building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

to its interpretation, which would also be applicable in the decades to come of the
twentieth century. In Turner’s interpretation, the frontier was not a question of
customs or attitudes, but rather the essence of the American Weltanschauung,
which could even be applied to the processes of capitalist, military (how many wars
have been declared to “export” democracy), political (all the aid given to allied
foreign governments), and scientific (the race into space) expansion of the United
States. That is to say, that the suppositions will also reverberate in extremely
contemporary processes.
The well‐known exhortation by Horace Greeley published in 1865 in the New York
Tribune: “Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country” should be
interpreted in these terms, in the wide meaning of a life model [Figure 130].
Greeley’s thought was not merely the logical consequence of the theories of
manifest destiny and the solemn advance of the frontier [Figure 88]. It followed in
the steps of the Homestead Act of 1862, a legislative measure passed by President
Abraham Lincoln (1809‐1865) in the middle of the Civil War, aiming to resolve the
mechanisms of land distribution. The law envisaged three stages for the award of
160 free acres, a quarter of a section, in the wild lands beyond the boundaries of
the original thirteen colonies. The first action consisted in a formal request for a
piece of federal land, the second passage was the commitment to improve the
lands awarded by labour, agriculture and stock‐breeding and the third stage
endorsed the obtaining of the title deed, once the second stage had been verified.
This policy emanated the ideas of the Free Soil Party, in opposition to the large
landowners of the South, who were thus penalised in favour of those making their
first request. The law met with ample success in spite of the fact that it had not
foreseen the procedures to access water resources, which was the cause of a high
degree of failure in the attempts to occupy the land. Over time, the mechanism was
perfected and on various occasions real land rushes were organised, the last being
in Oklahoma in 1889. Those taking part in the land rush gathered in a prefixed
location, where a cannon gave the signal to start. At the start, everyone leapt
forward in the hope of reaching the best lots, while the army patrolled the territory
in an attempt to avoid fraud and other crimes.
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