One of the great mysteries of the modern world is why and how America became such an economic and democratic success. The most salient explanation for this distinctive economic and democratic success of America is the Myth of the Frontier. As debatably the lasting of American myths, with roots in colonial times and a commanding enduring presence in modern culture, the Frontier Myth instilled Americans with the ideas of the perennial rebirth, fluidity of life, new opportunities, and continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society. This Myth of the Frontier is the “intelligible mask of that enigma called the national character” of America (Richard Slotkin).
The exposition of the view of the Frontier was due to Fredrick Jason Turner in 1893. Turner postulated that the availability of “an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain …show more content…
Each frontier provided new opportunity form the restraints of the past, and confidence to look forward. Even though in the bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890 that “at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line” (CITE pg. 7 of Sakai handout). The narratives of the Frontier myth was continuous. With President John F. Kennedy’s emphasis on the space exploration along with economic growth, soldiers equation of combat missions to playing “Cowboys and Indians, and President Ronald Reagan portrayal of the deceased in the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle challenger as settlers in the old frontier, several ideas associated with Frontier myth lived on. For instance Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Lone Ranger, and Gun Smoke, the Frontier myth exerted its influence on America’s social
The exposition of the view of the Frontier was due to Fredrick Jason Turner in 1893. Turner postulated that the availability of “an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain …show more content…
Each frontier provided new opportunity form the restraints of the past, and confidence to look forward. Even though in the bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890 that “at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line” (CITE pg. 7 of Sakai handout). The narratives of the Frontier myth was continuous. With President John F. Kennedy’s emphasis on the space exploration along with economic growth, soldiers equation of combat missions to playing “Cowboys and Indians, and President Ronald Reagan portrayal of the deceased in the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle challenger as settlers in the old frontier, several ideas associated with Frontier myth lived on. For instance Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Lone Ranger, and Gun Smoke, the Frontier myth exerted its influence on America’s social