Best American Frontier
"The Significance of the Frontier in American History" is a paper presented by historian Frederick Jackson Turner at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The essay argues that the continuous westward expansion and settlement of the frontier shaped American political institutions, indivi...
James Fenimore Cooper was an American novelist whose historical romances helped establish the frontier as a major subject in United States literature. His five Leatherstocking Tales follow the woodsman Natty Bumppo across different periods of colonial and early national history. The best-known volum...
Paul Bunyan is a giant lumberjack and folk hero of North American logging folklore, especially associated with American and Canadian tall tales. Stories about him describe exaggerated feats of strength and labor, while his customary companion is Babe, a blue ox whose size and abilities are also trea...
Modern Chivalry is a satirical American novel by Hugh Henry Brackenridge. Its first parts appeared in 1792, and the work expanded through later installments, revisions, and additions until 1815. The narrative follows Captain John Farrago and his Irish servant Teague O'Regan as they travel through th...
Davy Crockett was a Tennessee frontiersman, politician, and member of the United States House of Representatives who became a prominent American folk hero. He died at the Battle of the Alamo in Texas in 1836. Later biographies, popular stories, and tall tales expanded his public image beyond his doc...
Rough and tumble was a form of frontier fighting associated with the United States, especially the era before modern combat-sport rules were standardized. It was not a regulated sport with a single governing code; accounts describe close-range brawling that could include punches, wrestling, biting,...
Johnny Appleseed was the popular name of John Chapman, an American nurseryman and itinerant planter active in the early nineteenth century. He established and distributed apple nurseries grown from seeds across areas that became Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and parts of West Virginia and O...
Pecos Bill is an American tall-tale cowboy, popularized in early 20th-century stories as a rider of tornadoes and embodiment of the frontier.
The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine is an Arizona treasure legend about Jacob Waltz's alleged mine in the Superstition Mountains, popular after 1891.
Turner's 'Frontier Thesis' fundamentally shaped how Americans understood their own history. He argued that the westward expansion and the frontier experience were the primary crucible forging American democracy and character. While heavily debated today, his work remains a cornerstone of American hi...
