Civil War & Americana – Page 10 – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

President Harding Entered Office on a High Note … then Came the Scandals

warren-g-harding-and-james-m-cox-absolutely-stunning-matched-pair-of-large-1920-rarities — This matched pair of Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox 1920 campaign buttons sold for $6,875 at a November 2013 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The Republicans returned to power in the election of 1920 with the victory of Warren G. Harding of Ohio. Isolated even further in the confines of the White House, Woodrow Wilson and family waited out the year and the first two months of 1921. The outgoing president’s condition had stopped improving. He was feeble and mostly occupied with his books and papers, though he now lacked the mental acuity that was key to his greatness.

Late in his term, Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and his spirits rose. Remorse yielded to genuine gratification, an indulgence he rarely allowed himself even in the good times. However, Edith Wilson found little diversion from this almost oppressive situation. The world was slowly passing the Wilsons by without a second glance.

The 1920 campaign had been dull and lackluster, with Harding remaining in Ohio on his front porch, greeting thousands of well-wishers and speaking to them informally. The Democrats had tried to make the League of Nations a campaign issue, but Harding’s position was too obscure since he was really only interested in preserving the Senate’s constitutional rights regarding foreign treaties. When voters got to the polls, politicians discovered the campaigns had not mattered. The people were so tired of government restrictions and hardships imposed by the war that they sought a complete change in administrations and a return to “America First.”

Harding and running mate Calvin Coolidge drubbed James Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt in both the popular vote and electoral college (404 to 127).

Between the election and inauguration, Harding chose his cabinet, carefully balancing the membership with close political friends and leaders in the Republican Party. It was a blue-chip group that included Charles Evans Hughes (former governor of New York, Supreme Court Justice and presidential candidate in 1916) as Secretary of State; Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover; and millionaire Pittsburg banker Andrew Mellon as Secretary of Treasury. But there were also a few friends, like Albert Fall (Interior) and Harry Daugherty (Attorney General), who would become infamous for corruption.

Friends of Harding and Daugherty flocked from Ohio to Washington for jobs. Headquarters for the “Ohio Gang” was the “Little Green House” on K Street, where government favors and appointments were bought and sold. Evidence of Harding’s knowledge is sketchy; his friends just assumed he would agree in order to please them. But late in 1922, Harding learned of irregularities at the Veterans’ Bureau, where huge amounts of surplus materials were sold far below market value and in turn new supplies were purchased far above fair value, all without competitive bidding.

The head of the agency, Charles R. Forbes – one of Harding’s poker buddies – was allowed to resign, but the attorney for the Bureau committed suicide. This was soon followed by the death of another close Harding friend, Jess Smith, who shared an apartment with Daugherty and was a member of the “Ohio Gang.” Sensing trouble, Harding had asked him to leave Washington, however Smith shot himself to death. But the biggest surprise surfaced after Harding died of a heart attack in San Francisco in August 1923.

Secretary of Interior Fall had allowed two large federal oil fields in Elk Hills, Calif., and Teapot Dome, Wyo., to be opened to private oil companies. He was convicted of bribery ($400,000) and sent to prison. Attorney General Daugherty was brought to trial in 1924 for conspiracy in much of this, but refused to testify to avoid “incriminating the dead president” and it hung the jury.

How much Harding actually knew about the corruption among his friends will never be known. After his death, Mrs. Harding burned all his papers and correspondence, diligently recovering and destroying even personal letters in the possession of other people. Since she had also refused to have Harding’s corpse autopsied in San Francisco, there have always been rumors he was actually poisoned.

Ah, Washington, D.C. – such a small city, but with so many untold mysteries.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is President and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Ineffective Leadership is the Last Thing Needed in the White House

franklin-pierce-daguerreotype — This Franklin Pierce daguerreotype, housed in a leatherette case, sold for $15,525 at a November 2003 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Millard Fillmore was the last Whig president and also the last to represent the kind of American nationalism that had appeared during the War of 1812. His successor, Franklin Pierce (1853-57), was a northern Democrat who supported the extension of slavery and a nominee selected by his party in order to win both northern and southern votes. He had praised the Compromise of 1850 and promised to prevent slavery from becoming a national issue.

