Frontier's Influence On American Identity

Exam Paper 1 In what ways did the American West of the late nineteenth century represent a contrast to the East? In what ways did the two regions resemble each other?

Life in the nineteenth-century Nebraska was rapidly developing. An increase in automation, industrialization, and modernization all took hold just before the turn of the nineteenth century and furthered its hold across the nation. The Homestead Act of 1954 was a major kick start to get the development of the west rolling and to further settlement across the continent. Many early settlers came from all across the globe. They were newly arrived immigrants, American farmers without land, young families with children, single women, former slaves freed during the Civil War.

There were both positive and negative components of westward expansion from 1800 to 1875. By the late of 1800s, the land of the United States was mostly purchased. In seventy five years, the United States continuously expanded westward, which was encouraged by the idea of Manifest Destiny. New land in the United States led to more economic, social, and political opportunities. Gaining more land also led to disputes between the states and wars with other countries.

In the United States of America, the late 19th century proved to be a time of much change. With change, there was no shortage of challenges being presented to the country and its leaders. One of those leaders during that time was President Ulysses S. Grant, who came to recognize some of the biggest challenges would be the country’s negative economy and fair equal treatment to all citizens of the U.S. Another man that recognized some major challenges facing the U.S. at that time was Frederick Jackson Turner. He would go on to study Americanization for most of his life, and creating an ideology of what made America the way it is.

The late 19th century was a time of exploration, innovation, and continued westward expansion. The West, however, was not as glorified as people today like to think it was. Westward expansion had many benefits, the main being lots of new land for both the Americans and immigrants, but many ideas of the West have been altered throughout the years. The West was romanticized in many ways, people moved to the West in the pursuit of happiness, but today many hardships of westward expansion have been ignored. Cowboys and homesteads are two major concepts that have been romanticized today about the West.

During the Western Expansion, white settlers moved west for numerous reasons. They were motivated to find new land, Gold, and Stuck upon the belief of Manifest Destiny. This attitude helps fuel western settlement, Native American removal and war with Mexico. In doing so, Native Americans faced harsh conditions and were treated horribly. The Great Plain Indians endured the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890, killing of the Buffalo, and many acts such as the Dawes act and Homestead.

When we think of the American West, we always envision a land of rugged mountains and vast prairie, on which cowboys ride on horseback and chase after the Indians. This is the definition of the American West as presented on big screens in cinema, where most Americans’ perception of the myth of the American West comes from. Myth is a story that represents a culture's values and helps to define the individuals that comprise it. All cultures are based on myths.

Frederic Jackson Turner, an American historian in the early 20th century, is known for his essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”. In his writings, Turner theorized that certain defining aspects of the United States, such as geography, government, and economy could be traced back to the development of the American frontier. The U.S. census of 1890, which announced the disappearance of a contiguous frontier line, claimed that the since the land was already claimed, “there can hardly be said to be a frontier line.” However, Turner theorized that “the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward,” meant that the American development was an ongoing process of

Bellamy’s Nationalist America in Looking Backward 2000-1887 shows an America without poverty. There were not masses of sick people without insurance, or twenty-five year olds drowning under crushing piles of student debt. There was absolute freedom from the constraints that money binds most people. The high cost for this system was the personal freedom to do as one wanted with his own life. Perhaps the most important freedom given up was the ability to do as one chose with the years of his life.

Being an american in the 1800’s means having tremendous pride in one’s country. In this manuscript there will be information on early American art, early American music, and early American literature all this stuff that made an American an American. Most Americans somehow participated in the arts from painting and drawing to dance and music to literature and even american music. So what did it mean to be an american in the 1800’s? Early American art brought European art traditions into the American colonies.

America’s original frontier was the West. Since people from Europe came over on boat the dream has always been explore and test our capabilities against the brutalness of moving and inhabiting West. Chris McCandless, an adventurist, wanted to test his skills against the brutal life of a nomad lifestyle in the West on his journey to Alaska. The West was particularly important to Chris’s quest because of the difficult living environments that the west provides.

The American frontier has been constantly redefined by Americans throughout its two-hundred year history. Early American colonists viewed the unending expanse of forest to the west with fear and awe. The untamed wilderness with its savage Indians and fast-flowing rivers; however, did little to curb the desire for expansion developed by those willing to trade a civilized life in Europe for the unknown of America. Although the frontier slowly disappeared through technological advancement, the undying want to grow and expand further west has ingrained itself in American culture. In literature, the frontier is not simply the uncivilized unknown of the early American west but represents a truly American aspiration.