The Persistence of the “Frontier Thesis” in America: Gender, Myth, and Self-Destruction

Canadian Review of American Studies 1992 Special Issue, Part I The Persistence of the "Frontier Thesis" in America: Gender, Myth, and Self-Destruction HowardI. Kushner 53 In 1893,the United States experienced the worst economic depression in its history. The depression was accompanied by a series of violent workers' strikes, a march on Washington by Civil War veterans, the growth of a national labour movement, and massive immigration of non-English speaking , non-Protestant, southern and eastern Europeans. To many commentators it seemed as if American societywas splitting apart, about to explode. In this context, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner offered a seemingly persuasive explanation that quickly gained national attention. Whenever social unrest or economic depression came to American cities, Turner argued , the frontier had functioned as an escape valve for urban discontent. In addition, the frontier served as a place where democracy was reborn, protecting the nation from the effects of the class divisions found in cities. But, relying on the 1890 census, Turner (1893) asserted that there was no more frontier-no place to move to. Thus, the violent effects of the 1893 depression, Turner insisted, could be tied directly to the closing of the frontier. 1 Beginning in the 1940s, a series of historical investigations of the frontier discredited almost all of Turner's assumptions.2 Nevertheless, Turner's thesis continues to exert an influence that extends well beyond the walls of the academy (for a general discussion, see Robertson 1980). Why does something that is so easily demonstrated to be both logicallyand statistically untenable continue to display such persistence? 54 Canadian Review of American Studies Certainly the endurance of the frontier thesis is rooted in the peculiar American historical experience with continental expansion. Beyond that, there was something about expansion and the frontier that allowed them both to be raised beyond political contest. 3 The frontier thesis reflects both the actual experience and ideological underpinnings of American expansion; its persistence flows from the symbolicmeaning contained in recapitulation of its narrative as history and as romance. This narrative was transformed into a national myth whose metaphors transcended issues of historical veracity. Like all myths, the frontier myth tells us psychological and cultural truths, rather than factual ones.4 That is, it tells us in symbolic language something very powerful about American society.5 In particular, it speaks to the fundamental tensions that historically have informed American culture. On the surface, these concerns were attached to forging political unity among diverse interests and peoples. On a subterranean level, they encompass anxietiesabout gender roles, urbanization, immigration, and self-transformation . While rhetoric of expansion to the frontier reflected and reinforced national goals of maintaining unity, it acquired resonance because it also promised, through symbolic language, solutions to articulated and unarticulated apprehensions that the growth of cities would result in the destruction of traditional familial relations. In particular, these latter fears were connected to concerns that the fluidity of urban,life threatened to blur gender roles. In response to these anxieties, the frontier, despite its putative promise of freedom, represented the place where patriarchal authority would be reimposed. Attached to anxieties about urbanization and gender roles lay the fact that America was populated by migrants and immigrants. Metaphorically, the frontier thesis spoke (and speaks) to the actual and psychologicaltensions that have informed the lives of these people. Finally, all of these components are connected to the ambivalence that surrounds the ideology of self-transformation. In psychological language we might characterize the persistence of the frontier thesis as overdetermined because it is sustained by varied, but not mutually exclusive,influences. Although I will examine each of these ele- HowardI. KushnerI 55 ments separately and sequentially, I believe that the tenacity of the frontier thesisresults from their overlapping influence on one another. From Policy to Symbol Because it is so well known, I will deal only briefly with the connection between the frontier thesis and territorial expansion. Even here, I wish to emphasizethe futility of viewingactual expansionismapart from its symbolic meaning. As a result of the work of the late William Appleman Williams and others, historians have come to understand how the Constitution of 1787 institutionalized expansion to frontier areas as a way...