The Persistence of the "Frontier Thesis" in America: Gender, Myth, and Self-Destruction

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In 1893, the United States experienced the worst economic depression in its history. The depression was accompanied by a series of violent workers' strikes, a march on Washington by Civil War veterans, the growth of a national labour movement, and massive immigration of non-English speak- ing, non-Protestant, southern and eastern Europeans. To many commen- tators it seemed as if American society was splitting apart, about to explode.