THE AMERICAN FANTASY AS TO, OR WILLFUL REFUSAL TO OWN UP TO, ITS TRUE CHARACTER

Caroline Fraser, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder )New York; Metropolitan Books, 2017):

But more than anything written before, [Frederick Jackson] Turner's earnest celebration of the pioneer farmer as a 'rash prophet,' herald of 'a better world,' would become immensely celebrated and influential. Americans wanted to believe that grit, spunk, and the strength of their own ax-wielding arms had raised a democracy in the wilderness. They wanted to believe that felling forests, breaking sod, and turning 'free land' into golden grain had indeed 'furnish[ed] the forces dominating American character.' Millions of people who never read Turner's thesis nonetheless came to hold it dear, treasuring the fantasy that a fistful of dollars and a plow could magically produce not only a farm but a nation.
    Since1893, scholars have analyzed deconstructed, and debunked the Frontier Thesis, noting its sentimentality and biases. Turner failed to address key factors, including the role of railroads, banks, and other corporate entities benefiting from the federal government's largesse, in the form of millions of acres of the best farmland. As Turner spoke, he also neglected to take into account the remorseless ecological ravages of American agriculture and the widespread collapse of farms taking place around him.
    But in all the Great Plains literature to come . . . every writer would be echoing the assumptions of the Turner thesis. It was a manifesto of the country's willful refusal to recognize the limitations of the land.

Id. at 173-174, citations omitted. True then, still true now!