The end of the frontier and its impact Flashcards
What was the ‘Turner Thesis’?
The idea that American democracy had been shaped by the attitudes and values associated with the frontier.
What did Turner announce in the thesis?
The moving frontier was now over and the great empty spaces of the west had been filled by settlement and civilisation - America had truly become a nation from sea to sea.
How did the Turner Thesis have many affinities with laissez-faire thinking?
Turner spoke in glowing terms about the values of free enterprise, of hard work and self-help, and of minimal interference by government .
What did he emphasise these laissez-faire virtues as?
American in character. He also went out of his way to reject the European (often German) ideas tat had influenced the academic critics of laissez-faire, such as the AEA.
Why have modern historians and sociologists attacked Turner?
The fact that the thesis was extremely masculine and white. It payed little attention to gender, race or class, and ignored the victims of the frontier experience (native americans).
Describe how territorial consolidation of the nation was almost complete.
- Transcontinental railways linked together the whole country.
- Most of the Western states had been granted full statehood.
- West coast cities such as San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle were becoming modern urban centres.
- The Indian Wars had ended, symbolically, with the suppression of the Ghost Dance Rebellion.
Describe the territorial and economic progression that had been made by 1890.
- Territorial consolidation had been achieved.
- The American economy had been revolutionised since 1865 and was poised for even more dramatic growth in the 1890s.
What had the divisive political legacy of the Civil War been replaced by?
A stable and resilient two-party system.
What had happened to millions of immigrants?
They had been absorbed into a thrusting, urbanised society.
Describe the sense of success and national self-confidence.
It was real but it was not universally shared.
- There were social tensions and ethnic divisions
- Extensive pockets of poverty and deprivation in densely populated cities.
What was there a rising tide of?
Industrial unrest and agitation by militant union leaders, socialists and anarchists.
Describe the position of African-Americans.
Their position had not been resolved and racial tensions festered in the South.
Give other evidence to suggest that the growing pains of a great nation were not yet over.
Social reformers and muckraking journalists campaigned passionately against evils such as alcohol, business corruption and discrimination against women.
Despite these continuing divisions, what did most Americans believe about living in the USA?
They believed they were fortunate to live in such a prosperous, democratic and optimistic society.
Where else was there idealism and optimism?
In foreign affairs. The US had remained free from foreign entanglements, was protected by two great oceans, and had secure borders with Mexico to the South and Canada to the North.
