Progressive Historians :: American America History

Progressive Historiansvirtuoso must decide the meaning of progressive historiography. It lavatory mean either the history written by progressive historians, or it can mean history written by historians of the Progressive era of American history and shortly after. The focus that was chosen for this paper is more in keeping with the latter interpretation, if for no other reason than it provides a useful compare-and-contrast run literature. The caveat is this the focus of this report is on the predominant question of the historiographical period was the warfare a revolution or a war for independence? One could choose many other questions to argue, questions that historians have for years disputed about the revolution, but there are a number of reasons why this report was chosen for this particular assignment the two best follow. First, it is an old and time-honored question that professors and instructors have posed to their students for years of pre-Civil War historiographical quest ions, it is perhaps second only in fashion during the last twenty to twenty-five years to the Jefferson-Hemmings paternity controversy. Second, the revolution-or-independence question is one of those which must be answered through interpretation. A case cannot be do that is so utterly conclusive as to exclude all others it is that very fact that makes history at once so frustrating and so fascinating. What unwrap way could there be to look at the writings of a specific school of historians? Therefore, in the pursuit of personal truth, we must proceed... Perhaps the almost famous of all progressive historians is Frederick Jackson Turner. His most famous argument is not devoted strictly to the American Revolution, but instead to the effects of the American frontier. In a sentence, his argument is that the frontier was the chief determinant in American history. This is not to say that Turner did not write about the war he did, in his seminal work, The Frontier in American History, t here are discussions of the frontiers effect on the coming of the revolution. It is worth noting, before exploring Turners arguments, that the frontier in this period was only about one hundred miles from the Atlantic coast. Of course, as the period under scrutiny approaches the war chronologically, the frontier moves away from the ocean. But it is all-important(prenominal) to remember that Turner defines the Jamestown of Captain John Smith in 1607 as the frontier in its initial stage.