He was swept into office with the greatest electoral landslide since James Monroe.

A politician’s politician, the curly-headed Pierce never lost an election. At his inaugural ceremony, he stood away from the lectern and spoke extemporaneously; it was more of a sermon than an inaugural address. He challenged the nation with the promise of a bright, prosperous future and his listeners cheered as though they had been delivered at last.

He was also a master of knowing how to get along with all people – evidenced by the fact he is the only president in history who served a complete term without making a single change in his Cabinet. But he totally misjudged the temper of the time, since he regarded the abolitionists as a lunatic fringe that should be ignored. And when he signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the repeal of the 1820 Missouri Compromise, he unwittingly let loose a storm that made slavery a greater national issue than ever before.

Unable to accomplish much due to a deeply divided Congress, President Pierce still desperately wanted to be nominated for a second term. But just before the Democratic Convention began in Cincinnati on June 2, 1856, reports of bloodshed in Kansas alarmed the country. Armed battles raged between anti- and pro-slavery factions, firing up public anger.

The telegraph wires clicked constantly, with Pierce anxiously reading each dispatch. In the oval room, he read newspapers until his eyes grew too tired and then had his wife read them to him. He followed every detail of the convention, considerably more confident than he should have been. At the convention, Pierce’s supporters abandoned him in favor of Stephen A. Douglas, but the strategy failed and James Buchanan took the prize home to Pennsylvania.

Buchanan was the last of the weak, compromising northern Democratic presidents, more sympathetic to slave owners than to northern abolitionists. When he tried to push through Kansas as a slave state, he infuriated the North and shattered the Southern Democratic Party. As Southern states seceded from the Union, one by one, in the last months of his administration, Buchanan stood by helplessly, unable to take resolute action.

This string of three weak, ineffective men – Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan – clearly demonstrate the unequivocal effects of poor leadership, as the catastrophic violence of a civil war nearly destroyed our young nation.

Jefferson Stretched Constitution to its Limit

By Jim O’Neal

Thomas Jefferson was 57 years old when he was sworn in as president on March 4, 1801, in a simple ceremony in Washington, D.C. He was the first president to take office in the new capital, then a city of 6,000, but without representation in Congress. In 1961, the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution granted the district one non-voting, at-large delegate to the House of Representatives and three electoral votes in presidential elections, but no representation in the U.S. Senate. In 1973, they were granted limited self-government, which includes a mayor and a city council with 13 elected members.

Since the passage of the amendment, the district’s three electoral votes have been cast for the Democratic Party’s presidential and vice presidential candidates in every election. They are bound by law to never have more electoral votes than a state (in this case Wyoming, which has three).

Denounced as a radical and atheist by his political opponents, Jefferson became the first leader of an opposition political party to wrest control of the national government from the party in power. Despite grim prophecies by the outgoing Federalists that the Constitution would be overthrown, he proved to the world the strength of the American republic and its democratic system. Jefferson believed the United States should remain an agrarian country of small farms and a national government that offered little interference in the lives of its citizens. He warned of the evils of large cities – with disease, poverty and centralized power that fostered corruption.

However, as president, in his own words, he “stretched the Constitution till it cracked” by using presidential powers to double the size of the country, presumably to give people room to spread out and avoid dense urbanization (the Louisiana Purchase), and discharge major political appointees of his predecessor. Chief Justice John Marshall restrained him from applying the same principle to federal judges.

After suffering through the embarrassment of the Aaron Burr-Alexander Hamilton affair, he chose the elderly George Clinton for vice president in his second term, with the obvious intent to ensure a VP that was too old to succeed him. He then orchestrated the election of his old Virginia friend and Secretary of State James Madison to become the fourth president.

