Frederick Jackson Turner

Frederick Jackson Turner (born November 14, 1861 in Portage , Wisconsin , † March 14, 1932 in San Marino , California ) was an American historian . He is associated with the term Frontierism (frontier thesis) and is one of the most important historians in the USA .

Life

Frederick Jackson Turner was born on November 14, 1861, in the small town of Portage, Wisconsin. His parents came from the middle class, and Turner came into contact with Republican politics at an early age through his father, a journalist. His hometown Portage was a classic border town, between area developed by the white American culture and area populated by indigenous peoples, which only received city rights in 1854 and was settled by immigrants from Europe in Turner's childhood days. Portage was part of the border ( Frontier ) and the streetscape was still shaped by loggers and Indians.

Turner began his studies in American history in 1878 at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he was decisively influenced by his teacher, the historian William F. Allen, who was an advocate of a social evolution theory. This theory had a great influence on Turner's later work.

In 1888 Turner took on a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore . He taught at Wisconsin University from 1898 to 1910 and at Harvard University from 1910 to 1924 . Turner combined various disciplines such as sociology, history and political science, which was also reflected in his theses formulated in 1893.

His most important essays are in "The Frontier in American History" (English for: The Frontier in American History ) and in "The Significance of Sections in American History" (English for: The Significance of Sections in American History ).

He spent his twilight years in Pasadena , California, where he helped set up an "Anglo-American history and literary research center" (English for: Anglo-American history and literary research institute ). Frederick J. Turner died on March 14, 1932 in San Marino. His essay collection "The Significance of Sections in American History" won the 1933 Pulitzer Prize . In 1911 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

The front thesis

In his most important work, the essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" published in 1893, Turner proposed that the alleged American Exceptionalism was a result of the continuous interaction between civilization and wilderness on the American frontier . He was reacting to the statement in the United States Census 1890 that there were no more unpopulated areas in the USA.

The ongoing struggle with nature has placed the United States outside the usual rules and laws of human history. The conditions in which American society developed were so significantly different that it was free from the difficulties and limitations of European societies. The frontier thesis and American exceptionalism are controversial and questionable concepts of historiography today, but they have had a lasting impact on American historiography in the 20th century.

Works (selection)

• The Significance of the Frontier in American History (Essay, 1893)
• The Frontier in American History (Collection of Articles, 1920)
• The Significance of Sections in American History (Collection of Articles, 1932)

literature

• Richard Hofstadter : The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington . Knopf, New York 1968.
• Matthias Waechter: The Invention of the American West. The history of the Frontier debate. Rombach, Freiburg 1996, ISBN 3-7930-9124-4 .