What is the American Frontier?

Although American civilization took over and replaced the frontier almost a century ago, the heritage of the frontier is still very much alive in the United States today. The idea of the frontier still stirs the emotions and imaginations of the American people. Americans continue to be fascinated by the frontier, because it has been a particularly important force in shaping their national values.

The frontier experience began when the first colonists settled on the east coast of the continent in the 1600s. It ended about 1890 when the last western lands* were settled.

Americans have tended to see the frontier, its life, and its people as the purest examples of their basic values. The frontier provided many inspiring examples of hard work, as forests were turned into towns, and towns into large cities. The rush for gold in California, for silver in Montana, and for fertile land in all the western territories provided endless stories of high adventure.

Throughout their history, Americans have tended to view the fron­tiersman as the model of the free individual. This is probably because there was less control over the individual on the frontier than anywhere else in the United States. Of course, the frontier has been idealized.

There are two types of this heroic, rugged individualist drawn from two different stages of life on the frontier. In the early frontier, which existed before the Civil War of the 1860s, the main struggle was one of man against the wilderness. The second type of heroic rugged individualist is drawn from the last phase of the western frontier, which lasted from the 1860s until the 1890s. By this time the wilderness was largely conquered. The struggle now was no longer man against nature, but man against man. Cattlemen and cowboys fought against farmers, outlaws, Native Ameri­cans, and each other for control of the remaining western lands. Physical violence was frequent. The frontier became known as "the Wild West".

The frontier also respected the inventive individual. The need for self-reliance on the frontier encouraged a spirit of inventiveness. Frontier men and women not only had to provide most of their daily essentials of living, but they were constantly facing new problems and situations which demanded new solutions. Pioneer women made clothing, candles, soap, and many other items needed for the daily life of their families.

The willingness to experiment and invent led to another American trait, a "can-do" spirit, a sense of optimism that every problem has a solution. Americans take pride in meeting challenges and overcoming obstacles.

Americans have also seen the frontier as a pure expression of the ideal of equality of opportunity. On the western frontier there was more of a

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tendency for people to treat each other as social equals than in the more settled eastern regions of the country. Because so little attention was paid to a person's family background, the frontier offered the chance of a new beginning for many Americans who were seeking new opportunities to advance themselves.

The frontier provided the space and conditions which helped to strengthen the-American ideals of individual freedom, self-reliance and equality of opportunity. Frontier ideas and customs were continuously passed along to the more settled parts of the United States as newer frontier regions took the place of older ones during a westward march of settlers that lasted more than two centuries. In this way, many of the frontier values became national values.

Дата добавления: 2015-04-24