Refusing all pleas for a third term, he more than welcomed his pending retirement, writing “Never did a prisoner released from his chains feel such relief I shall in shaking off the shackles of power … I thank God for the opportunity of retiring from them without censure and carrying with me the most consoling proofs of public approbation.”

For his epitaph, he asked for “not a word more” about his time as vice president or president. After 17 years in retirement, his wish was granted and his cherished University of Virginia (which he founded) and the Declaration of Independence seem fitting memorials for this remarkably versatile man to which we all owe an eternal debt of gratitude.

President Garfield’s Successor Had No Public Service, Military Experience

j-garfield — James Abram Garfield was born into abject poverty but rose to the highest office in the land.

By Jim O’Neal

James A. Garfield was the second president to be assassinated, serving only 200 days as chief executive. For 80 of those days, he lay near death with a bullet lodged in his spinal area. He finally died after a bevy of doctors probed for the bullet with their germ-laden hands and instruments (the X-ray was 14 years in the future). He succumbed to the massive infection they unwittingly created.

The last president elected who was born in a log cabin, Garfield was a self-made man in the tradition of Horatio Alger (who was then at the height of his popularity). He worked as a canal boat boy at 17, became a college president at 26, and was the youngest general in the Union Army at age 30. After 17 years in the House and Senate, he became the leader of the Republican Party and was one of the finest orators of that era.

His predecessor, President Rutherford B. Hayes, wrote: “The truth is no man ever started so low that accomplished so much in all our history … not Franklin or Lincoln … He is the ideal candidate because he is the ideal self-made man.”

After being sworn in on the Capitol steps on March 4, 1881, the 49-year-old Garfield’s first act was to turn and kiss his aged mother … the first time a president’s mom was present at an inauguration.

Chester Alan Arthur, on the other hand, had never been elected to public office before becoming Garfield’s vice president, and he also had no leadership experience from the military. This was a first in American politics, where the word “politician” had become synonymous with “corrupt.” He was known as “The Gentleman Boss” of the Republican Party in New York City, always behind the scenes building the organization and managing the elections of others.

Only two years earlier, President Hayes had made Arthur the symbol of the evils of patronage by dismissing him as Collector of the Port of New York – an action hailed as a triumph of reform. No wonder that even a leading Republican exclaimed, “Chet Arthur President of the United States. Good God!”

The White House that greeted the new President Arthur was weathered by months of grief. Early autumn rains had soaked the crepe, sending streaks of black dye running down the chalky white walls. There had been no president in the White House for a month, and when Arthur examined the entire house, the disarray was depressing, with pipes for cooling still cluttering the floors upstairs, canvas pipes stretched up the stairwell, and others poking into the heating vents. Baggy summer slipcovers and naked, shuttered windows were everywhere. Some of the walls and ceilings were stripped and partially sanded, just as the painters had left them.

The wealthy new president took over the pathetic renovation that was under way and hired designer Louis Tiffany to renovate it completely in art nouveau style. He also added the elevator that had been ordered for Garfield. It was obviously not electric and required an elaborate hydraulic system that proved the source of endless problems.

Happily, all of the cleanup was completed – and the new president decided to clean up the civil service system, as well. He pledged to Congress to support any reasonable merit system they thought was practical and kept his word by signing into law the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act on Jan. 16, 1883.

It is probably time to take another look at the current system, since a little sunlight is a good disinfectant.

President Tyler’s Extreme Use of His Veto Alienated Political Leaders

By Jim O’Neal

The election year of 1844 found President John Tyler in the awkward position of having no political party willing to nominate him for re-election. Tyler’s extreme use of his veto pen had alienated the Whigs, who were exasperated with his stubbornness and unwillingness to negotiate.

