Chicago’s 1893 World’s Fair was a 600-acre celebration of American exceptionalism. There, amid the wonders and marvels of the modern world, the American Historical Association held its annual meeting.
Among the learned papers heard at the conference was “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” an essay by Frederick Jackson Turner that later earned a Pulitzer Prize. The Turner thesis held that life on the frontier shaped the unique American character.
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