Essay About Fourth Edition And Ray Allen Billington

Westward Expansion
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Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier, by Ray Allen Billington, with
the collaboration of James Blaine Hedges (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company,
1949, Fourth Edition, 1974, 840 pp., maps, tables, bibliography, index.)
As the preface to the first edition states, Westward Expansion attempts to follow
the pattern that Frederick Jackson Turner might have used had he ever compressed his
researches on the American frontier within one volume. Dr. Billington makes no pretense
of original scholarship except in limited instances. Instead a synthesis of the voluminous
writings inspired by Turners original essays is presented. In that respect, the book is
highly successful. Dr. Billington masterfully weaves these monographs, essays, texts, and
learned journals, into a readable yet pedantic overview of the history of the American
West.
Subsequent editions incorporate and appraise the newer viewpoints on the frontier
advanced from the date of original publication in 1949 through 1981, the year of Dr.
Billingtons death. The fifth and final edition was published in 1982. Textual revisions
from the fourth to the fifth edition were slight. Certain changes were made to rid the text
of sexism, as masculine nouns and pronouns gave way to neutral words. Thus,
“frontiersmen” became “pioneers” or “Westerners.”
All editions share an outstanding bibliography. The fourth edition bibliography is
nearly 150 pages long. As in previous editions, Dr. Billington followed the practice of
briefly summarizing each new entry, suggesting its significance in the historiography of the
frontier. The book also provides a variety of maps and charts to aptly exemplify points.
Dr. Billington was a professor of history and senior research associate of the
Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, at Northwestern University when the book
was written. He has been described as a disciple of Frederick Jackson Turner, of Harvard
University, who first formulated the “frontier hypothesis.” The first chapter of Westward
Expansion is revealingly entitled “The Frontier Hypothesis.”
The thesis of the book is that no one force did more to “Americanize” the nations
people and institutions than the repeated rebirth of civilization along the western edge of
settlement during the three centuries required to occupy the continent. Bowing perhaps to
recent scholarship, Dr. Billington concedes that the westward moving area of free land
alone does not explain American development. The persistence of inherited European
traits, the continuous impact of changing world conditions, and the influence of varying
racial groups were equally important forces in shaping the nations distinctive civilization.
Still, the continuous rebirth of society in the western wilderness, provided Americans
unique characteristics not shared by the rest of the world. Thus, the most Dr. Billington
concedes is a modification of Turner, not a refutation.
According to Dr. Billington, the frontier was a vast westward moving zone,
contiguous to the populated portions of the country, peopled by a variety of
self-aggrandizing individuals intent on exploiting the natural resources of their respective
zone. The expanding west was an area of seemingly unlimited resources and opportunities
where people could improve their lot through trapping, trading, ranching, mining,
speculating, and farming, to name but a few of the opportunities available. The frontier
appealed to the restless, the adventurous, to people who were willing to gamble against
nature for the chance of wealth and improvement. Frontiersmen were inventive, wasteful,
mobile, and nationalistic. They believed in democracy and scorned tradition. These
psychological “types” interacted with the physical environment to create a unique social
environment that existed in the newer settlements. This social environment allowed for a
flexible rise in social standing of the individual, just as the low man-land ratio allowed for