Frederick Jackson Turner THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY In a recent bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890 appear these significant words: "Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but 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. In the discussion of its extent, its westward movement, etc., it …showed first 75 words of 10609 total…

…showed last 75 words of 10609 total…the absence of thi! s proper understanding was the futile hunt for a unique "American spirit" which Frederick Jackson Turner began forty years ago and in which he involved most of America's historical scholars from that time until now. LOUIS M. HACKER In what it proposes, the frontier hypothesis needs painstaking revision. By what it fails to mention, the theory today disqualifies itself as an adequate guide to American development. GEORGE WILSON PIERSON ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**