- ∗The author wishes to acknowledge his gratitude to Gary S. Dunbar, Geoffrey J. Martin, and Brian W. Blouet for the suggestions and criticisms that they so generously offered during the research and writing of this paper. An abbreviated version of this paper was read at a conference on the Origins of Academic Geography in the United States held at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, April 26–27, 1979.
- Looking back over my work as a University teacher, which ends this year, I find that the central interest of my study has been that of these maps of population advance. Not as a student of a region, but of a process. From cave-man to the occupation of the planet.
- I take it as a good omen that a society formed for the promotion of geographical studies in this country should at the outset of its activity find place for a paper on the relations of that subject to the history of the United States…. When I say therefore that the master key to American history is to be found in the relation of geography to that history, I must desire it to be understood that I recognize that this is by no means the all engrossing factor, and that this relation of geography to American history surely must be taken in a large sense. With this understanding, then I desire to lay down this thesis: American history finds its most important master key in the geographical fact of an expanding people occupying a vast and varied area of the New World. This primary fact has determined the larger lines of our development…. Let us imagine if such a thing were possible, that the United States were one great plain without varied geographical features. At once the fact would impress itself upon us that there was nevertheless a geographical element of profound importance. This society would be affected by the vast space open to its occupation.
- What I have seen of Mr. Barrows has given me a very favorable impression. He seems to have ideas and great capacity for work. However, his work with me is limited to a large lecture course …. In his personal work with me, he has shown independence in getting together his material for study of the historical influence of Boston as a harbor, but he has, of course, not as yet submitted any portion of his work. I need not say that he is a delightful fellow personally.
- In selecting speakers for the conference on the relations between history and physiography …I am asking Miss Semple, who was a student with Ratzel, to be one of the speakers, and am considering inviting Barrows formerly a graduate student of Salisbury's at Chicago. I also hear Huntington spoken of as a man who knows something of the relations between the physiography and history of the Turkestan region. I should prefer to keep the discussion closer to America or Europe. Bailey Willis, of the geological survey, has done good work between the relations in physiography and social conditions, but I do not know much about his knowledge of history. He has studied China very satisfactorily …. Do you think of anybody that ought obviously to be asked to speak at this conference? Would it be worthwhile to write for suggestions to Professor Davis?
- My experience is that historians as a rule do not know geography. They may known the natural features of the areas in all corners of the world which they have taken for their field, but they are unable to interpret these in their effect, because they are ignorant of the rest of the world.
- Though all that man does and is be but the product of himself into his environment, it must never be forgotten that he, too, is a factor, and oftener the active than the passive, the multiplier than the multiplicand …. To impute action or causation, influence or control, to things which are inert is a figure of speech which gives vigor to style, but which always involves a fallacy: and when to nature is imputed what is planned and achieved by man, the sufferer from the fallacy is history.
- My experience at Madison …where I had the chief paper, leads me to think that the historians represent a big field for propaganda. They are not an open-minded set of men, with the exception of the few progresives …. Merely mention geographic factors in the Historical Association, and the fur flies.
- Geographical conditions and the stocks from which the people sprang are the most fundamental factors in shaping sectionalism. Of these the geographic influence is particularly important in forming a society like that of the United States, for it includes in its influence those factors of economic interests, as well as environmental conditions, that affect the psychology of a people.
- F. J. Turner presented the gem of the meeting. His talk was like a ride through a magnificent canyon at sixty miles an hour when one tries to look out on both sides of the train …. Turner's talk clarified my ideas as nothing has done for a long time.
- I hope to awaken the brethren to the intimate relationship between regional geography and American history. Judging from my experience in getting the Frontier idea a hearing, this will take twenty years, and I shall have to lean over the battlements to hear it spoken of as a trite conception.
- Turner's ideas were curiously wanting in evidence from field studies that could easily have been made even in Wisconsin, as well as Montana, Texas, and Utah. He represents a type of historian who rests his case on documents and general impressions rather than a scientist who goes out for to see. If I had been asked to say whether my views were contrary to Turner's I should have said that they were not so contrary as variant.
- I am not concerned with Turner's delineation of the frontier spirit, but his concept of the frontier is easy and wrong. If Turner had ever read Eduard Hahn or any account of culture history, he would hardly have fallen into this evolutionistic error of a standard series of culture stages.
