The frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.
Interpretation
The closing of the American frontier marks a significant turning point in the nation's development.
Frederick Jackson Turner's quote reflects on the idea that the American frontier, which symbolized the opportunity for expansion and growth, has come to an end. This closing signifies the conclusion of a formative era in American history, shaping the country's identity and its path forward. Turner's thesis suggests that the experiences of living and settling on the frontier were central to the American character, and without this frontier, a new chapter in American history must be written.
In practice
In a discussion about American history, we can reference Turner's quote to highlight the importance of the frontier period.
That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom - these are the traits of the frontier.
So long as free land exists, the opportunity for a competency exists, and economic power secures political power.
The Great Migration can get forgotten if we don't pay attention or bear witness to it. It's part of my personal history and the history of millions of African Americans who left those oppressive conditions for better lives in the North. It's important to put that on the page.
Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.
The Second World War is the largest single event in human history, fought across six of the world's seven continents and all it oceans. It killed 50 million human beings, left hundreds of millions of others wounded in mind or body and materially devastated much of the heartland of civilization.
I speak for the colored women of the South, because it is there that the millions of blacks in this country have watered the soil with blood and tears, and it is there too that the colored woman of America has made her characteristic history and there her destiny is evolving.
By 1892, enlightenment had progressed to the point where the Salem trials were simply an embarrassing blot on the history of New England. They were a part of the past that was best forgotten: a reminder of how far the human race had come in two centuries.
Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot... But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know, in 1605, he attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament.
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