Frederick Jackson Turner: Historian, Scholar, Teacher

by Ray Allen Billington

From boyhood to manhood, 1861-1884 -- The making of a historian : Wisconsin, 1884-1888 -- The making of a historian : John Hopkins, 1888-1889 -- Teaching : and the emerging frontier thesis, 1892-1893 -- The busy world of the professor, 1893-1901 -- Broadening historical horizons, 1893-1910 -- Popularizing the frontier thesis, 1893-1910 -- The genesis of the sectional concept, 1893-1910 -- Teacher and administrator, 1910-1910 -- Undergraduate teacher and reformer, 1901-1910 -- Leaving Wisconsin, 1905-1910 -- Harvard years : the academic world, 1910-1917 -- Harvard years : conflict, academic and international, 1915-1920 -- Harvard years : the world of scholarship, 1917-1924 -- The twilight years, 1924-1932 -- Frederick Jackson Turner : a portrait of the man -- The persistence of a theory : the frontier and sectional hypotheses -- The significance of Frederick Jackson Turner in American History.

Genres: History, Biography

632 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 1973

About the author

Ray Allen Billington was an American historian focusing his work on the history of the American frontier and the American West, becoming one of the leading defenders of Frederick Jackson Turner's "Frontier Thesis" from the 1950s to the 1970s, expanding the field of the history of the American West. He was a co-founder of the Western History Association in 1961.

Reviews

[James Bechtel · Rating 5 out of 5]

FJ Turner's "frontier thesis" was a far more complex set of ideas and methodologies than I had thought. Its relevance was for both the past as well as the present. His conclusions - some quite unexpected - seem to be sustained even today by historians. All of this was very clearly and forcefully explained and contextualized by RA Billington.

[Yeoldehoosier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although he was a seminal force in the study of the American frontier, Turner's thesis has been superseded by time and scholarship. This is a detailed biography, which would appeal most to young scholars thinking about history as a career. This is another book headed to the give away pile.