<P> In the thesis, the American frontier established liberty by releasing Americans from European mindsets and eroding old, dysfunctional customs . The frontier had no need for standing armies, established churches, aristocrats or nobles, nor for landed gentry who controlled most of the land and charged heavy rents . Frontier land was free for the taking . Turner first announced his thesis in a paper entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History", delivered to the American Historical Association in 1893 in Chicago . He won wide acclaim among historians and intellectuals . Turner elaborated on the theme in his advanced history lectures and in a series of essays published over the next 25 years, published along with his initial paper as The Frontier in American History . </P> <P> Turner's emphasis on the importance of the frontier in shaping American character influenced the interpretation found in thousands of scholarly histories . By the time Turner died in 1932, 60% of the leading history departments in the U.S. were teaching courses in frontier history along Turnerian lines . </P> <P> Turner set up an evolutionary model (he had studied evolution with a leading geologist, Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin), using the time dimension of American history, and the geographical space of the land that became the United States . The first settlers who arrived on the east coast in the 17th century acted and thought like Europeans . They adapted to the new physical, economic and political environment in certain ways--the cumulative effect of these adaptations was Americanization . </P> <P> Successive generations moved further inland, shifting the lines of settlement and wilderness, but preserving the essential tension between the two . European characteristics fell by the wayside and the old country's institutions (e.g., established churches, established aristocracies, standing armies, intrusive government, and highly unequal land distribution) were increasingly out of place . Every generation moved further west and became more American, more democratic, and more intolerant of hierarchy . They also became more violent, more individualistic, more distrustful of authority, less artistic, less scientific, and more dependent on ad - hoc organizations they formed themselves . In broad terms, the further west, the more American the community . </P>

When did the western frontier close – according to census data and the frontier thesis