Download a GrowinG Global power

unit 16
a GrowinG
Global power
SeSSion preparation
Read the following material before attending the workshop. As you read the
excerpts and primary sources, take note of the “Questions to Consider” as
well as any questions you have. The activities in the workshop will draw on
information from the readings and the video shown during the workshop.
Table of Contents
Unit Themes
2
Unit Content Overview
2
Video Related Materials
3
Through imperial ambitions and the mobilization for World War I, businesses
and the government established a new relationship to bolster American
business interests and build the United States military. After the war,
this relationship continued to prosper with the establishment of research
foundations for military and medical programs. Even though the United States
had increased its economic involvement with Europe by the end of the war,
the nation began to distance itself politically and socially from Europe and
focused on the Americas.
Theme One Materials
4
Theme Two Materials
29
Theme Three Materials
41
Timeline
52
Reference Materials
53
Further Reading
54
unit learninG obJeCtiveS
Appendix
55
unit introduCtion
After reading the text materials, participating in the workshop activities and
watching the video, teachers will
• explore the period in which America extended its power overseas,
learning about the experiences of the people who benefited from
American imperialism and those who suffered from it;
• learn the ways in which World War I became the impetus for the
intertwining of business and government;
• examine the evolution of diplomacy and intervention tactics
used by the American government in Europe, the Caribbean, the
Pacific, and Central America.
thiS unit featureS
•
•
•
Textbook excerpts (sections of U.S. history surveys, written
for introductory college courses by history professors)
Primary sources (documents and other materials
created by the people who lived in the period) including
a speech by minister Josiah Strong, an anti-imperialist
cartoon from Puck magazine, and a letter to the U.S.
Congress from the Central Filipino Committee
A timeline at the end of the unit, which places
important events in the history of the era of imperialism
1
Content Overview
Between 1900 and 1920, the United States changed from a nation focused
on domestic issues, to a global power that sought to influence and control
other parts of the world in order to safeguard its national interests. During
these years, the United States established an overseas empire, American
businesses played a role in expansion, and America emerged as a global
power after World War I.
The United States was part of an imperialistic drive that involved European
and Asian nations, and sought overseas expansion because of strategic
defense, patriotism, profit, politics, and missionary enthusiasm. The drive for
expansion initially came from the military; by the end of the period, however,
business led the drive for expansion. American businesses sought access to
natural resources, cash crops, and markets in Latin America and Asia.
During World War I, a new relationship developed between industry
and government to build up the military. The federal government’s huge
expenditures to finance the war produced soaring profits for American
industry, and the government came to rely on private industry’s technology
and innovation. This relationship extended to large tax breaks that the
government gave wealthy businessmen through their foundations. The
foundations also served government programs, innovating scientific
research that was useful in government military and medical programs.
Theme 1:
Patriotism, missionary zeal,
and the quest for new markets
fueled the drive to establish an
overseas empire.
Theme 2:
American imperial ambitions and
the events of World War I forged a
new partnership between business
and government.
Theme 3:
While increasingly involved
economically with Europe, the
United States turned away
politically and socially from Europe
and focused on the Americas.
After the war, the new corporate structures, which were now financially
dependent on the continuation of their established close ties to
government, focused on efficiency and planning.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power video related materialS
Historical Perspectives
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, the United States began to
extend its power around the world.
The impetus for this global expansion
was a combination of enterprising
capitalism, a vibrant patriotism, and
missionary impulse. During this period,
which encompassed WWI, American
businesses and the government began
to bolster one another, further driving the
imperialist machine.
Faces of America
Examining how different groups of
people were affected by American
expansion offers a way to understand the
consequences of imperialism, both in the
U.S. and abroad.
restricted immigrants from Eastern
Europe and Asia, migrants such as
Velasquez found new opportunities in
the U.S., but also discrimination.
Hands on History
Retired high-school teacher David Cope
takes us to the Field Museum in Chicago,
where a project to photograph more than
30,000 artifacts from the 1893 World’s
Fair is underway. Through exploring
artifacts, primary sources from the fair,
and conversations with field curators,
Cope gives us a better understanding of
the global “show and tell” that was the
Columbian Exposition, where the nation
that we displayed didn’t necessarily
reflect the nation that we were.
Queen Liliuokalani was the last reigning
monarch of Hawaii. Her struggles to
defend Hawaiian sovereignty against the
Americans would eventually lead to her
imprisonment, where she continued to
resist assimilation—through poetry.
Charles Schwab headed the largest steel
company in the nation. His fortune was
largely made from wartime production,
and his experience illustrates the new
partnership between government and
industry during this period.
Zeferino Velasquez was part of the
first wave of one million Mexicans to
enter the U.S. between 1910 and 190.
