The Frontier And American Culture

Author : Richard White,Patricia Nelson Limerick
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 145 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 1994-10-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9780520915329

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The Frontier in American Culture by Richard White,Patricia Nelson Limerick Pdf

Log cabins and wagon trains, cowboys and Indians, Buffalo Bill and General Custer. These and other frontier images pervade our lives, from fiction to films to advertising, where they attach themselves to products from pancake syrup to cologne, blue jeans to banks. Richard White and Patricia Limerick join their inimitable talents to explore our national preoccupation with this uniquely American image. Richard White examines the two most enduring stories of the frontier, both told in Chicago in 1893, the year of the Columbian Exposition. One was Frederick Jackson Turner's remarkably influential lecture, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"; the other took place in William "Buffalo Bill" Cody's flamboyant extravaganza, "The Wild West." Turner recounted the peaceful settlement of an empty continent, a tale that placed Indians at the margins. Cody's story put Indians—and bloody battles—at center stage, and culminated with the Battle of the Little Bighorn, popularly known as "Custer's Last Stand." Seemingly contradictory, these two stories together reveal a complicated national identity. Patricia Limerick shows how the stories took on a life of their own in the twentieth century and were then reshaped by additional voices—those of Indians, Mexicans, African-Americans, and others, whose versions revisit the question of what it means to be an American. Generously illustrated, engagingly written, and peopled with such unforgettable characters as Sitting Bull, Captain Jack Crawford, and Annie Oakley, The Frontier in American Culture reminds us that despite the divisions and denials the western movement sparked, the image of the frontier unites us in surprising ways.

Author : Richard White,Patricia Nelson Limerick
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 150 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 1994-10-17
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0520088441

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The Frontier in American Culture by Richard White,Patricia Nelson Limerick Pdf

Essays and illustrations explore the image of the frontier, examining Frederick Jackson Turner and Buffalo Bill's accounts of westward expansion and how these stories evolved in the 20th century.

Author : Ray Allen Billington
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 36 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 1965
Category : California
ISBN : UOM:39015028689688

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The Frontier and American Culture by Ray Allen Billington Pdf

Author : Frederick Jackson Turner
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 32 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2014-02-13
Category : Travel
ISBN : 1614275726

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The Significance of the Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner Pdf

2014 Reprint of 1894 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. The "Frontier Thesis" or "Turner Thesis," is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1894 that American democracy was formed by the American Frontier. He stressed the process-the moving frontier line-and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process. He also stressed consequences of a ostensibly limitless frontier and that American democracy and egalitarianism were the principle results. In Turner's thesis the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs. The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles, nor for landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents. Frontier land was free for the taking. Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago. He won very wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals. Turner's emphasis on the importance of the frontier in shaping American character influenced the interpretation found in thousands of scholarly histories. By the time Turner died in 1932, 60% of the leading history departments in the U.S. were teaching courses in frontier history along Turnerian lines.

Author : Bradley J. Parker,Lars Rodseth
Publisher : University of Arizona Press
Page : 301 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2016-04
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780816534111

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Untaming the Frontier in Anthropology, Archaeology, and History by Bradley J. Parker,Lars Rodseth Pdf

Despite a half century of attempts by social scientists to compare frontiers around the world, the study of these regions is still closely associated with the nineteenth-century American West and the work of Frederick Jackson Turner. As a result, the very concept of the frontier is bound up in Victorian notions of manifest destiny and rugged individualism. The frontier, it would seem, has been tamed. This book seeks to open a new debate about the processes of frontier history in a variety of cultural contexts, untaming the frontier as an analytic concept, and releasing it in a range of unfamiliar settings. Drawing on examples from over four millennia, it shows that, throughout history, societies have been formed and transformed in relation to their frontiers, and that no one historical case represents the normal or typical frontier pattern. The contributors—historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists—present numerous examples of the frontier as a shifting zone of innovation and recombination through which cultural materials from many sources have been unpredictably channeled and transformed. At the same time, they reveal recurring processes of frontier history that enable world-historical comparison: the emergence of the frontier in relation to a core area; the mutually structuring interactions between frontier and core; and the development of social exchange, merger, or conflict between previously separate populations brought together on the frontier. Any frontier situation has many dimensions, and each of the chapters highlights one or more of these, from the physical and ideological aspects of Egypt’s Nubian frontier to the military and cultural components of Inka outposts in Bolivia to the shifting agrarian, religious, and political boundaries in Bengal. They explore cases in which the centripetal forces at work in frontier zones have resulted in cultural hybridization or “creolization,” and in some instances show how satellite settlements on the frontiers of core polities themselves develop into new core polities. Each of the chapters suggests that frontiers are shaped in critical ways by topography, climate, vegetation, and the availability of water and other strategic resources, and most also consider cases of population shifts within or through a frontier zone. As these studies reveal, transnationalism in today’s world can best be understood as an extension of frontier processes that have developed over thousands of years. This book’s interdisciplinary perspective challenges readers to look beyond their own fields of interest to reconsider the true nature and meaning of frontiers.

