In the discussion of its extent, its westward movement, etc., it can not, therefore, any longer have a place in the census reports.' Ī frontier is a zone of contact at the edge of a line of settlement. īy 1890, settlement in the American West had reached sufficient population density that the frontier line had disappeared in 1890 the Census Bureau released a bulletin declaring the closing of the frontier, stating: 'Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line. The archetypical Old West period is generally accepted by historians to have occurred between the end of the American Civil War in 1865 until the closing of the Frontier by the Census Bureau in 1890. The legends, historical events and folklore of the American frontier have embedded themselves into United States culture so much so that the Old West, and the Western genre of media specifically, has become one of the defining periods of American national identity.

This era of massive migration and settlement was particularly encouraged by President Thomas Jefferson following the Louisiana Purchase, giving rise to the expansionist attitude known as ' Manifest Destiny' and the historians' ' Frontier Thesis'. The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, includes the geography, history, folklore, and culture in the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial settlements in the early 17th century and ended with the admission of the last few western territories as states in 1912 (except Alaska, which was not admitted into the Union until 1959).

1865–1890 Archetypal Old West Period (End of the American Civil War in 1865 to the Closing of the Frontier in 1890) Ĭurrently the United States, historically in order of their assimilation:.

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