Confronting the Frontier Thesis: The American Historical Association and the Legacy of Frederick Jackson Turner

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner presented a paper at the American Historical Association’s annual meeting entitled “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” This paper, along with Turner’s other work, gave rise to what is widely known as his “Frontier Thesis,” in which he stressed the role of the advancing western frontier in the development of American democracy. For Turner, the environment shaped the course of history, and the existence of what he saw as vast expanses of Western wilderness, ripe for settlement, promoted American individualism and freed settlers from the oppressive influences of the “Old World.” This argument was widely praised by Turner’s contemporaries and became perhaps the preeminent vision of the American past in the first half of the twentieth century. Yet this model of American history largely ignores the history of Native Americans and contributed to the glorification of settler colonialism, including the dispossession and violence perpetrated against indigenous peoples.

Despite the dominance of Turner’s ideas, he published few book-length works during his lifetime. Thus other avenues, including, I will argue, his participation in the American Historical Association, were decisive for the dissemination and adoption of his historical model. The AHA’s annual meetings served as a venue for Turner to present his ideas to other historians, the American Historical Review published a number of his key papers, and the AHA itself served as a professional network that promoted Turner and his vision of the American past. This paper will explore the American Historical Association's role in extending Turner’s influence and spreading his conception of American history, and the ways in which Native American history was marginalized as a result. It will also consider ways in which the American Historical Association might confront that legacy moving forward.