Background of frontier hypothesis

Frederick J Turner (186 1- 1932) was born in Potic, Wisconsin, USA. Located between the Fox River and the Wisconsin River, this village was once the only place for ancient fur traders. The real development of Wisconsin began in the 1930s with 19. In 1840, there were only 30,000 people in China, and by 1860, it was only one generation. In fact, even the spelling of the name "Wisconsin" was unified by the legislature of this territory in 1845. Before that, it has been spelled several times: Meskousing, Miskonsing, Quisconsin, Wisconsan, and so on. It can be seen that when Turner was born, this place had just stepped out of the "pioneering era" and had not even completely stepped out of this era. As one historian described it, Potic at this time was "like a border village, taking care of an area where pioneers still lived with Indians". This background and environment undoubtedly had a far-reaching impact on Turner's later academic career.

Turner spent his college life at the University of Wisconsin. 1887, got a master's degree in this university. After that, he transferred to the famous Johns Hopkins University to study for a doctorate, and studied under Herbert B. Adams. 1890 returned to his alma mater, University of Wisconsin, to teach and study frontier history until 19 10. Later, a long time (19 10- 1924) applied to teach at Harvard. Turner's research work is not only influenced by his living environment, but also dominated by his historical view. 189 1 year, Turner declared in his first article "The Significance of History": "Every era should rewrite the past history according to the most important conditions at that time." 1893, he wrote a famous article "The Importance of Frontier in American History", which was read out at the meeting of American Historical Association held in Chicago on July 12 of the same year. From the development of American history, Turner's "frontier hypothesis" needs great courage to go against the trend, because the "institutional historiography school" was dominant in American history at that time. This school uses the so-called "germ theory" in Europe to explain the origin of American system and culture, and thinks that the early American history is just the development of this "student source" in the American environment, and shows a dismissive attitude towards American factors and characteristics in American history. On the contrary, Turner believes that "only by turning our eyes from the Atlantic coast to the western region can we truly understand the history of the United States" and solemnly put forward the task of "studying the frontier as a field of economics and history". His article "The Importance of Frontier in American History" is a great effort to realize this task.

Turner's "frontier hypothesis" has caused controversy among some scholars and is often accused of moving from one extreme to the other. Of course, this is not groundless. American democracy "comes from American forest" is an important foundation in this respect. But in fact, Turner did not completely deny the European roots in American system and culture, because what he said was that the "frontier" continued to advance to the west, only "meant to gradually get rid of the influence of Europe", rather than completely denying this influence. In his view, scholars who study American institutional history "pay too much attention" to the problem of finding Germanic roots and "pay too little attention" to American own factors. He said that although the European way of life "entered this continent", the United States "changed and developed" this way of life, which in turn had an impact on Europe. At the same time, Turner doesn't think that the American system and culture are entirely produced in the West, because when he put forward the frontier hypothesis, he added two very important qualifiers to his argument: one is "determined by our own days", which refers to the American history before 1893 in time; Second, it is said that "to a large extent" does not include all American history, thus leaving room for manoeuvre. If we carefully read his related discourses, especially his article The Importance of Frontier in American History, it is not difficult to find that he also tried to avoid going from one extreme to the other. At least subjectively. For example, when talking about the influence of "various frontiers and their advancing ways" on the East and the old world, he listed the following "significant" influences: (1) "Promoting the formation of a mixed nation of the American people"; (2) "Reduce our dependence on Britain"; (3) "The rise of nationalism and the evolution of American political system"; (4) "Extremely important thoughts arising from the living conditions in the frontier". Turner used the words "promoting" and "reducing" successively here, apparently to avoid absolutizing these influences. This contradiction in Turner's "frontier hypothesis" reflects the immaturity of this hypothesis. It should be said that no matter how different the views on Turner's frontier hypothesis are, there is a significant theme in this hypothesis, that is, the role of western colonization in the development of American history. On this issue, Turner once gave a high summary with the sentence "The problem in the western region is only the problem of American development". And in the famous paper that put forward the "frontier hypothesis", it was pointed out in time that this hypothesis was put forward at the beginning to "explain the development of the United States."

The author believes that this theme can be established in any way: First, in terms of time, the westward migration lasted for more than 100 years, from the end of 18 to the end of 19, which is the so-called "adulthood" in American history and the most important period in modern American history. In this sense, it can be said that most of the American history in the19th century was spent under the influence of "westward"; Secondly, from the perspective of spatial expansion, the westward advancement involves the whole area from Mount Alibaba to the Pacific coast, and its area is equivalent to 7.5 times that of the original 13 state in the United States; Even with the Mississippi River as the boundary, the total territory west of the Mississippi River is 2.6 times larger than that of 1783 when the United States was founded. People who are interested in American history should certainly not ignore the historical activities of Americans in such a vast territory; Thirdly, in terms of administrative divisions, 3 1 new states (excluding Florida) have been produced in the process of American westward advancement. If Florida is added, 32 new states will be produced. Since three new states (Maine, Vermont and West Virginia) were later divided in the original 13 territory, the number of new states in the west is exactly twice that in the east. Therefore, it can be said that without understanding the formation process of these new States, it is impossible to understand the history and development of the United States today; Fourthly, from the perspective of economic development, the development activities of immigrants in the west, with its rare scale and speed, have rapidly promoted the development of all walks of life related to it and become a powerful driving force for the American economy to move from commercial capitalism to industrial capitalism and finally to industrialization. Even after the American government announced the end of the "frontier" for many years, this role is still faintly visible in the development of American history. Of course, the most basic of all these is the large-scale immigration movement. Territorial expansion can be regarded as the geographical result of this movement, the formation of a new country can be regarded as the social result of this movement, and economic development is their comprehensive embodiment. In a word, the colonization of the west has played an inestimable role in American history, and I think this is also the main reason for the prosperity of the "frontier issue" in American history research. Although Turner's "frontier school" has declined, it should be a reasonable core to determine this theme in Turner's hypothesis. However, Turner's theme has another meaning. Judging from the law of modern economic development, an important trend and feature of economic development in various countries is that in most countries (especially some big countries), there is a development process from coastal to inland, which is generally linked with the transformation from commercial capitalism to industrial capitalism. The reason for this historical phenomenon is that modern capitalism gradually grew up from commercial capitalism, which generally first rose in coastal and estuary areas. There are two main reasons for this situation: First, in the era of commercial capitalism and all previous eras, the social division of labor was dominated by natural division of labor, so the division of labor between ethnic groups was often more developed than that at home, and foreign trade (especially maritime trade) occupied an important position in the economy; Second, because "waterway has opened up a much broader market than land, the division of labor and improvement of various industries naturally began in the coastal areas of the estuary." This improvement often takes a long time to spread to the mainland. "

All these situations and trends can be found in the history of Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain and other countries, and the United States is just another prominent example. Therefore, from the perspective of world history research, Turner's theme is also worthy of attention.