Influence of the American Frontier

From the vantage point of the 20th century, the metaphor of the frontier seems at least as important as the reality of unsettled land (if not even more so). But this may only be the case because all one now has left is the idea of the frontier, not having had any actual land left for westward expansion for over a century. Certainly, for the farmer or rancher in 1720 or 1820, the possibility of cheap land to be had just over into the next territory could mean the difference between personal success and disaster. The frontier was myth and symbol and something to talk about, but it was also trees to be cut and fields to be cleared and planted and rivers to fish.

The reality of the frontier û with al

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armers (and perhaps for the male population in general) this meant that they now had to accept that hard work did not necessarily mean success. As long as the frontier had remained open, people could more easily believe in the sense of unlimited opportunities: The chances for success and the betterment of oneÆs life were as open as the land itself.6 Once the frontier closed, the future was potentially no better than the present, which meant that it could be pretty grim indeed. At the point of the countryÆs Centennial û roughly the same point in history that Kolodny is discussing û the working classes were in fact facing increasingly difficult times, in large measure as a result of the long-term effects of the Industrial Revolution beginning to be felt in a country now crossed by railroads and powered by steam. Even as the farmers were beginning to run out of new land to till, an increasing number of other working-class Americans were finding themselves disenfranchised as well, as Slotkin discusses. [Technological innovations] had made possible new forms of production; but they had also created a new and burgeoning class of factory workers, a ôproletariatö whose conditions of life and work did not at all conform to the canonical e
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Approximate Word count = 2465
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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