Earlier in February, the president, his cabinet members and several hundred prominent individuals (including Dolley Madison) were on the new steam-powered warship the USS Princeton when a gun’s celebratory shot exploded. When the smoke cleared, eight men lay dead, including Secretary of State Abel Upshur, Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer and ex-New York Senator David Gardiner.

Tyler ordered the bodies taken to the White House and laid in state in the East Room, where the funerals were held before burial in the Congressional Cemetery. Gardiner’s daughter Julia had been carried from the ship by President Tyler and chose to stay on at the White House to fully recuperate. Tyler’s first wife Letitia was the first First Lady to die in the White House and the president struck up a relationship with (the now-wealthy) Julia Gardiner. They were married four months later on June 16, 1844, causing quite a stir in the social circles of Washington. Tyler was 54 and Julia was 30 years younger. Over the years, she would bear seven children to join the eight from the earlier marriage.

Meanwhile, the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore was deadlocked between Martin Van Buren and Lewis Cass of Michigan. Then they received word that James Knox Polk was former President Andrew Johnson’s choice and so “Young Hickory” Polk was picked unanimously on the ninth ballot. When Polk’s nomination was flashed from Baltimore to Washington by Samuel F.B. Morse’s telegraph – the first official use of this new communication tool – Washington observers were sure the instrument had failed because the news was not plausible. Henry Clay, the Whig nominee, sarcastically asked, “Who is James K. Polk?”

It was a close contest, but Polk became the first “Dark Horse” candidate to win and the only Speaker of the House (ever) to be elected president. The 49-year-old Polk was also the youngest man to ever become president – to that time – when he took the oath of office on a rainy March 4, 1845. However, three days earlier on March 1, Congress passed a joint House-Senate resolution approving the annexation of Texas and Tyler signed it. And on his last day in office, Tyler also signed legislation admitting Florida as the 27th state.

On the same day, March 3, Congress mustered enough votes (two-thirds in each house) to override one of Tyler’s vetoes … the first time in history a presidential veto had been overridden. Immediately after Polk’s inauguration, Tyler and his family left for Virginia. Two days later, the Mexican minister to Washington filed a protest, calling the annexation of Texas an “act of aggression.” Mexico broke off diplomatic relations and the Mexican War soon followed.

Welcome to Washington, Mr. President.

Transfer of Power Between Hoover, Roosevelt Tense but Peaceful

herbert-hoover-classic-ok-america-button — This “OK America!” button from Herbert Hoover’s 1932 re-election campaign sold for $2,500 at a September 2015 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Herbert Hoover aspired to the presidency of the United States strictly for the opportunity to serve the public. When elected in 1928, he was universally recognized as the greatest living humanitarian. He helped organize the return of thousands of Americans stranded in Europe before the outbreak of World War I (taking no salary) and also directed the program for relief to millions of Belgians and French (after Germany invaded Belgium) as head of President Wilson’s Food Administration.

For several years after the war, he continued to serve without salary as Secretary of Commerce for presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge until he resigned to run for president in 1928. He won by a large margin and in his inauguration speech on March 4, 1929, he described the future of the country as being “bright with hope.”

Three and a half years later, Republican prosperity had vanished, beginning with the stock-market crash seven months after Hoover took office. Protesting veterans of the Bonus Army were camped out in sight of the Capitol and milling around the White House to display their frustration and bitterness.

Hoover was on a tour of the Midwest the day the stock market crashed. For seven rainy days, he plodded from town to town on his train, proclaiming prosperity to anyone willing to listen. He arrived home on Oct. 4, 1929, and at a press conference the next morning, he assured newsmen the country’s businesses stood on a solid foundation.

Days later, on Oct. 19, Black Tuesday, the stock market fell sharply, but the president earnestly believed this was only a tough patch, like the Panic of 1907. Like most people, he seems to have had little idea of how bad the worst would be. The plan he presented to Congress in December was totally unorthodox by calling on the federal government to save the day through a series of programs that included education reform, housing for the underprivileged, jobs in long-term construction, lower taxes and a balanced budget … while making government more effective and efficient.

