1. Jackson’s Frontier and Turner’s
APUSH
Developed from After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection

2. Frederick Jackson Turner
1893 World’s Columbian Exposition: 400th Anniversary
Chicago hosts 27 million people in 6 months
World’s Congress of Historians and Historical Students
July 12: Frederick Jackson Turner presents”The Significance of the Frontier on American History.”

3. Significance of Theory
Defined simply as “hypothesis” an attempt to present a systematic view of a subject.
Usually historians incorporate many theories, e.g. economics, sociology, psychology, etc.
The role of “grand theory”
Jackson rejects “History is past Politics and Politics present History” and subscribes to Darwins’ grand theory on evolution and the natural world.

4. The role of the frontier…
1890 census and the end of the frontier
West and nationalism
West and independence
Individualism and democracy and the West
Safety valve

5. The Critics of the Turner Thesis
Failure to examine British traditions
Failure to explain “frontier”
Safety valve concept goes against settlement patterns

6. Andrew Jackson as the West
Born in the Carolinas
Moved to western section later to become Tenn.
Read law became attorney – then judge, war hero, senator, then President.

7. Thomas Perkins Abernathy
Frontier to Plantation Harvard student under Turner
Use research at local level saw Jackson as speculator and purchase of land not for democracy but for profit. Jackson sold 50,000 acres and received promissory notes, eventually buyer went bankrupt and Jackson spent from pay off loans through speculation

8. Arthur Schlessinger, Jr.
Age of Jackson examines East and Presidency
Influence of urban in “The City in American History”
Schlessinger reflects his ties as he grew up in the 1930s and was influenced by FDR (“kitchen cabinet” and “Brain Trust” and class conflict and capital vs labor
Emphasis is on Jackson as president and conflict with bank and support for workers and farmers

9. Michael Rogin
Father and Children (1960s) Accepts role of West and evolution
Emphasis on Turner’s failure to address Native Americans (part of environment) and psychological theory – Freud Paternalism “great white father” Native Americans presented as “children, sons of wilderness”
Looks at Jackson’s separation from parents and rage and compensation for loss “slobbering” Freudian oral relationship

10. Rogin (cont.)
Rachel and Andrew not natural father….raised a dozen infants…most orphaned relatives Lincoya adopted after Creek war.
Jackson’s paternalism towards the nation: South Carolina and the Bank

11. History and the historian
Historiography: You can understand the history by understanding the historian…
Which theory is correct?