- The obvious implications of strong degrees of environmental influence, if not control, led the thesis to be embraced warmly by the geographers contemporary with its early twentieth-century heyday and then, often almost as uncritically, rejected by latter-day geographers in a methodological revulsion against the naivete of single-factor causation.
- 1 Isaiah Bowman, “Obituary,”Geographical Review, Vol. 22 (1932), p. 499.
- 2 Frederick J. Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,”Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1893 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1894), p. 199. For an excellent analysis of the effect the thesis had on the American ethos see Wilbur Zelinsky, The Cultural Geography of the United States (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1973), pp. 34–35.
- 3 Some of the more important analyses of Turner's work by geographers are: Richard Eigenheer, “The Frontier Hypothesis and Related Spatial Concepts,”The California Geographer, Vol. 14 (1973-74), pp. 55 69;J. L. M. Gulley, “The Turner Frontier: A Study in the Migration of Ideas,”Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Vol. 50 (1959), Part I, pp. 65 72, and Part II, pp. 81–91; Donald G. Holtgrieve, “Frederick Jackson Turner as a Regionalist,”The Professional Geographer, Vol. 26 (1974), pp. 159 65; John C. Hudson, “Theory and Methodology in Comparative Frontier Studies,” in D. H. Miller and J. O. Steffen, eds., The Frontier: Comparative Studies (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1977); D. W. Meinig, “Commentary to Walter Prescott Webb's ‘Geographical-Historical Concepts in American History,”'Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 50 (1960), pp. 95 96;H. Roy Merrens, “Historical Geography and Early American History,”William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 22 (1965), pp. 529 48;Marvin W. Mikesell, “Comparative Studies in Frontier History,”Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 50 (1960), p. 74; and Zelinsky, op. cit., footnote 2.
- 4 This theme is examined at length in Ray Allen Billington's definitive professional biography, Frederick Jackson Turner: Historian, Scholar, Teacher (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), It is interesting that both John Muir and Thorstein Veblen also spent portions of their youth in the vicinity of Portage, Wisconsin, Turner's place of birth. Like Turner, they became staunch conservationists. See Wilbur R. Jacobs, “The Great Despoilation: Environmental Themes in American History,”Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 47 (1978), pp. 17 20; and Fulmer Mood, “The Development of Frederick Jackson Turner as a Historical Thinker,”Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Transactions, 1937–1942, Vol. 34 (1943), p. 285.
- 5 Turner also enrolled in his only formal course in geography while a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins in 1889. Mcdieval historian C. H. Haskins arranged a series of guest lectures on physical geography, beginning with an introductory lecture by Daniel Coit Gilman, the geographer-president of the University and the founder of its “geographical and statistical bureau.” Turner heard other speakers discuss mountain building, glaciers, climates, formation of the Earth's crust, “denudation and stratification,” local geology and geography, the global distribution of plants and animals, and the races of mankind. See John K. Wright, “Daniel Coit Gilman: Geographer and Historian,”Geographical Review, Vol. 51 (1961), pp. 381 99;William Coleman, “Science and Symbol in the Turner Frontier Hypothesis,”American Historical Review, Vol. 72 (1966), p. 28; and C. H. Haskins, “Lectures to Undergraduate Students on Physical Geography,”Johns Hopkins Circulars, VIII (1889), p. 28.
- 6 For a thorough historiographical background to Turner's theory see Ray Allen Billington, The Genesis of the Frontier Thesis: A Study in Historical Creativity (San Marino, California: The Huntington Library, 1971); and Wilbur R. Jacobs, The Historical World of Frederick Jackson Turner (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1968).
- 7 Detailed analyses of Turner's cartographic source material can be found in Fulmer Mood, “The Rise of Official Statistical Cartography in Austria, Prussia and the United States, 1855–1872,”Agricultural History, Vol. 20 (1946), pp. 209 25; and idem, “The Concept of the Frontier, 1871–1898: Comments on a Select List of Source Documents,”Agricultural History, Vol. 19 (1945), pp. 24 30. See also Rudolph Freund, “Turner's Theory of Social Evolution,”Agricultural History, Vol. 19 (1945), pp. 78 81.
- 8 Carl O. Sauer, “Historical Geography and the Western Frontier,” in James F. Willard and Colin B. Goodykoontz, eds., The Trans-Mississippi West (Boulder: The University of Colorado Press, 1930), p. 275.
- 9 Frederick Jackson Turner Papers, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California (hereafter cited as HEH TU); from notations by Merrill Crissy and Fulmer Mood, File Drawer 15-B.
