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The Development of Theatre on the American Frontier, 1750–1890

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2009

Douglas McDermott
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Extract

The Garden of Eden is the first frontier of which we have record, and every subsequent new geographic region has been invested with the same sense of mystery and promise as the first one. Nowhere has this been more true than in America. From the time of its discovery it has been a promised land for those residing elsewhere, and after the initial settlement of the eastern seaboard its western territory continued to beckon. So strong and continuous was the appeal of the frontier that in 1893 Frederick Jackson Turner could assert: “The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , May 1978 , pp. 63 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1978

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References

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