Author : Nancy Reagin
Publisher : University of Iowa Press
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2021-12
Category : History
ISBN : 9781609387907

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Re-living the American Frontier by Nancy Reagin Pdf

Who owns the West? -- Buffalo Bill and Karl May : the origins of German Western fandom -- A wall runs through it : western fans in the two Germanies -- Little houses on the prairie -- "And then the American Indians came over" : fan responses to indigenous resurgence and political change -- Indians into Confederates : historical fiction fans, reenactors, and living history.

Author : Frederick Turner
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 315 pages
File Size : 53,6 Mb
Release : 2018-10-08
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 172684997X

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The Frontier in American History by Frederick Turner Pdf

The Significance of the Frontier in American History--Chapter 1 of this book--is one of the most important historical essays in United States history. It was originally presented by Frederick Jackson Turner at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and published later that year. It was later incorporated into Turner's 1921 book The Frontier in American History. Here Turner presents his views on how the idea of the frontier shaped the American character and culture. He argues that the frontier has been the driving force in American history and he uses it to explain why America is what it is today. This frontier thesis has been both greatly respected and debated. Critics argue that many factors have influenced American culture and that Turner placed too great of an emphasis on the role on Westward expansion and the frontier experience. Still insightful over 100 years later, Turner's complete original essays are reproduced here for the modern audience to consider anew.

Author : Ray Allen Billington
Publisher : Reveille Books
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : History
ISBN : 1585442631

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America's Frontier Culture by Ray Allen Billington Pdf

In this little classic, first published in 1977, Ray A. Billington outlines the threecenturylong process of westering that forged the American characteristics of resourcefulness, individualism and democracy, and upward social mobility. "The American Frontiersman" looks at the mountain men of the fur trade who succumbed to the wilderness world in which they found themselves and in which they were forced to begin the climb upward to civilization once more. In "The Frontier and American Culture" the author suggests that although many backwoodsmen seceded from civilization, others made a heroic effort to perpetuate their culture. And in "Cowboys, Indians, and the Land of Promise" Billington reviews the worldwide myths of the American West--its violence and lawlessness on the one hand and its ripe abundance on the other.

Author : Frederick Jackson Turner
Publisher : DigiCat
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2022-05-17
Category : History
ISBN : EAN:8596547004660

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The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner Pdf

The Frontier in American History is a collection of works related to the history of American colonization of Wild West. Turner expresses his views on how the idea of the frontier shaped the American being and characteristics. He writes how the frontier drove American history and why America is what it is today. Turner reflects on the past to illustrate his point by noting human fascination with the frontier and how expansion to the American West changed people's views on their culture. _x000D_ Contents:_x000D_ The Significance of the Frontier in American History_x000D_ The First Official Frontier of the Massachusetts Bay_x000D_ The Old West_x000D_ The Middle West_x000D_ The Ohio Valley in American History_x000D_ The Significance of the Mississippi Valley in American History_x000D_ The Problem of the West_x000D_ Dominant Forces in Western Life_x000D_ Contributions of the West to American Democracy_x000D_ Pioneer Ideals and the State University_x000D_ The West and American Ideals_x000D_ Social Forces in American History_x000D_ Middle Western Pioneer Democracy

Author : Lee Rodney
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 341 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2016-12-19
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781317552741

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Looking Beyond Borderlines by Lee Rodney Pdf

American territorial borders have undergone significant and unparalleled changes in the last decade. They serve as a powerful and emotionally charged locus for American national identity that correlates with the historical idea of the frontier. But the concept of the frontier, so central to American identity throughout modern history, has all but disappeared in contemporary representation while the border has served to uncomfortably fill the void left in the spatial imagination of American culture. This book focuses on the shifting relationship between borders and frontiers in North America, specifically the ways in which they have been imaged and imagined since their formation in the 19th century and how tropes of visuality are central to their production and meaning. Rodney links ongoing discussions in political geography and visual culture in new ways to demonstrate how contemporary American borders exhibit security as a display strategy that is resisted and undermined through a variety of cultural practices.

