In Turner’s view, this nation was different from any other. Unlike countries in the Old World, which were fully settled and where more complex societies had been established for ages, America had the landscape to continually reform democracy. The growing power of wealthy men at the moment Turner wrote his influential article made it more convincing, and his theory burrowed deep into the nation’s ideology. Even today, when politicians talk about how America is exceptional, they are, consciously or unconsciously, echoing Turner’s Frontier Thesis.