To add to the gloom of 1929, the Executive Office burned to its walls on Christmas Eve as carolers serenaded. The destruction of the Executive Office was a better symbol for the Hoover presidency than the White House, since virtually all the programs failed and the country started a downward spiral that would continue until we had to gear up for the next world war.

In the summer of 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was nominated by the Democratic National Committee in Chicago. On Aug. 11, Hoover formally accepted the Republican nomination that had been offered several months earlier. But he chose to bury himself in work for the balance of August and all of September. By then, the Democrats were in full stride and FDR became the president-elect.

However, the transfer of office from Republican to Democrat was chilly. At best, the feeling between the two men was of mutual contempt. The Hoovers declined to host the traditional March 3 dinner for the incoming president, and the Roosevelts had no intention of attending. Hoover was frustrated that FDR did not accept any of his advice and Roosevelt had grown weary of listening. (This would lead to changing the inauguration of March 4 to January 20, since it was too long to have a lame duck badgering the new guy.)

A small awkward tea ceremony was finally negotiated and that was that. A quiet, peaceful transfer of the most powerful political office in the world.

The 1850s Represented a Challenging Time for America

u-s-senator-jefferson-davis-gold-pocket-watch — U.S. Senator Jefferson Davis presented this gold pocket watch to Franklin Pierce the year Pierce was nominated for president. Pierce was Davis’ favored candidate since Pierce had not openly opposed slavery. This watch sold for $15,535 at a June 2007 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

jefferson-davis-and-franklin-pierce In 1819, the United States was a divided nation with 11 states that permitted slavery and an equal number that did not. When Missouri applied for admission to join the Union as a slave state, tensions escalated dramatically since this would upset the delicate balance. It would also set a precedent by establishing the principle that Congress could make laws regarding slavery, a right many believed was reserved for the states.

In an effort to preserve harmony, Congress passed a compromise that accepted Missouri as a slave state and Massachusetts would be divided (creating Maine) and admitted as a free state. The passage of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 earned U.S. Senator Henry Clay the nickname of the “Great Pacificator.”

It was the first real crisis over the slavery issue and kicked the can all the way to the 1850s, however, observers like Thomas Jefferson were profoundly upset. He said just the threat of disunion in 1820 caused him to be apprehensive about the future. He foresaw the potential for civil war, saying, “My God, this country is going to have a blow up. When it hits us, it’s going to be like a tornado.”

Those words would prove to be eerily prophetic.

By the 1850s, the disagreement had splintered into a five-way dispute. Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans arguing with the Southern Democrats. The Northern Democrats, led by Stephen A. Douglas, versus the Southern Democrats through Jefferson Davis. There were heated arguments between Frederick Douglass (and the political abolitionists) and William Lloyd Garrison, who favored non-violent moral suasion, and both against the non-political-process abolition that led to John Brown’s violent actions.

The War with Mexico (1846-48) had fueled these contentious debates since there was no consensus on how to treat the vast new territories of California, Utah, New Mexico or even Texas. After years of wrangling, the Compromise of 1850 put a bandage on it and several other lingering issues (e.g., the Fugitive Slave Act, the banning of slave trade in Washington, D.C.). Neither side was satisfied, but the Union remained intact.

However, the tentative peace was fleeting. When the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, with cooperation between U.S. Senator Stephen Douglas and President Franklin Pierce, the inevitability of a civil war was finally a stark reality. The election of Lincoln in 1860 was the final straw and seven Southern states seceded, even before his inauguration, to form a new confederacy.

Formal hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired on the Federal seaport of Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., and would not end for four bloody years. Even Jefferson’s metaphor of a tornado never contemplated the death and destruction that took place.

