The Significance of the Frontier in American History

participate in a conflict nationalistically proclaimed as the "Second War for Independence.” The war with British troops and hostile natives that began in 1812 laid the groundwork for a new generation of Americans and served as an epochal launch for the young country. To measure the significance of this outcome one can assess the political careers that were cast for its heroes and, more consequently, the power structure of spoils men, landed…

Americans are characterized by many traits, some more often than others. In the excerpt from Fredrick Jackson Turner’s, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History.” Mr. Turner names several of them to name a few: individualism, tenacity, and inquisitiveness. In Steve Job’s, “Stanford University Commencement Address” he talks about how inquisitiveness helped him build his empire. Likewise in President John F. Kennedy’s 1962, “ Address at Rice University on the Space Effort” the…

their superior mentality. That is, until the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into space. Weighing less than 200 pounds, this satellite sparked a new element of the Cold War gain international attention: the Space Race (History). The Space Race is the nickname for the…

Throughout history women’s role in society has continuously changed and prospered, and is continuing to alter as time goes on. A role in society more often than not develops to become better or satisfies the people to which it affects. There has not been a time without the need for women and there will never be such a time, for the human race as we know it should in fact go extinct. With such an important role in the reproduction of humans, women were not always held to the standard importance…

allows the guilty party to become “impartial detached observers” (121) and helps to conceal guilt (109). Rosaldo’s theory of imperialist nostalgia explains the removing and concealing guilt shown in Slotkin’s article, “The Significance of the Frontier Myth in American History, Housman’s novel, Riding the Trail of Tears, and Shohat and Stam’s article, “The Imperial Imaginary.” Slotkin’s article addresses the symbol…

of the president was prime for conspiracy theories, specifically because it occurred during such a critical moment in American history. Additionally, government agencies had confessed that there were mistakes, and there was even discrepancies in official accounts, leaving even more room for suspicion among conspiracy theorist. In addition to creating an extreme distrust of Americans to the government at the time. In general there was some evidence in the case that seemed very questionable to…

Such laws were to curb the mixed races of Black enslaved persons and freed or indentures servants given their freedom after a period of time serving their time within the colonies. (Kazini 1977) As the frontier began to spread out throughout the area many towns and settlements became regulated and controlled by the church and the ministers. In the discussion of slavery and the production of slave labor can be traced right back to the very foundations of…

In the book, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz, the author deconstructs various types of stereotypes and myths embodied by television shows that romanticize family life and gender roles. Coontz (1992) states that these idealizations promote the “traditional family” myth which she describes as “an ahistorical amalgam of structures, values, and behaviors that never coexisted in time and place” (p.9). The notions derived from this myth are a…

a requirement to vote. In 1828 Jackson won the presidential race. Historian, George M. Frederickson, in his essay Expansionism on the American and South African Frontiers, compares the mandatory elimination of Native Americans to the trans- Mississippi West with the coinciding Great Trek of South Africa’s Boer settlers. The key to understanding American Indian policy between 1790 and 1830 is not the policy advocating for different racial groups, but the fact that the government was…

The American Revolution was caused by much more than the simple concept of no taxation without representation; its roots can be found dozens of years prior, in 1763 and the years that followed, as well as back to the early history of colonial North America. Two authors and historians, Colin Calloway, who wrote The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America, and Eric Foner, who authored Give Me Liberty! an American History, offer two comprehensive viewpoints into the origins…