historical narrative – American Disasters

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Let me begin by agreeing with AJ’s comments about reading through Eli’s post. Bringing in the Belk parking spot certainly made me laugh and made Turner’s article seem even more far-fetched, stereotyped, and prejudice. While I shared many of the same initial thoughts that Eli describes, Conon’s historiography almost justified Turner’s paper into making “THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY” seem accurate and almost skillfully neglectful. Maybe I have fallen into Cronon’s trap, yet after reading the historiography Turner’s general thesis seems much more accurate, so long as you avoid the problems about democracy, national character, theological problems, and his stereotyping of frontier “types”. (171)

During my initial reading of Turner, I had many of the same feelings that Eli referenced and noted many of the critiques that Cronon brought up. I thought Turner lacked detail, failed to acknowledge many of the underlying factors of western expansion, and his “analytical shortcomings.” (170) Nevertheless, I was slowly persuaded to acknowledge Turner’s entire thesis after I finished Cronon. Regardless by how much historians reject the structure and thesis of Turner’s work, we are still reliant on the work today. As noted throughout Cronon, we acknowledge the article predominantly for the academic ingenuity to understand history through narrative. If one consider Turner’s article as more of a narrative for history as a whole, using the broad theme of the American frontier, than maybe his piece has merit. Regardless of whether Turner though of this piece as a story or strict scholarly writing is insignificant. If Turner was trying to explain why he believed the course of American history was going to take a drastic turn in the years after 1893, than his paper narrates a plausible story behind his reasoning.

As I re-read the last portions of Turner’s article (after reading Cronon who caused me to ignore some of the obvious flaws) the general ideas seemed to make sense. If we ignore some of details, the American frontier has a unique and possibly accurate parallel with the Mediterranean. Maybe, in 1893 when Turner wrote the article, the idea of expansion had been lost. Without the idea of free land and the frontier, maybe Americans felt forced to modernize. Without the possibility of horizontal expansion, was the vertical expansion (urbanization and industrialization) the next logical chapter in American history? Certainly, I do not agree with everything that Turner is saying, but his thesis, at the most basic level, is hard to ignore. As Cronon points out, a logical story is hard to ignore. If we compare the expansion of American history to various country histories and the interaction with American landscape, maybe Turner was right.

My biggest take away from these two reading’s lies in my drastic openness to Turner’s argument. Can a good historiography like Cronon’s change your mind on even the most farfetched ideas? Certainly this will not be true for every article, but I was struck by how logical Cronon’s approach was to an article I had nearly dismissed.

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: historical narrative

Historiography Persuasion

The Omnipotent Frontier