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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
In 1957, when William Langer called the attention of professional historians to the “urgently needed deepening of … historical understanding” by means of the application of modern psychoanalytic theory to the problems of history, he seemed to have in mind the use of these constructs in the writing of biography and for the analysis of obviously irrational movements. In half praise, a critic found it interesting that this suggestion was not extended to the “study of the psychic foundations of civilization and the historical process as a whole”. While encompassing less grand designs than these in this paper, I would like to add a further, but simpler, extension of my own. I would like to use psychoanalytic understanding in an attempt to shed light upon some aspects of a well-known problem in American historiography, the frontier thesis of Frederick Jackson Turner.
1 Langer, William L., “The Next Assignment”, The American Historical Review, LXIII (1958), 283–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a compilation of papers dealing with the application of psychoanalysis to history, see: Mazlish, Bruce (ed.), Psychoanalysis and History (Englewood Cliffs, 1963)Google Scholar; also see: Eissler, K. R., “Freud and the Psychoanalysis of History”, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, II (1963), 675–703CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Eissler argues that thinking in terms of psychoanalysis needs to be integrated by cultural scientists “in the same sense a knowledge of physics and chemistry is expected to be at the fingertips of anyone who wants to work in any of the various departments of natural science.” Also see: Schmidl, Fritz, “Psychoanalysis and History”, Psychoanalytic Quarterly, XXXI (1962), 532–48Google ScholarPubMed.
2 Roszak, Theodore, “The Historian as Psychiatrist”, Nation, 195 (1926), 343–48Google Scholar.
3 Louis Hacker, “Section or Classes”, in Taylor, George R., The Turner Thesis (Boston, 1956), 43–6Google Scholar. However, Mood, Fulmer in “The Development of Frederick Jackson Turner as a Historical Thinker”, Colonial Society of Massachusetts Transactions, 34: 283–352Google Scholar, points out that the earliest criticism appeared in 1909 in Meany's, Edmond S. article, “The Towns of the Pacific Northwest Were Not Founded on the Fur Trade”, AnnualReport of the American Historical Association for the Year 1909 (Washington, 1911), 165–172Google Scholar.
4 Wish, Harvey, The American Historian (New York, 1960), 181–208Google Scholar.
5 Jacobs, Wilber R., “Frederick J. Turner – Master Teacher”, Pacific Historical Review, 23 (1954), 49–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 Carl Becker, “Frederick Jackson Turner”, in Odum, Howard W. (ed.), American Masters of Social Science (New York, 1927), 273–318Google Scholar; Curti, Merle, “The Sections and the Frontier in American History”, in Rice, Stuart (ed.), Methods in Social Science (Chicago, 1931), 353–67Google Scholar; Mood, Fulmer, “Turner's Formative Period”, in Edwards, E. (ed.), The Early Writings of Frederick Jackson Turner (Madison, 1938), 3–39Google Scholar; Craven, Avery, “Frederick Jackson Turner, Historian”, in Burnette, O. Lawrence, Jr. (et al,), Wisconsin Witness to Frederick Jackson Turner (Madison, 1961), 100–116Google Scholar, hereaftercited as Burnette, Wisconsin Witness, also found in Wisconsin Magazine of History, 25 (1941–2), 408–24Google Scholar.
7 Turner, Frederick J., The Frontier in American History (New York, 1958), 259Google Scholar; hereinafter, Turner, The Frontier.
8 Goodrich, C. and Davison, S., “The Wage-earner in the Westward Movement I”, Political Science Quarterly, 50 (1935), 164CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Goodrich, C. and Davison, S., “The Wage-earner in the Westward Movement II”, Political Science Quarterly, 51 (1936), 114–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Kane, Murray, “Some Considerations on the Safety Valve Doctrine”, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 23 (1936), 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Ibid., 186.
12 Ibid., 187.
13 Ibid., 188.
14 Joseph Schafer, “Some Facts Bearing on the Safety-valve Theory”, in Burnette, Wisconsin Witness, 68–84. Also, Wisconsin Magazine of History, 20 (1936–37), 216–32Google Scholar.
15 Ibid., 84.
16 Shannon, Fred A., “A Post Mortem on the Labor Safety-valve Theory”, Agricultural History, 19 (1945), 31–37Google Scholar.
17 Ibid., 34.
18 Ibid., 37.
19 Ibid.
20 Nardroff, Ellen von, “The American Frontier as a Safety-valve - The Life, Death, Reincarnation and Justification of a Theory”, Agricultural History, XXXVI (July, 1962), 123–42Google Scholar.
21 Ibid, 137.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., 138.
24 J. A. Burkhart, “The Turner Thesis: A Historian's Controversy”, in Burnette, Wisconsin, 160–73; Wisconsin Magazine of History, 31 (September, 1947), 70–83Google Scholar.
25 Hacker, op. cit., 45–46.
26 Malin, James, “The Turner-Mackinder Space Concept of History”, Essays in Historiography (Lawrence, 1946), 1–44Google Scholar.
