Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 78, number 4, summer, 1995

              An Uncommon Professor: Frederickjackson Turner at Wisconsin
By E. David Cronon
A CENTURY ago a young, largely un¬ known University ofWisconsin fac¬ ulty member delivered what turned out to be an epochal address at a professional meeting in Chicago. These were, of course, Frederickjackson Turner and his paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History." The occa¬ sion was a special meeting ofthe recently established American Historical Associa¬ tion at the World's Columbian Exposi¬ tion in Chicago. The local promoters of that world's fair were seeking to give it as much national stature as possible by invit¬ ing the country's major professional asso¬ ciations to hold their annual meetings in conjunction with the exposition.
At first, neither the meeting nor Turner's part in it seemed likely to take place. The AHA secretary, historian Herbert Baxter Adams of the Johns Hopkins University, had an easterner's healthy contempt for outlanders in gen¬ eral and the Chicago local arrangements committee in particular. He doubted any reputable historian  (most of whom he
Editors' note: A slightly different version of this paper was presented before the Madison Literary Club on November 8, 1993.
assumed lived in the East) would be will¬ ing to travel as far away as Chicago in the heat of summer. He also fancied the typi¬ cal midwestern fairgoer would not, as he said, "care much about hearing historical papers."
As for Turner, he eagerly accepted one of the first invitations to be on the pro¬ gram, encouraged by Charles Kendall Adams, president of the University of Wisconsin and himself a distinguished historian and AHA leader. Later, how¬ ever, Turner had second thoughts when the program committee showed no inter¬ est in contributions from two of his Wis¬ consin graduate students. Throughout his life Turner was invariably selfless in promoting the careers of his students. Consequently, in May he offered to with¬ draw his as-yet-unwritten paper if this would make room for a report by his most advanced student, Orrin G. Libby, on his Ph.D. research. Fortunately, the program committee wanted offerings from estab¬ lished professionals, not graduate stu¬ dents, and declined to release Turner from his commitment.
Thus it was that on the evening of July 12,1893, in the very hot auditorium ofthe Art Institute of Chicago, the thirty-one- year-old Turner unveiled his  "frontier
276
(>)[)\TiglK © 1995 by the State Historical Society ofWisconsin All rights of reprodtiction in any form resel^'ed.