Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1995
Abstract
When Frederick Jackson Turner retired, he took up residence at the Huntington Library in California. Turner left his papers to the Huntington, thus assuring that the Turner industry would flourish there. Wilbur Jacobs is among the resident senior scholars who have tended the flame. Jacobs is a long-time critic of Turner's imperialist celebrations of progress, dichotomous views of savagism and civilization, and anti-environmentalism. Turner ignored much of the development of social science in his own time and confused ruling theory with multiple working hypotheses. Jacobs repeats these criticisms in several contexts in the present volume, but champions Turner as a developer of the sectional hypothesis, forerunner of regionalism, champion of the safety-valve doctrine, a man of diverse interests, an inspiring if sometimes ill-organized teacher, and an optimist. He does not explain why he admires the safety-valve hypothesis, and it is not altogether clear what should remain of Turner's optimistic celebration of American progress once its costs in racism, imperialism, sexism, and environmental destruction are duly noted.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 15:4 (Fall 1995). Copyright © 1995 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.