27 Ibid., 42–43.
28 Benjamin F. Wright, Jr., “Political Institutions and the Frontier”, in G. R. Taylor, op. cit., 39.
29 Ibid., 42.
30 Freund, Rudolf, “Turner's Theory of Social Evolution”, Agricultural History, 19 (April, 1945), 79Google Scholar.
31 Ibid., 87.
32 Pierson, George W., “The Frontier and Frontiersman of Turner's Essay”, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 64 (October, 1940), 449–78Google Scholar; hereinafter, Pierson, “The Frontiersman”.
33 George W. Pierson, “The Frontier and American Institutions”, in G. R. Taylor, op. cit., 47–65; hereinafter, Pierson, “American Institutions”.
34 Pierson, “The Frontiersman”, 478.
35 Pierson, “American Institutions”, 64–65.
36 Hofstadter, Richard, “Turner and the Frontier Myth”, American Scholar, XVIII (October, 1949), 433–43Google Scholar.
37 Ibid., 440. Also see: Danhof, Clarence, “Farm Making Costs and the Safety Valve”, Journal of Political Economy, XLIX (June, 1941), 317–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Danhof makes the additional point that credit, the other way for laborers to accrue settlement funds, was both short term and expensive.
38 Ibid., 435. Lee Benson in his book, Turner and Beard (Glencoe, 1960)Google Scholar has exorted historians to “subject the frontier thesis to a thorough and most searching re-evaluation” (page 90), although he realized that before a restatement or reappraisal could be made, contradictory elements needed untangling and ambiguities had to be removed (page viii).
39 George W. Pierson, “American Historians and the Frontier Hypothesis in 1941”, I and II in Burnette, Wisconsin Witness, 118–59; Wisconsin Magazine of History, 26 (1942), 36–60, 170–85Google Scholar.
40 Davis, W. N., Jr., “Will the West Survive as a Field in American History? A Survey Report”, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, L (March, 1964), 672–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41 Ibid., 680.
42 Cf., Merle Curti, “The Sections and the Frontier in American History”, op. cit., 364, with Curti, Merle, “Frederick Jackson Turner”, in Burnette, Wisconsin Witness, 175–204Google Scholar.
43 Hofstadter, op. cit., 435.
44 Wright, op. cit., 40–1.
45 Pierson, “The Frontiersman”, 452.
46 Ibid., 453.
47 George W. Pierson, “American Historians and the Frontier Hypothesis in 1941”, I and II, op. cit., 158.
48 48 Ibid.
49 Smith, Henry M., Virgin Land, The American West as Symbol and Myth (Cambridge, 1950), 253Google Scholar.
50 Pierson, “The Frontiersman”, 454.
51 Turner, The Frontier, 213–14.
52 Ibid., 267.
53 Ibid., 268.
54 Ibid., 261.
55 Ibid., 3.
56 Ibid.
57 Freund, op. cit., 85.
58 Pierson, “The Frontiersman”, 467.
59 Turner, The Frontier, 259–60.
60 Ibid., 269–70.
61 Ibid., 270.
62 Ibid., 306.
63 Pierson, “The Frontiersman”, 472–76.
64 Turner, The Frontier, 206–7.
65 Ibid., 169.
66 Ibid., 183.
67 Ibid., 247.
68 Ibid., 210.
69 Turner, Frederick J., The Significance of Sections in American History (New York, 1932), 23–24Google Scholar; hereinafter, Turner, Sections.
70 Ibid., 24.
71 Turner, The Frontier, 250.
72 Ibid., 257.
73 Ibid., 36.
74 Ibid., 212.
75 Ibid., 153.
76 Ibid., 272.
77 Ibid., 37, footnote 54.
78 Ibid., 211–12.
79 Ibid., 354–5.
80 Ibid., 205.
81 Ibid., 294.
82 Ibid., 320.
83 Ibid., 276–7.
84 Freud, S., The Interpretation of Dreams (New York, 1913), 222–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Benedek, T., “Personality Development”, in Alexander, F. and Ross, H. (eds.), Dynamic Psychiatry (Chicago, 1952), 63–113Google Scholar.
85 Turner, The Frontier, 4, 270.
86 Ibid., 302.
87 Ibid., 216.
88 Ibid., 293.
89 Unconscious communication is the sine qua non of psychoanalytic therapy. To clarify my usage, see S. Freud, Totem and Taboo in Brill, A. A. (ed.), The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (New York, 1938), 928Google Scholar; Freud deals with the idea of symbol, totem, and taboo formation and states that each individual has an “apparatus” which gives an unconscious understanding of customs and ceremonies. It is this same “apparatus” which allowed the readers of the frontier thesis to unconsciously understand the hidden themes. Freud felt the oedipal theme is universal and is a part of each person's unconscious, thus accounting for the popularity of the Oedipus legend and drama. He interpreted oedipal themes in Macbeth and used this insight to give understanding to Lady Macbeth, in “Some Character Types Met With in Psychoanalytic Work”, Collected Papers, 4 (New York, 1959), 318–44Google Scholar.
