ABSTRACT
The idea of systematic and concentrated study of contemporary pioneer life on the active border of settlement throughout the world began to take form in my mind in 1905, while I was engaged in hydrologic work for the U.S. Geological Survey and first saw the surprising realities in the drier parts of Kansas and Oklahoma both on and beyond the discontinuous fringe of the wheat belt. The idea developed rapidly in succeeding years of study and university teaching. In 1907 it became a major inquiry in further field work in the diversified and somewhat extreme environments of parts of Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile. In the course of more intensive work in the same general area in 1911 and 1913 the idea was extended. Regional examples will be found in two books that were among the results of these three expeditions to South America. My first paper on the broader political implications, entitled ‘The Pioneer Fringe’, was published in 1928 in the quarterly journal Foreign Affairs.
