Frontier Culture: The Roots and Persistence of “Rugged Individualism” in the United States
研究美国西进边疆对个人主义文化的塑造，发现历史上边疆经历越多的县，至今仍表现出更强的个人主义和反对再分配倾向，且这一模式跨越城乡、南北等传统分界。
The presence of a westward‐moving frontier of settlement shaped early U.S. history. In 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner famously argued that the American frontier fostered individualism. We investigate the “frontier thesis” and identify its long‐run implications for culture and politics. We track the frontier throughout the 1790–1890 period and construct a novel, county‐level measure of total frontier experience (TFE). Historically, frontier locations had distinctive demographics and greater individualism. Long after the closing of the frontier, counties with greater TFE exhibit more pervasive individualism and opposition to redistribution. This pattern cuts across known divides in the United States, including urban–rural and north–south. We provide evidence on the roots of frontier culture, identifying both selective migration and a causal effect of frontier exposure on individualism. Overall, our findings shed new light on the frontier's persistent legacy of rugged individualism.