Let’s Not Forget that America Remains a Unique Place

medal-struck-for-henry-clay — A U.S. Mint medal struck for presentation to Henry Clay in 1852 sold for $346,000 at a September 2016 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The 1800 census reported 5.3 million people living in the United States – more than twice the number in the colonies at the beginning of the American Revolution. There were four cities with populations greater than 10,000 – Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Half of all Americans were under 16 years old.

The men and women who were born between 1776 and 1800 would not have had any contact with the colonial era. They would have none of the sensibilities of having been subjects of the King of England. They were the inheritors of the revolution and took seriously that they had inherited a remarkable revolution. They intended to demonstrate to a world of monarchs what democracy, what a democratic society could truly be.

Thomas Jefferson’s influence was the most pervasive in this generation and was constantly the subject of discussion. The statesman Henry Clay loomed as a hero as did DeWitt Clinton, because of his leadership in building the Erie Canal. Jefferson was important because he so clearly articulated a different conception of what a republic could be and he had a unique vision of how human beings could participate in their society. He is a point of reference throughout this period.

Once the Revolutionary War was won, there was an outpouring of people into the western parts of New York, Virginia, Georgia and Pennsylvania. By 1820-1830, people primarily farmed since 85 percent lived in rural areas.

Then came the shift to commerce, manufacturing and the professions – medical, teaching, preaching, legal. This required an infrastructure of teachers as literacy spread almost everywhere. Railroads, canals, steamboats and roads were all enablers of this new society, allowing it to flourish and grow.

The military was small, other than the swelling for the War of 1812, but troops quickly demobilized from 70,000 back down to 14,000. West Point was teaching civil engineering, with military people participating in economic life via the railroads and canals. Each veteran received 160 acres of land and they pushed further west.

In the North, almost everyone was educated, including free blacks. In the South, fewer were educated, but there were lots of academics for planters’ children. When the British writers Frances Trollope and Charles Dickens toured America, they found a society that was intoxicatingly free and saw things they loved: the outpouring of human energy, voluntary association at will, the zeal of forming a society to determine America’s character.

To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin when asked what the founders had created: “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

The first generation of Americans did a pretty fair job and we are still reaping the benefits of their efforts. I hope this generation does as well in keeping the flame of liberty burning brightly. America is still a unique place on Earth.

President Wilson’s Daughters Were Champions of Women’s Suffrage

suffrage-poster-inez-milholland — A poster featuring Inez Milholland Boissevain was produced to commemorate her ride through Washington, D.C., and her fateful death in 1916. This example realized $402.50 at a June 2005 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

On March 3, 1913, the day before the presidential inauguration, the Thomas Woodrow Wilson family arrived in Washington, D.C. There was very scant attention paid to the arrival of the new president-elect since it coincided with an unusually high-profile demonstration.

About 8,000 women, led by Vassar-educated lawyer Inez Milholland Boissevain (astride a beautiful white horse), were marching in the capital’s streets to further the cause of women’s suffrage. There were marching bands, floats and pageantry galore along the route. The demonstration was intended to emphasize frustrations with the slow progress in Congress, despite the many years of effort to gain national rights.

Prior to 1912, only 1.3 million women in six states had equal voting rights with men and a mere three states had been added for a grand total of nine. However, the movement seemed to be gaining broader support, although eight more years would be needed before the 19th Amendment was approved.

On this particular day, the crowds were boisterous and opponents took delight in spitting on their banners and throwing lighted cigarettes and cigars at and on marchers. At times, the crowds got out of control and more than 100 people were trampled or bruised to the point they required hospital care.

The three Wilson daughters, Margaret, Jessie and Eleanor (nicknamed Nellie), were all ardent supporters of women’s suffrage and were constantly badgering their father to make it a priority even before he was elected. Jessie had even taken a bold stance while in college and ended up resigning from her sorority when her efforts were scorned.

jessie-woodrow-wilson-sayre — Jessie Woodrow Wilson

Jessie Woodrow Wilson was born on Aug. 28, 1887, and educated far beyond most women of the day, similar to outgoing First Lady Helen Taft. She had studied at Goucher College and Princeton, where she was Phi Betta Kappa after her high academic accomplishments. After college, she worked at the Lighthouse Settlement House for women millworkers, where she observed firsthand the downtrodden women, and it transformed her into a passionate supporter of women’s suffrage and equal rights.