Author : Neil Stevens Forkey
Publisher : Calgary : University of Calgary Press
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2003
Category : History
ISBN : UOM:39015056920435

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Shaping the Upper Canadian Frontier by Neil Stevens Forkey Pdf

Neil Forkey makes a significant contribution to the growing body of work on Canadian environmental history. Themes of ethnicity and environment in the Trent Valley are brought into wider perspective with comparisons to other areas of contemporary settlement throughout the British Empire and North America. Forkey begins by placing his study within the literature of settler societies of Upper Canada and North America. The Trent Valley's geography, prehistory, and Native peoples, the Huron and the Mississauga, are discussed alongside the Anglo-Celtic migrations and resettlement of the area. Careful attention is devoted to the life and nature writings of Catherine Parr Traill. Her descriptions of life and environmental changes in the Valley point the way to a keener understanding of Canadian attitudes about the natural world during the nineteenth century. Shaping the Upper Canadian Frontier: Environment, Society, and Culture in the Trent Valley is the story of the Trent Valley during the nineteenth century, one of a settler society and a microcosm for wider human and environmental changes throughout North America.

Author : David J. Weber,Jane M. Rausch
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Page : 277 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 1997-08-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781461647003

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Where Cultures Meet by David J. Weber,Jane M. Rausch Pdf

In Where Cultures Meet, editors Weber and Rausch have collected twenty essays that explore how the frontier experience has helped create Latin American national identities and institutions. Using 'frontier' to mean more than 'border,' Weber and Rausch regard frontiers as the geographic zones of interaction between distinct cultures. Each essay in the volume illuminates the recipro-cal influences of the 'pioneer' culture and the 'frontier' culture, as they contend with each other and their physical environment. The transformative power of frontiers gives them special interest for historians and anthropologists. Delving into the frontier experience below the Rio Grande, Where Cultures Meet is an important collection for anyone seeking to understand fully Latin American history and culture.

Author : Greg Grandin
Publisher : Metropolitan Books
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2019-03-05
Category : History
ISBN : 9781250179814

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The End of the Myth by Greg Grandin Pdf

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE A new and eye-opening interpretation of the meaning of the frontier, from early westward expansion to Trump’s border wall. Ever since this nation’s inception, the idea of an open and ever-expanding frontier has been central to American identity. Symbolizing a future of endless promise, it was the foundation of the United States’ belief in itself as an exceptional nation – democratic, individualistic, forward-looking. Today, though, America hasa new symbol: the border wall. In The End of the Myth, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin explores the meaning of the frontier throughout the full sweep of U.S. history – from the American Revolution to the War of 1898, the New Deal to the election of 2016. For centuries, he shows, America’s constant expansion – fighting wars and opening markets – served as a “gate of escape,” helping to deflect domestic political and economic conflicts outward. But this deflection meant that the country’s problems, from racism to inequality, were never confronted directly. And now, the combined catastrophe of the 2008 financial meltdown and our unwinnable wars in the Middle East have slammed this gate shut, bringing political passions that had long been directed elsewhere back home. It is this new reality, Grandin says, that explains the rise of reactionary populism and racist nationalism, the extreme anger and polarization that catapulted Trump to the presidency. The border wall may or may not be built, but it will survive as a rallying point, an allegorical tombstone marking the end of American exceptionalism.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
Page : 542 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2003-02-01
Category : History
ISBN : 1412828570

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The Metropolitan Frontier and American Politics by Anonim Pdf

American civilization has been shaped by four decisive forces: the frontier, migration, sectionalism, and federalism. The frontier has offered abundance to those who would/could take advantage of its opportunities, stimulated technological innovation, and been the source of continuous change in social structure and economic organization; migration has been responsible for relocating cultures from the Old world to the New; various sections of geographic territories have adjusted to the overall American culture without losing their individual distinctiveness; and federalism has shaped the United States' political and social organization. The Metropolitan Frontier and American Politics was begun in the late 1950s under the auspices of the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs as a study of the eight "lesser" metropolitan areas in Illinois. What started out as a design for "community maps" of each area, with the intent to outline their particular political systems, led to a major study of metropolitan cities of the prairie--the "heartland" area between the Great Lakes and the Continental Divide--with an examination of the processes that have shaped American politics. The distinctive features of geographic areas that Elazar discovered can be understood as reflections of the differences in cultural backgrounds of their respective settlers. Understanding these communities requires an examination of their place in the federal system, the impact of frontier and section upon them, and a study of the cultures that inform them as civil communities. The volume is consequently divided into three parts: "Cities, Frontiers, and Sections," "Streams of Migration and Political Culture," and "Cities, States, and Nation," each of which explores Elazar's concerns in discovering the interrelationship between the cities of the frontier and American politics. A prequel to The Closing of the Metropolitan Frontier (published by Transaction in 2002), The Metropolitan Frontier and American Politics will be of great interest to students of politics, American history, and ethnography.

Author : Richard White
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 116 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 1994
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:948623783

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The Frontier in American Culture by Richard White Pdf