On Turner's "New History"

Turner became a great historian of historiography group of America quickly in the late 19th century and early 20th century because of advancing"Frontier assumptions". Turner, Billington and Beard were called as three greatest historians of historiography group of America. Because of his outstanding contributions, Turner took up an important position in"New History".Turner thought every age should have its own current history. The age when Turner lived was the period from the free capitalism to the monopoly capitalism. The economy, ideology and culture of America were in a drastic stage, when there were too many problems of society. Turner's"New History"was the expression of drastic society change in historiography. His"New History"was affected by his juvenile environment life of immigrant, classical tradition of culture, humanism, rationalism and the European and American historiography of 19th century. Thucydides, William Francis Allen supplied the notion of objectivism historiography for him. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Hugo afforded the thoughts of humanism and enlightenment, Ely provided the principal of methods. Turner formed his own system of"New History"by combining theories of different schools in independent thinking.Turner's contributions in"New History"mainly embodied three aspects: the theory of history, practical outcome of history and the effect of history. In theory, Turner discussed the overall view of history and historical study of subjective and objective problems. In addition, he studied the purpose and use of history, the attitude and objection of history. He underlined the history should solve the practical problems and emphasized the writings of current history by rethinking past. Turner supplied a series of valuable methods for historical study, such as the general study and multidisciplinary study. His writings mainly included"The Significance of the Frontier in American History","Rise of the New West, 1819—1829","The Frontier in American History","The Significance of Sections in American History"In addition, Turner expressed his thought of"New History"by his a series of important papers, such as"The Significance of History","Problems in American History". Impacts in history, not only the formation of a"Turner School"and in many areas of historical research of the United States had many major impacts, such as diplomatic history, migration history, economic history, social history, etc. Moreover, Turner made some successful probes in the aspects of historical education. For example, he paid attention to cultivating the interest of students and adopt didactical model of"Seminar"and so on.Domestic and foreign scholars in the"Frontier Hypothesis"has done a thorough study, seem to ignore the academic sources of"New History"and system research of Turner's historiography. This dissertation will combine Turner's historical writings about history, education, economy, diplomacy to study Turner's origin of"New History", historiography and achievements of"New History".