Frederick Jackson Turner - Essay Example

The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 represented the most advanced thought of the day in all areas of science and technology. 

This provided Americans with specific traits such as individualism as they battled the wilderness alone, nationalism as they claimed new territories for their country, mobility as they continued to push their boundaries, and egalitarianism as they discovered that each man, fighting for a means of making a living, was equal to all other men as they are all engaged in the same activity and should be given the same opportunity (Flagg, 1997).  

In many respects, Turner had a good point.  Americans were constantly coming up against a frontier boundary behind which the world was still savage and wild.  In order to make this land hospitable, it was necessary for individual spirits, knowing they would not have the backing of a large community or governmental army behind them, to go out and conquer this wilderness and bring it into order for the ‘proper’ settlement of civilized folk.  That there was a frontier at all presented a constant challenge to all Americans that success could be had for the taking if one was willing to fight hard enough for it.  At the same time, there seemed to be no limit to this expanse of wild areas to be conquered, giving Americans the impression that it was open to any and all who would come. 

However, as Wibe (2007) explains, this theory discounted to an obscene degree the role of the ‘savages’ who already lived in this wild and untamed land.  Rather than simply being open and available for the taking, much of this land already belonged to another people, people who often had treaties with the very government Americans envisioned themselves as fighting for.  There is no account for the lack of shame Americans should have taken at desecrating a land belonging to others, no indication of the moral destruction caused by the near genocide of entire nations, and no explanation of what could have driven these Americans to continue to push even when facing such soul-destroying actions.  While I think some individuals might have had loftier ideas in mind such as those brought forward by Turner, I think it likely that a great deal of the American character was built not because of a frontier, but because of willful greed and desire to become one’s own king.