ABSTRACT
The American West of popular culture is a place of mountain men, pioneer families, cowboys and Indian fighters. Popular stereotypes of theWest reinforced the story of a people who struggled against adversity to conquer the frontier. As Ann Fabian has argued, ‘politicians, fashion designers and producers of mass culture’ have moulded ‘popular legend into the social and economic facts of the living past’.1 The frontier story has provided an exciting usable history which can be shaped to promote nationalism and a distinct American character. This legend was rooted in academic history for much of the twentieth century because of the influence of Frederick Jackson Turner’s ‘frontier thesis’. He argued that the process of settling the West explained the development of American national identity. The pioneer spirit and the victory of civilisation over savagery played a crucial part in the construction of the nation and the progress of democracy. Turner’s thesis was heavily criticised, however, in the late twentieth century by ‘New Western Historians’, who view his paradigm as ethnocentric and ignorant of the West as a distinct region. This chapter seeks to provide a brief survey of the major elements of the historiographical debate. Rejecting Turner’s interpretive framework, more recent work on the West has explored the experiences of different racial groups in the region. Their story further contributed to the evolving parameters of American citizenship and the shaping of national identity. In July 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner addressed the American
Historical Association. He drew attention to the assertion of the Census of 1890 that the American frontier line had disappeared – the continent had been settled. Turner argued, ‘the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development’. He believed that the social development of the country had been shaped by the continuous movement of the frontier, which provided a great force for
Americanisation. Turner told his audience that the growth of nationalism and the evolution of American political institutions were profoundly affected by the frontier. In the harsh and isolated environment of the wilderness, American faith in democracy and aversion to direct and centralised control was forged. Turner closed by stating, ‘the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history’.2
