.  

* Griffin, Patrick. ''American Leviathan: Empire, Nation, and Revolutionary Frontier.'' (2007). 368 pp.  

* Wrobel, David M. "Exceptionalism and Globalism: Travel Writers and the Nineteenth-Century American West," ''Historian'', 68 (Fall 2006), 431–60.

* Wrobel, David M. "Exceptionalism and Globalism: Travel Writers and the Nineteenth-Century American West," ''Historian'', 68 (Fall 2006), 431–60.

[[Category:United States History]]

[[Category:United States History]]