Frontier Thesis – American Disasters

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There are two approaches to understanding nature, and neither debates the inclusion of humans or cities in the definition of nature. There is the all-welcoming approach: nature is everything, and there is the nihilist approach: nature is nothing. Personally, I don’t believe the second approach because if nature is nothing, then nothing would be everything. An example of the interconnectedness between all elements on this earth, or nature, is sunsets which environmentalist William Cronon presents on page 73 of Nature’s Metropolis. “’Fancy the rail gone, and we have neither telegraph, nor schoolhouse, nor anything of all this but the sunset.’” But is a sunset any more or less natural depending on the “telegraph” or “schoolhouse”? I argue no. The sun slips over the earth’s edge leaving us, in our place on earth, behind. This phenomenon occurs everyday regardless of what tree grows or what electricity pumps through the wires. Does this sunset vary for the people of Los Angeles? The anthropogenic pollution may augment the light refraction, and make the sunset more beautiful, but it is impossible to separate these factors and produce the same result.

It is based off this concept that William Jackson Turner, in “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”, and later, William Cronon, categorize cities as part of nature. Chicago was able to develop because of ecological advantages that allowed humans to survive (glaciers in carved out lakes and deposited fertile fine-grained soil which supported grains and grasses which then attracted herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores). As Eli points out in “Chicago: the power of space”, the natural benefits boosters publicized did not seem to be so beneficial after all, as the city had to spend thousands of dollars dredging sand from the “natural harbor”. In this manner, nature can be both an attraction and a deterrent. Chicago is unique because it was about to thrive (not just develop) because of the transcontinental railroad. Contrary to Marston’s post, I believe Cronon attributes the rise of Chicago greatly to the transcontinental railroad (see Nature’s Metropolis: “Rails and Water”), while still acknowledging the environmental foundations that even allowed people to settle in this region. Without the railroad, the city would have had to continue to fight for its purpose, however there is a reason the railroad was established in Chicago and not in Minneapolis or Green Bay.

As a concluding point, when I think of the most “natural” place on Davidson College campus, I think of the Davidson College Ecological Preserve: 200 acres of “untouched” land. I think most students would agree. However, would most students be surprised to learn that these 200 acres are actually a second-growth forest, meaning that it is not the original land that was there 500 years before European explorers reached the new world? This ecological preserve also served as farmland, and potentially a golf course, before the school acquired it and allowed the native forest to re-emerge.

There is no God. You might think that there must be a God, who created the universe, and perhaps drives its course. You might even think that God made sure you got that parking space in Belk lot. But he doesn’t exist, because the Frontier did all of those things, or so Frederick Jackson Turner might like you to think.

Clearly, I am about to add insult to injury by further criticizing what Cronon calls the “‘blood -drenched field’ of the frontier thesis”(157). Yet, because I read “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” I must add my own two cents, which will likely follow the critiques of past historians. Clearly, Turner embraces a vision of the frontier that is heavily stereotyped, and generalizes broadly from these stereotypes. For example, Jackson argues that “the wilderness masters the colonist” and turns him into a man who “has gone to planting Indian corn and plowing with a sharp stick, he shouts the war cry and takes the scalp in orthodox Indian fashion”(2). This vision is so prejudiced and stereotyped as to be laughable, and Jackson provides no evidence that anything of the sort ever actually occurred. The multitude of examples of Jackson’s hilarity and absurdity would take a great deal of space and time to mention, but to do so would be neither interesting nor original. I will say, however, that the most glaring pattern that threw his thesis into question was that he never examined any individual, region or town to substantiate his multitude of claims; much of his evidence comes from people making generalizations, as he did.

More interesting than the opportunity to criticize Turner is Cronon’s analysis of the frontier thesis and Turner’s work. In his work, rather than in Turner’s own, I was much more sympathetic to Turner. Knowing little of western history and even less about western historiography, I can still acknowledge the truth of Cronon’s argument that Turner succeeded in establishing the idea of the frontier in the American memory, perhaps more concretely than it ever existed in the minds of frontiersmen. I also empathized with Turner’s desire, which Cronon describes, to write a history for the mass of people. Turner fails to do so, of course, in his frontier thesis, in that he ignores the native Americans, women, and others who experienced the frontier; yet, his work seems like an attempt in that direction.

I also enjoyed reading about how Turner’s work “codified the central narrative structure which has helped organize American history ever since”(166). Certainly, such an impact seems both positive and significant (high praise, considering Turner’s love of ‘significance.’). In the end, I must apologize for my rude mocking of Turner’s argument which ascribes so much to the frontier: he was a storyteller, and his efforts to contribute to history were certainly successful, even if his ideas were sometimes outlandish or unsubstantiated.

As the first poster for last week’s post, I have been widely commented on and cited, appropriately for a historian of my eminence. First, I think that Catherine’s expansion of my point (which, oddly, I don’t believe to be the point that I actually made) that disasters have archeological benefit is interesting. I am loathe to claim that any loss of human life could be considered beneficial, even if it does result in great learning for later generations. Yet, we must acknowledge the transience of human life; perhaps it is acceptable that some of the myriad fleeting lives of the past ended disastrously to teach us something.

Furthermore, I question Sarah’s argument that capitalism is not as destructive as I claim it to be. We constantly see the ways in which capitalism destroys in order to create. Think about the way that corporations, once the mightiest in the nation, fall by the wayside as others replace them: Sears fell as Walmart consumed it, and Amazon forced Walmart to adapt, and others will soon take their place. Standard Oil and its progeny, ExxonMobil being the most prominent, will die as humans shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Or look past corporations, to the ways that capitalism consumes resources: the very measurement of a nation’s wealth is GDP, which is not measured by our happiness, or the sum of items we possess, or our savings, but by what we have consumed this year. Capitalism destroys resources, though it certainly drives progress; however, a critical examination of that progress and its direction–and the associated cost–is the duty of every citizen.

In conclusion, just remember to thank the frontier when you get that parking spot next time.

Tag: Frontier Thesis

Cronon’s Chicago

The Omnipotent Frontier