cial and political types and ideals,
could arise to play its own part in the world, and to influence Europe.

FREDERICK J. TURNER.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY, March, 1920.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY 1

II THE FIRST OFFICIAL FRONTIER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY 39

III THE OLD WEST 67

IV THE MIDDLE WEST 126

V THE OHIO VALLEY IN AMERICAN HISTORY 157

VI THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY IN AMERICAN
HISTORY 177

VII THE PROBLEM OF THE WEST 205

VIII DOMINANT FORCES IN WESTERN LIFE 222

IX CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE WEST TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 243

X PIONEER IDEALS AND THE STATE UNIVERSITY 269

XI THE WEST AND AMERICAN IDEALS 290

XII SOCIAL FORCES IN AMERICAN HISTORY 311

XIII MIDDLE WESTERN PIONEER DEMOCRACY 335

INDEX 361

I

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY[1:1]

In a recent bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890 appear
these significant words: "Up to and including 1880 the country had a
frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so
broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be
said to be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, its
westward movement, etc., it can not, therefore, any longer have a place
in the census reports." This brief official statement marks the closing
of a great historic movement. Up to our own day American history has
been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great
West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession,
and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American
development.

Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie
the vital forces that call these organs into life and shape them to meet
changing conditions. The peculiarity of American institutions is, the
fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of
an expanding people--to the changes in