- 10 From Turner's “Ribbon Packet” of notes on conservation and world population in HEH TU File Drawer 10 A. In his later years Turner became exceedingly alarmed over these issues and seems to have read the opinions of geographers with great interest.
- 11 His notes and maps from Sauer's article are in HEH TU File Drawer 11-A.
- 12 Letters from Walter Willcox to Turner, Nov. 13 and 24, and Dec. 16, 1899, in HEH TU Box 2.
- 13 Letter from A. K. Lobeck to Turner, March 22, 1922, in HEH TU Box 31.
- 14 Letters from Charles O. Paullin to Turner, Nov. 13, 1928, and from Turner to Paullin, Nov. 20 1928, in HEH TU Box 40. See also Billington, op. cit., footnote 4, p. 474; and John K. Wright, “J. Franklin Jameson and the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States,” in Ruth Anna Fischer and William Lloyd Fox, eds., J. Franklin Jameson: A Tribute (Washington: The Catholic University Press, 1965), p. 72.
- 15 See C. L. Skinner, “Turner's Autobiographic Letter,”Wisonsin Magazine of History, Vol. 19 (1935), p. 101.
- 16 See the Van Hise Seminar Notes, Fall, 1898, in HEH TU File Drawer 4-A. Turner accepted membership in the National Conservation association in 1911 at the invitation of its president, Gifford Pinchot.
- 17 T. C. Chamberlin, “The Relations of Geology to Physiography in Our Educational System,”National Geographic Magazine, Vol. 5 (1894), pp. 154 60; for Turner's association with Van Hise see Maurice M. Vance, Charles Richard Van Hise: Scientist Progressive (Madison: The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1960).
- 18 Note in the file from Fulmer Mood, Sept. 1, 1955, in folder marked “Physical Geography, US” in HEH TU File Drawer 14-D. In 1896, Turner made the statement that “My work in American history is based on natural physiographic divisions, as outlined by Powell in his Physiographic Regions of the United States…I find it revolutionizes the study, and I hope sometime to work out a work along those lines;” see Fulmer Mood, “The Origin, Evolution, and Application of the Sectional Concept, 1750–1900,” in Merrill Jensen, ed., Regionalism in America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1951), p. 94. And late in his career, Turner recalled in a letter to O. E. Baker that Shaler, Powell, and Davis had influenced his thinking about soils: see letter from Turner to Baker, Sept. 2, 1931, in HEH TU Box 46.
- 19 See Wilbur R. Jacobs, “Turner's Methodology: Multiple Working Hypotheses or Ruling Theory?”Journal of American History, Vol. 54 (1968), pp. 853 63.
- 20 Turner's final draft of an unpublished paper read to the Geographic Society of Chicago, HEH TU File Drawer 14-A.
- 21 Letter from T. C. Chamberlin to Turner, 1900, in HEH TU Box 3.
- 22 See Mood, “The Development of Frederick Jackson Turner,” pp. 328–29; and Derwent Whittlesey, ed., “Dissertations in Geography Accepted by Universities in the United States for the Degree of Ph. D. as of May 1935,”Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 25 (1935). p. 213. Johnson's work is cited as a pioneering effort of major importance in the introduction of a revitalized geography into the United States by Preston E. James, All Possible Worlds: A History of Geographical Ideas, (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1972), p. 384.
- 23 H. H. Barrows, “Geography as Human Ecology,”Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 13 (1923), p. 11. For a fuller examination of Turner's influence on Barrows see William A. Koelsch, “The Historical Geography of Harlan H. Barrows,”Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 59 (1969), pp. 632 51.
- 24 Letter from Turner to Andrew C. McLaughlin, Nov. 2, 1907, in HEH TU Box 9-A.
- 25 Letter from Turner to Charles H. Haskins, Sept. 24, 1907, in HEH TU Box 9-A.
- 26 Letter from Ellen Churchill Semple to Turner, Oct. 4, 1907, in HEH TU Box 9-A.
- 27 See Frederick Jackson Turner, “Report on Conference on the Relation of Geography and History,”Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1907 (1908), pp. 46–47. The text of Semple's paper was published as Ellen Churchill Semple, “Geographical Location as a Factor in History,”Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Vol. 40 (1908), pp. 65–81.
