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The American frontier comprises the geography, history, folklore, and cultural expression of life in the forward wave of American expansion that began with English colonial settlements in the early 17th century and ended with the admission of the last remaining western territories as states in 1959. This era of massive migration and settlement was particularly encouraged by President Thomas Jefferson following the Louisiana Purchase, giving rise to the expansionist philosophy known as "Manifest destiny".

A "frontier" is a zone of contact at the edge of a line of settlement. Leading theorist Frederick Jackson Turner went deeper, arguing that the frontier was the defining process of American civilization: "The frontier," he asserted, "promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the American people." He theorized it was a process of development: "This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward...furnish[es] the forces dominating American character." Turner's ideas since 1893 have inspired generations of historians (and critics) to explore multiple individual American frontiers, but the popular folk frontier concentrates on the conquest and settlement of Native American lands west of the Mississippi River, in what is now the Midwest, Texas, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Southwest, the West Coast, and Hawaii.

In 19th- and early 20th-century media, enormous popular attention was focused on the Western United States in the second half of the 19th century, from the 1860s to the 1890s, a period sometimes called the "Old West" or the "Wild West". Such media typically exaggerated the romance, anarchy, and chaotic violence of the period for greater dramatic effect. This eventually inspired the Western genre of film, which spilled over into television shows, novels, and comic books, as well as children's toys, games and costumes.

As defined by Hine and Faragher, "frontier history tells the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of the land, the development of markets, and the formation of states." They explain, "It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, and the merging of peoples and cultures that gave birth and continuing life to America." Through treaties with foreign nations and native tribes, political compromise, military conquest, establishment of law and order, the building of farms, ranches, and towns, the marking of trails and digging of mines, and the pulling in of great migrations of foreigners, the United States expanded from coast to coast, fulfilling the dreams of Manifest Destiny. Turner, in his "Frontier Thesis" (1893), theorized that the frontier was a process that transformed Europeans into a new people, the Americans, whose values focused on equality, democracy, and optimism, as well as individualism, self-reliance, and even violence.

As the American frontier passed into history, the myths of the West in fiction and film took a firm hold in the imagination of Americans and foreigners alike. In David Murdoch's view, America is exceptional in choosing its iconic self-image: "No other nation has taken a time and place from its past and produced a construct of the imagination equal to America's creation of the West."

See also

General

• Cowboy action shooting is a competitive shooting sport which originated in the early 1980s that requires shooters to compete using firearms typical of the mid-to-late 19th century including single action revolvers, lever action rifles (chambered in pistol calibers) and side by side double barrel shotguns or pump action shotguns with external hammers.
• Cowboy hat
• Boss of the plains
• Historical reenactment : an activity in which participants recreate some aspects of a historical event or period.
• National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum : museum and art gallery, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, housing one of the largest collections in the world of Western, American cowboy, American rodeo, and American Indian art, artifacts, and archival materials.
• Reno Gang : Southern Indiana post civil war gang. First Train Robbers in US History. 10 members lynched by vigilante mob in 1868.
• Rodeo : demonstration of cattle wrangling skills.
• The Oregon-California Trails Association preserves, protects and shares the histories of emigrants who followed these trails westward.
• Wanted poster : a poster, popular in mythic scenes of the west, let the public know of criminals whom authorities wish to apprehend.
• Wild West Shows : a following of the wild west shows of the American frontier.
• The West As America

People

• List of American Old West outlaws : list of known outlaws and gunfighters of the American frontier popularly known as the "Wild West".
• Big Nose George
• List of cowboys and cowgirls
• Schoolmarm : A female teacher that usually works in a one-room schoolhouse
• List of Western lawmen : list of notable law enforcement officials of the American frontier. They occupied positions as sheriff, marshal, Texas Rangers, and others.
• Gunfighter
• Category:Gunmen of the American Old West
• Category:Lawmen of the American Old West
• Category:Outlaws of the American Old West

Fiction

• Chris Enss : author of historical nonfiction that documents the forgotten women of the Old West.
• Zane Grey : author of many popular novels on the Old West
• Karl May : best selling German writer of all time, noted chiefly for wild west books set in the American West.
• Winnetou : American-Indian hero of several novels written by Karl May.
• Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier : an Award-winning alternate history western roleplaying gaming.
• Deadlands : an alternate history western horror roleplaying game.
• Dust Devils : a western roleplaying game modeled after Clint Eastwood films and similar darker Westerns.
• List of Western computer and video games: a list of computer and video games patterned after Westerns.