Restless Americans: The Significance of Movement in American History (With a Nod to F. J. Turner)

Abstract

The Thesis Regardless of merits of Frederick Jackson Turner's Thesis (Turner), it is clear that from first days of Republic, phenomenon of movement characterized Americans, and influenced them as much as did frontier. Directly or indirectly it influenced virtually everyone, from elites to dispossessed; its influence continues. Understanding that influence? which can be quite subtle as well as overt? requires more than familiarity with integrated history of transportation, and certainly more than familiarity with railroads, airlines, or automobile with its highways. How has freedom? and at least as important, ability? to move affected Americans' views of themselves, their tendency toward individualism, their government and politics, their environment, and structure of their daily lives? To be sure, especially in country's early decades, movement affected different groups in varied ways. Native populations tended to be pushed aside - or more likely, far away? often even to be crushed. Those of African descent frequently found themselves forcibly moved by having been sold, or relocated as slaveholders increasingly occupied territories. After passage of decades when automobile culture burgeoned, African Americans participated in restless movement across nation as did other Americans, but even during much of twentieth century, as discussed below, they faced obstacles to their movement that most of population did not encounter. The people's push westward covering continent? and extending beyond into Pacific and north to Alaska? is only most dramatic manifestation. When Yale's George W. Pierson nearly five decades ago wrote of M-Factor in American history, he defined term as migration, mobility, and identified M-Factor as key to what nation had become (Pierson 78). Pierson apparently hoped that American historians would take up his coinage as they had done Frontier Thesis, and that it would enter American Studies discourse and become as common there as John Kenneth Galbraith's felicitous phrase, conventional wisdom (from his 1958 classic, The Affluent Society) was to become in general public's vocabulary (Galbraith chap. 3). It was not to be. Perhaps failure came about because Pierson was merely developing academic jargon to apply to obvious. Certainly, though, Pierson was correct. Americans were restless from beginning, and remain so. Early Government and Movement on Road and Water Already by 1790s, a boom had begun in construction of private toll roads. Earlier roads generally had been creations of local governments, which meant? in view of limited resources available? that they were poorly built and maintained, limited in distance, and otherwise wholly inadequate. As Republic began, the poor state of road system was a major problem .... a viable steamboat had not yet been built, canal construction was hard to finance and limited in scope, and first American railroad would not be completed for another forty years (Klein and Majewski). This meant that improvements in transportation required better roads, and it meant also that private resources would be required to supplement limited resources available to public bodies. In 1792, Pennsylvania chartered first private turnpike in country, spanning 62 miles between Philadelphia and Lancaster. By 1810, there were nearly four hundred such roads (Klein and Majewski). Until coming of railroad, only options for movement were by horseback, wagon or carriage, on foot, or by water. Water afforded easiest movement, but greatly restricted direction and destination. Ingenious Americans looked for ways to bend waterways to their will, and ultimately managed to overcome many of obstacles to canals, since they seemed to be obvious solution to problem. …