The American Character
Bascom Hill Historic District
At the end of the nineteenth century, one of the most popular classes at the University of Wisconsin was Frederick Jackson Turner's course on the American frontier. In those lectures, Turner shared beliefs about our nation's history that would help define what it means to be an American. His "Frontier Thesis" traced strains of American self-reliance and individualism to the hard experience of colonizing the rugged West. Turner's argument became one of the most influential ideas about the American experience ever posed in a classroom.
This marker is made possible by a grant from the UW Foundation
Courtesy hmdb.org
