AccelePrep for the ACT Test 2nd Edition Student Text

278 • P OWER U P ! T HE E XCLUSIVE C AMBRIDGE S AMPLE E XAM

In addition, Turner argued that the frontier fostered democracy in the cities of the East. The availability of free land at the frontier provided a “safety-valve” against possible social unrest: those discontented with social inequities and economic injustice could strike out and settle the free land that was available in frontier territories. Turner’s thesis was thus original in both what it said and in the methodology that Turner used in formulating it. Up to the time of Turner’s essay, history had been essentially the history of politics. A Midwesterner, Turner challenged this traditional approach of Eastern historians by incorporating techniques of the social sciences, showing how factors of geography, economics, climate, and society ‹ϐŽ—‡…‡† –Š‡ †‡˜‡Ž‘’‡– ‘ˆ –Š‡ ‡”‹…ƒ ‡•–Ǥ Although now common among historians, at the time this interdisciplinary approach was novel. Passage B Three years before Turner put forth the frontier thesis, the U.S. Census Bureau had announced the disappearance of a contiguous ˆ”‘–‹‡” Ž‹‡Ǥ ‘” —”‡”ǡ –Š‡ •‹‰‹ϐ‹…ƒ…‡ ‘ˆ –Š‡ frontier was its effect on the American character. According to Turner, uniquely American traits were developed by the frontier culture, including a can-do problem-solving attitude, a nervous energy, and rugged individualism. Turner’s essay reached triumphant heights in his belief that the promotion of individualistic democracy was the most important consequence of the frontier. Individuals, forced to rely on their own wits and strength, were necessarily skeptical of hierarchies and fearful of centralized authority. Turner’s thesis that the frontier is the key to American history as a whole has rightfully been abandoned. There is too much evidence for the …”‹–‹…ƒŽ ‹ϐŽ—‡…‡ ‘ˆ ˆƒ…–‘”• Ž‹‡ •Žƒ˜‡”› ƒ† –Š‡ ‹˜‹Ž War, immigration, and the development of industrial capitalism. But even as an account of the West and frontier, Turner’s thesis was lacking. Turner’s formulation of “free land” ignored the presence of the numerous Indian peoples whose subjugation was required by the nation’s westward march. The many Indian wars started by American expansion belie Turner’s argument that the American frontier, in sharp contrast to European borders between nation-states, was “free land.”

PASSAGE II SOCIAL SCIENCE: These passages discuss Frederick Turner’s hypothesis of the American frontier. Passage A In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner presented a paper to a group of historians convening in Chicago during the Columbian Exposition. Entitled “The ‹‰‹ϐ‹…ƒ…‡ ‘ˆ –Š‡ ”‘–‹‡” ‹ ‡”‹…ƒ ‹•–‘”›ǡdz Turner’s paper drew little immediate reaction. Yet, ‘ –Š‡‘”› ‘ˆ Š‹•–‘”› Šƒ• Šƒ† ƒ ‰”‡ƒ–‡” ‹ϐŽ—‡…‡ ‘ the direction and methodology of inquiry and the issues of debate in American history. Later historians took issue with some of Turner’s interpretations; even some of his own students were among those whose research proved some of his views to be wrong. However, these debates merely serve to illustrate the importance of Turner’s hypothesis. Turner’s argument was a grand hypothesis about how the settlement of the frontier had shaped the American experience and character. As with all ‰‡‡”ƒŽ Š›’‘–Š‡•‡• ‹ ƒ› ϐ‹‡Ž† ‘ˆ •–—†›ǡ ‹– ‰ƒ˜‡ ƒ coherent interpretation to many facts that had been largely ignored by historians up to that time. Turner used statistical evidence from the 1880 census as the basis for a startling conclusion: Prior to 1880 there had been a frontier to be settled. By 1890, Turner pointed out, there was no longer any area of wilderness completely untouched by settlements. The frontier had disappeared. The passing of the frontier, Turner concluded, was a historic moment. Turner further claimed that the frontier experience had produced a distinctively American character, which was not explainable simply as the predictable behavioral traits molded by English political institutions. Frontier settlers developed inquisitiveness, inventiveness, energy, and a great ’ƒ••‹‘ ˆ‘” ˆ”‡‡†‘Ǥ Š‡•‡ ƒ––”‹„—–‡• †‡ϐ‹‡† ƒ ‡™ American character—one evidenced in nationalism, independence, and democracy. This new sense of national identity derived from the fact that people from every section of the country mixed at the Western frontier. Economic independence could be traced to the fact that the settlers no longer depended on England for goods but had become •‡ŽˆǦ•—ˆϐ‹…‹‡–Ǥ  ƒ††‹–‹‘ǡ –Š‡ ˆ”‘–‹‡” •‡––Ž‡”•ǡ whose basic social unit was the family, enjoyed freedom from direct governmental interference. Frontier life thus reinforced the fundamental ideals of populist democracy.

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