The progenitor of this idea summarized it with the statement "American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth.
Description acceptableThis idea was first discussed in the Johns Hopkins history seminar supervised by Herbert Baxter Adams, one of the originators of the "Anglo-Saxon thesis" this idea was meant to replace. The fact that economic migrants are positively selected, and the contemporaneous development of market towns and infrastructure with the title phenomenon, are two counts against this idea as a matter of historical interpretation. This idea was a creature of the perceived decline in social mobility and rising class conflict of the (*) Gilded Age. The progenitor of this idea summarized it with the statement "American democracy was born of no theorist's dream; it was not carried in the Susan Constant to Virginia, nor in the Mayflower to Plymouth. It came out of the American forest." For 10 points, name this "thesis" about the origins of American egalitarianism put forward in 1893 by Frederick Jackson Turner.
Description acceptableThis idea was first discussed in the Johns Hopkins history seminar supervised by Herbert Baxter Adams, one of the originators of the "Anglo-Saxon thesis" this idea was meant to replace.
frontier thesis (accept "Turner thesis" before "Turner"; accept The Significance of the Frontier in American History)