90 Turner, The Frontier, 259.
91 Kane, op. cit., 188.
92 Benedek, op. cit., 90.
93 Ibid.
94 S. Freud, “One of the Difficulties of Psycho-analysis”, Collected Papers, 4, 347–56. In this article, Freud relates that man has suffered three blows to his narcissism; the first of these was a cosmological one when general recognition was given in the theory of Copernicus - man could no longer hold the belief that he was at the center of theuniverse; the second blow was a biological one and was delivered by Darwin - man could no longer hold the belief that he was but a step below the angels, when scientifically he was merely a step above the animals; and the final blow, the psychological one, was given by Freud, when he showed that man's reason and behavior are frequently unconsciously derived. In somewhat the same sense I have used the word omnipotence in order to include the magical thinking of childhood. Roszak, op. cit. alludes t o a less healthy version of this when he mentions “historians who dote on the vicarious power they derive from dealing so thickly in the affairs of the mighty”.
95 See, Freud, S., The Ego and the Id (London, 1950)Google Scholar; Edoardo Weiss, “History of Metapsychological Concepts”, in Alexander and Rose, op. cit., 40–62.
96 Turner, The Frontier, 179.
97 Ibid., 153.
98 Wish, op. cit., 191. Wish notes these as the most quoted sentences.
99 Turner, The Frontier, 12.
100 I have already cited Craven, Becker, Jacobs and Curti; also see, Dale, Edward E., “Memories of Frederick Jackson Turner”, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXX (1943), 339–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
101 Louise Phelps Kellogg as quoted in Jacobs, op. cit., 55.
102 Curti, “The Sections and the Frontier in American History”, op. cit., 358.
103 Turner, The Frontier, 1; see footnote 1.
104 Mood, “Turner's Formative Period”, op. cit., 35. Mood deduces this from Turner's statement to Curti that, “A man does not make a fundamental discovery or effect a profound alteration in science after he is thirty.”
105 Ibid., 5.
106 Mood, “The Development of Frederick Jackson Turner as a Historical Thinker”, op. cit., 327.
107 Curti, “Frederick Jackson Turner”, op. cit., 183–4.
108 Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. I (New York, 1928), 211Google Scholar.
109 Curti, “Frederick Jackson Turner”, op. cit., 181.
110 Mood, “Turner's Formative Period”, op. cit., 9.
111 Ibid.
112 Dictionary of American Biography, I, op cit., 211.
113 Mood, “Turner's Formative Period”, op. cit., 10.
114 Ibid., 13.
115 Ibid., 26.
116 Ibid., 25.
117 Ibid., 27.
118 Mood, “The Development of Frederick Jackson Turner as a Historical Thinker”, op. cit., 285.
119 Ibid. Also, Berthrong, Donald J., “Andrew Jackson Turner ‘Work Horse’ of the Republican Party”, Wisconsin Magazine of History, 38 (1954–55), 86Google Scholar.
120 Freud, S., “The Economic Problem in Masochism”, Collected Papers, 2 (New York, 1959), 255–68Google Scholar; for a concise discussion of guilt see pages 263–6.
121 Mood, “The Development of Frederick Jackson Turner as a Historical Thinker”, op. cit., 282.
122 Dictionary of American Biography, op. cit., 211.
123 Ibid., 69–70.
124 Feldman, A. Bronson, The Unconscious in History (New York, 1959), 35Google Scholar.
125 Berthong, op. cit., 79.
126 Feldman, op. cit., 35–6.
127 This paper, 367–69.
128 Benson, op. cit., 90.
129 Turner as quoted in Joseph Schafer, “Turner's Autobiographical Letter to Constance Lindsay Skinner”, in Bernette, Wisconsin Witness, 55–67; Wisconsin Magazine of History, 19 (1935–36), 91–103Google Scholar.
130 Stephenson, W. H., “The Influence of Woodrow Wilson on Frederick Jackson Turner”, Agricultural History, 19 (October, 1945), 252Google Scholar.
131 Ibid., see footnote 12.
132 Wish, op. cit.; Curti, “The Section and Frontier in American History”, op. cit.
133 Stephanson, op. cit., 252.
134 Mood, “The Development of Frederick Jackson Turner as a Historical Thinker”, op. cit., 321 (italics mine).
135 Philips, op. cit., 22 (italics mine).
136 Ibid. (italics mine).
137 Billington, Ray A., “Why Some Historians Rarely Write History: A Case Study of Frederick Jackson Turner”, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, L (June, 1963), 3–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
138 Ibid., 15.
139 Ibid., 16.
140 Ibid., 9.
141 Ibid., 18.
142 Ibid., 20–1.
143 Ibid.(italics mine).
144 Phillips, op. cit., 22.
145 Ibid.
146 Ibid.
147 Turner, The Frontier, 211.
148 Freud, “Some Character-Types Met with in Psychoanalytic Work”, op. cit., 323–41.
149 Ibid., 341.
150 Billington, op. cit., 20–1, 27.
