The Frontier in American Culture: An Exhibition at the Newberry Library, August 26, 1994-January 7, 1995

by Richard White, Patricia Nelson Limerick, James R. Grossman

A collection of essays explores the pervasive images of log cabins, wagon trains, cowboys, and Indians in contemporary American culture, examining the reality behind the myths and explaining how and why such images have persisted and their implications. UP.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Westerns

116 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Richard White is the author of many acclaimed histories, including the groundbreaking study of the transcontinentals, Railroaded, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Francis Parkman Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Emeritus, at Stanford University, and lives near Palo Alto, California.

Reviews

[Kylie Miller]

Thought provoking essay, especially in reflecting on the disconnect between history and popularity perceptions.

[David Stephens]

The Frontier in American Culture is a companion book to a 1994 exhibit in Chicago that commemorated Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis from (approximately) one hundred years before. It consists of two essays, both of which describe the distance between the more accurate scholarship of the western frontier and the more popular history of the Old West.

The first essay describes the stories fostered by Frederick Jackson Turner and “Buffalo Bill” Cody whose narratives were part of the “separate but connected strands of a single, mythic cloth.” According to Turner, simple farmers moved west to acquire their own land and, in the process, the frontier experience took them from Europeans and shaped them into the first authentic Americans: pragmatic, egalitarian, democratic. Few Indians, according to this iteration, were there to lay claim to the otherwise wide open land.

Through his wild west show, Cody remade the west as an area that must be taken by force, where Indians were nothing but savages and white settlers were always the victims. And while it was vastly more popular than Turner’s work of academia, both stories worked their way into the American psyche and used popular symbols to tell citizens of the new country exactly what they wanted to hear: westward expansion was righteous and regenerative (if not sadly temporary).

The second essay focuses on the word “frontier” itself, how it has been used and abused over the years. Turner left the definition of the term nebulous, and ever since, people have assumed it has to do with advancement and discovery. This may be fine in some newer contexts, but more often than not, it merely serves to mask the labors of conquest, which is why it’s periodically good to review the details that compose our understanding of history.

[Richard Ripamonti]

In the drawn out attempt to discredit the Turnerian thesis, the proponents of the 'New Western History' do the very opposite. Turner still reigns supreme in the tale of American History.

[Jennifer]

Dated but decent historical attack (I think this is the right term) on the vision of the frontier created (put into words?) by Frederick Jackson Turner and Buffalo Bill in the late 19th century. Historians know the term is fraught with difficulty and the complexity of what actually happened is not portrayed in either narrative or those that draw upon them over the course of the twentieth century. But, regardless, the idea of the frontier as depicted by Turner and Cody remains compelling to the average American. As White argues this is because it is useful as a narrative for a democratic, yet terribly diverse nation. In fact, he suggests, the “long dominance of this central imaginative narrative of the frontier has had significant virtues.” It has an “imaginative coherence” that accepts change and conflict as a given. “When we all mount up. when we assume the right to inhabit and retell a common past, then there seems to be a unity among us that transcends, without erasing our differences.” (55)

[Kat]

The Frontier In American Culture is comprised of two essays--"Fredrick Jackson Turner and Buffalo Bill" by Richard White and "The Adventures of the Frontier in the Twentieth Century" by Patricia Nelson Limerick--and several visual primary documents. Both essays were intriguing, well written, and accessible. White's essay juxtaposes the frontier narrative preached by Fredrick Jackson Turner with the frontier narrative presented by Buffalo Bill. His ultimate argument is that Turner and Buffalo Bill used classic frontier symbols to spread and strengthen frontier narratives that mimic history but also silence parts of history. Limerick's essay explores the use of the term "frontier" in the twentieth century--a word she personally views as inadequate--and does so in a creative fashion. Some of the anecdotes she provides are interesting, and it is bold of her to slip into the first person when actively undermining her personal preferences. The one downside is that she tends to be a little excessive with her lists--we really only need three or four examples to get a pattern.