The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America

by Greg Grandin

Turner’s main argument, which he advanced in his 1893 essay as well as in subsequent writings, is straightforward: America’s vast, open West created the conditions for an unprecedented expansion of the ideal of political equality, an ideal based on a sense that the frontier would go on forever: “The wilderness seemed so unending.”9 Left alone with their visions of unlimited resources, pioneers would transform nature and deepen democratic values: independence, personal initiative, and, above all, individualism. But also fairness, honesty, and trust, a kind of frontier mutualism. In a harsh land, prior to the arrival of the state, pioneers had to find a balance between self-reliance and cooperation, extending relations of commerce and rules of law. When the government did show up, and as local markets evolved into a national economy, these frontier values spread throughout the country, shaping its institutions. Frontier individualism, Turner said, didn’t just exist on the frontier. It was found everywhere in the country, in its cities, villages, and ports, “because of the existence of the frontier”—that is, because individualism was generated on the frontier and because the frontier kept a check on other, less wholesome tendencies, including demands for wealth redistribution. That, more or less, is what Turner’s argument is. But to understand Turner’s revolution, one has to know what Turner’s argument isn’t.