"Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis and Its Critics" - Wilfred M. McClay

[@kevincollins2538]

Enjoyable. McClay misspeaks, though, when he says that Turner never produced any of the books he contracted for. His *The Rise of the New West, 1819-1829* came out in 1906, three years late. His series editor, Albert Bushnell Hart wrote to Max Farrand, a mutual friend: “It ought to be carved on my tombstone…that I was the only man in the world that secured what might be called an adequate volume from Turner." He also received a Pulitzer for one of his two posthumous books--mostly the work of a colleague--but the word on the street is that the prize was in honor of the Frontier Thesis, not the book.

[@RANDALLBRIGGS]

Dr. Wilfred McClay is an outstanding, broad-minded scholar. I have been fortunate enough to attend two of his week-long "Visions of America" teacher workshops at the University of Oklahoma. He and his colleagues are a refreshing change from the "America stinks" version of history presented in so many high school and college textbooks.

[@pag9128]

We need a more middle of the road approach

[@monsterhunter445]

Well because thats the reality. The frontier had people living before it. Also the country imported slaves and yeah America had great things but thats the reality.

[@RANDALLBRIGGS]

"America stinks" is not the reality unless your fundamental idea of humanity is that humanity stinks and therefore America and every other country that has ever existed all stink.

[@JB-uv4hm]

History is not all black hats and white hats. Hats change. Some wore gray.

[@RANDALLBRIGGS]

And that is how Dr. McClay presents it. Many high school and college textbooks do not. Instead of America's history "warts and all,'" they show nothing but the warts.

[@jscottfischer]

These things should be taught in elementary school, excellent information

[@rlh-okharvark]

I’m ready for more OU seminars.

[@paxdriver]

I get the sense he'd have reconsidered the pace of the opening statements if he'd have thought it through a little more lol

[@malaquiasalfaro81]

It seems as though the criticism on the Frontier Thesis is based far more on what others did with his already inconclusive proposal, and significantly less on what Turner himself actually said. Seriously, the amount of times the term “implied” or adjacent terms are used is quite frankly very sad. To set up an argument and attack that rather than the words that Turner actually used. His works are obviously not the whole story, but they are a large portion of it, and to deny it wholesale or in large part leaves me speechless, frankly. This is not a comment on the speaker however, rather the multiple incessant non-arguments presented by critics of the Thesis.

[@JB-uv4hm]

Someone define the “Hillsdale Republic” for me?

[@sammybaugues1260]

Boring