In 1915, Margaret acted as honorary hostess for the convention of the National American Women Suffrage Association (later known as the League of Women Voters) and Eleanor would speak at the convention along with members of her father’s cabinet. 1915 was also the first year a U.S. president would attend the World Series. The Philadelphia Phillies won the first game, but it would take 65 years before the next one (1980). The Red Sox easily won the series 4-1. Their pitching staff was so good that a young pitching star named George “Babe” Ruth was limited to a single appearance as a pinch-hitter (he grounded out).

Jessie Wilson continued her political career and even introduced Al Smith as the first Catholic presidential nominee in 1928 (he lost to Herbert Hoover), and was obviously poised for big things when Franklin D. Roosevelt won the first of his four elections and dominated the Democratic Party.

Alas, on Jan. 15, 1933, Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre died at age 45 following complications from abdominal surgery. I suspect she would have been heavily involved in politics had she lived a longer life.

Historian Understood How Frontier Shaped Character of Americans

frederick-jackson-turner-the-significance-of-the-frontier — Frederick Jackson Turner’s address “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” had its first print appearance in “Proceedings of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin at its Forty-First Annual Meeting.” A copy of the 1894 book, original spine perished, realized $3,250 at a September 2016 auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Frederick Jackson Turner was a young, undistinguished American historian at the University of Wisconsin in 1893, yet he was invited to join a list of speakers at a conference of the American Historical Association being held at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The odd location had prompted many of the nation’s best scholars to decline to attend, primarily because of concern they would be reading their latest papers over the din of an outsized carnival.

Of course, the entire decade of the 1890s was viewed as unusual by many, with a pervasive sense that something important was ending. It was also a tumultuous time. The Massacre at Wounded Knee (1890) had resulted in the deaths of several hundred Lakota Sioux – the last major armed conflict between American Indians and the U.S. Army. Ellis Island had opened as a U.S. immigration depot and over the next 20 years, 13 million immigrants would enter via the island. Wyoming became the 44th state to enter the union, the first with women’s suffrage. There was the Panic of 1893, when the government almost ran out of gold and had to get help from J.P. Morgan.

More importantly, the census of 1890 reported that the frontier had vanished! Many Americans had a powerful sense that they were running up against the end of their history and were on the verge of something new, but unknown.

For Turner, this was a totally unexpected opportunity – a career breakthrough – to expound on his pet theology, developed over years of study. An avid fisherman, hiker and proponent of the American West, he had concluded that American life and character owed a debt to the pursuit of the frontier. And now, the 1890 census declared it closed – all of the land explored, claimed and settled. The young Turner saw a nation facing a crisis of the unknown.

However, Turner’s thesis was elementary and appealing. He declared that American pioneers were not simply transplanted Europeans, but a people unto themselves and shaped by their environment, as opposed to their history or institutions. The frontier hardship made them self-reliant and individualist. Free land made them generous and optimistic. Frontier challenges required them to adapt, innovate and even cooperate democratically.

Frederick Jackson Turner on the significance of the frontier in American history:

“American democracy was born of no theorist’s dream. It came out of the American forest and gained new strength each time it touched a new frontier.

“The wilderness masters the colonist. … It takes from him the railroad car and puts him in a birch canoe. It strips off the garments of civilization and arrays him in the hunting shirt and moccasin. … Little by little he transforms the wilderness, but the outcome is not the old Europe. … Here is a new product that is American.”

Teddy Roosevelt and I both wholeheartedly agree with Turner’s thesis about the role of the frontier in shaping the character of Americans.