The Closing of the West: Turner’s Frontier Thesis, Conservation Movement Topic 6.3 (Contextualization) (jan 1, 1893 – 1h 13min, may 31, 2025 y)

Description:

Turner's Frontier Thesis:
Frederick Jackson Turner published an essay titled, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History." He showed the settling of the Frontier as an evolutionary process to build civilization. Showing how the first people there were hunters, then cattle ranchers, miners, farmers, then finally the people who found towns and cities. Turner argued that the Frontier shaped American culture, promoting independence, individualism, inventiveness, practical-mindedness, and democracy. He saw the frontier as a fresh start, and with it gone, Turner thought the U.S. would deal with the same issues of class division in Europe.
Some disagreed with Turner's claim about the Frontier when he said that cities were late in the process. They believed that cities and urban markets played an early role in the development of the frontier.

Conservation Movement:
Deforestation caused the conservation movement where Congress saved parks like Yosemite Valley and the whole Yellowstone area as the first national park in 1872. President Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland reserved 33 million acres of national timber. The Forest Act of 1891 and the Forest Management Act of 1897 took away federal timberlands and regulated their use. This movement led to Arbor Day which was a day dedicated to planting trees.

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