- 28 Turner, op. cit., footnote 27, pp. 45–48. Further in formation on Burr's views can be found in folders of letters for Nov., 1907, through March, 1908, in Box 8 of the George Lincoln Burr Papers, Department of Manuscripts and University Archives, Olin Library, Cornell University. Bur, a medieval historian, taught a course in “historical geography” in the history department at Cornell from 1902 until 1921. The author's appreciation to Gary S. Dunbar for this information. See also George Lincoln Burr, “The Place of Geography in the Teaching of History,”New England History Teachers Association. Annual Report for 1907 (1908), pp. 1–13.
- 29 Letter from Semple to A. P. Brigham, Nov. 28, 1910, in Administrative Records, Box 20, Association of American Geographers Records at the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. (hereafter cited as AAG Archives).
- 30 Letter from Turner to Claude H. Van Tyne, April 25, 1908, in HEH TU Box 10.
- 31 Revisionist attacks on Turner's work did not begin in earnest until the 1930s. See Ray Allen Billington, ed., The Frontier Thesis: Valid Interpretation of American History? (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966).
- 32 See Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard and Parrington (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), pp. 99–100.
- 33 Frederick Jackson Turner, The Significance of Sections in American History (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1932), pp. 288–89.
- 34 Letter from Ellsworth Huntington to William Morris Davis, April 5, 1914, in the Papers of William Morris Davis at the Houghton Library, Harvard University. The author's appreciation to Geoffrey J. Martin for this information.
- 35 Undated note from Davis to Brigham, possibly sent on Dec. 3, 1910, in Administrative Records, Box 13, AAG Archives.
- 36 Letter from Isaiah Bowman to Turner, Nov. 24, 1914, in Administrative Records, Box 4, AAG Archives.
- 37 See Frederick Jackson Turner, “Geographical Influences in American Political History,”Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, Vol. 46 (1914), pp. 591 95; and idem, “Geographic Sectionalism in American History,”Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 16 (1926), pp. 85 93. He also reviewed the historical-geographical Interpretations of American History,”Journal of Geography, Vol. 1 (1905), pp. 34–37.
- 38 Letter from Turner to Homer C. Hockett, Jan. 21, 1926, in HEH Tu Box 35.
- 39 Friedrich Ratzel, Dr. A. Petermanns Mitteilungen aus Justus Perthes Geographischer Anstalt, Beilage: Geographisher Litteratur-Bericht, Vol. 41 (1895), p. 122. Ratzel himself had considered somewhat similar phenomena in a paper that he published just a year before the presentation of Turner's frontier thesis, so their parallel concern with the dynamics of frontiers naturally stirred his interest in the historian's work. See Friedrich Ratzel, “über Allgemeine Eigenschaften der Geographischen Grenzenund über die Politicshe Grenzen,”Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenshaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, Vol. 44, pp. 53–104; partial citation in Murray Kanes, “Some Considerations on the Frontier Concept of Frederick Jackson Turner,”Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 27 (1940), pp. 398 400.
- 40 Ralph H. Brown, Historical Geography of the United States, J. Russell Whitaker, ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1948), p. 173.
- 41 Letter from Bowman to Turner, Jan. 5, 1932, in HEH TU Box 47.
- 42 Letter from Bowman to Gladys M. Wrigley, March 6, 1944, quoted in Chapter 7, “The Pioneer Fringe,” of Geoffrey J. Martin's The Life and Thought of Isaiah Bowman (forthcoming publication).
- 43 Letter from Carl O. Sauer to Richard H. Shryock, Nov. 27, 1940, Carl O. Sauer Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. The author's appreciation to John Leighly for this information. See also Carl O. Sauer, “Foreword to Historical Geography,”Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 31 (1941), pp. p. 23.
- 44 Andrew Hill Clark, Acadia: The Geography of Early Nova Scotia to 1760 (Madison, Milwaukee, and London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), p. 383.
- 45 Bowman, op. cit., footnote 41.
- 46 Meinig, op. cit., footnote 3, pp. 95–96, suggests that Turner and Walter Prescott Webb were both “geographic historians” whose works should be very familiar to geographers, yet they “failed to make any real impact upon American geographical thinking” even though they created enormous ferment in other fields of scholarship. This author believes that Turner was an exceptional figure and that he does not fit easily into a categorization with Webb.
- 47 Holtgrieve, op. cit., footnote 3, p. 163, suggests that Turner is deserving of the same professional canonization that American geography has accorded Powell, Marsh, and Muir.
- 48 Hofstadter, op. cit., footnote 32, p. 101.
Annals of the Association of American Geographers
Volume 70, 1980 - Issue 1