His life was spent migrating between
his home country and the U.S., where
he found abundant work. As the U.S.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power 3
Theme One
Theme One: Patriotism, missionary zeal, and the quest for new markets fueled the
drive to establish an overseas empire.
Overview
Between 1900 and 1920, the United States was part of a pattern in which European and Asian
countries imposed their imperialistic designs on the rest of the world in the scramble for colonial
expansion. Profit, missionary zeal, strategic defense location, patriotism, and a muscular Christianity
drove this expansion. Muscular Christianity centered around the idea of manliness. It was in this
context that the United States clashed with European countries in Latin America, the Caribbean,
and the Pacific. Many factors contributed to the growth of imperialism, however, including new
technologies, improved communication and transportation, and industry’s desire of cheap raw
materials and labor.
Over the course of this period, American imperialism changed from being driven by guns to being
driven by dollar diplomacy. American businesses sought profit by tapping into Latin American and
Asian markets, and gaining access to cash crops and natural resources such as sugar, coffee, fruit,
oil, and rubber. An economic depression in the last decade of the nineteenth century compounded
the situation by forcing American business to find new markets to dump their surplus goods. Huge
profits motivated businessmen to shape American foreign policy. Imperialism shifted from military
action to the thinly veiled threat of it sustained with the power of the dollar.
Some American citizens viewed expansion as a patriotic expression of American greatness;
missionary fervor guided others to save the souls of the uncivilized, and impose Western values
and culture on non-Christian countries around the world. Some imperialists supported imperial
citizenship, but racism plagued American policy and undermined the willingness of the government to
confer citizenship to racial “others.”
Questions to Consider
1. What was the role of business in American imperialism, and how did it change over time?
How did the role of the U.S. military change?
2. How did religion shape public perceptions of imperialism?
3. Why did some immigrants support imperial policies?
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
Theme One Secondary Source
Global Imperial Activities, 1893–1904
This table shows the nations that participated in imperial expansion between
1893 and 1904. What conclusions can be drawn about U.S. imperial expansion?
Gary B. Nash et al., eds. The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society, 6th ed.
(New York: Pearson Education, 2004), 702.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
Theme One Excerpts
1. American Expansionism in Global Context
. . . The nineteenth century was marked by European imperial expansionism
throughout much of the world. In southern and southeastern Asia, the British were
in India, Burma, and Malaya; the French in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos; the
Dutch in Singapore and the East Indies; and the Spanish in the Philippines. These
and other colonial powers divided China, its Manchu dynasty weakened by the
opium trade, internal conflicts, and European pressure, into spheres of economic
influence. A China newspaper editorial complained that other nations “all want to
satisfy their ambitions to nibble at China and swallow it.” The Russians wrested
away Manchuria, and Japan took Korea after intervention in a Korean peasant
rebellion in 1894. In addition, China was forced to cede Taiwan and southern
Manchuria to Japanese influence and control . . .
Closer to home, the United States sought to replace Great Britain as the most
influential nation in Central and South America. In 1895, a boundary dispute
between Venezuela and British Guyana threatened to bring British intervention
against the Venezuelans. President Cleveland, needing a popular political
issue amid the depression, asked Secretary of State Richard Olney to send a
message to Great Britain. Invoking the Monroe Doctrine, Olney’s note (stronger
than Cleveland intended) called the United States “practically sovereign on this
continent” and demanded international arbitration to settle the dispute. The
British ignored the note, and war loomed. Both sides realized that war between
two English-speaking nations would be an “absurdity,” and the dispute was
settled when they agreed to an impartial commission to settle the boundary.
These encounters showed that by 1895 the United States had neither the means
nor a consistent policy for enlarging its role in the world. The diplomatic service
was small and unprofessional. No U.S. embassy official in Beijing spoke Chinese.
The U.S. Army, with about 28,000 men, was smaller than Bulgaria’s. The navy,
dismantled after the Civil War and partly rebuilt under President Arthur, ranked no
higher than tenth and included dangerously obsolete ships. But by 1898, things
would change.
Nash et al., 681.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
Theme One Secondary Source
U.S. Territorial Expansion to 1900
The map below shows U.S. territorial expansion between 1867 and 1900. What
does the acquisition of territories suggest about the pattern of U.S. expansion?
Nash et al., 685.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
Theme One Excerpts
2. Profits: Searching for Overseas Markets
[By the early 1900s, American government and industry had become increasingly
aware of the world economy and the importance of competing in a global
market.] Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana bragged in 1898 that “American
factories are making more than the American people can use; American soil is
producing more than they can consume. Fate has written our policy for us; the
trade of the world must and shall be ours.” Americans like Beveridge revived
older dreams of an American commercial empire in the Caribbean Sea and the
Pacific Ocean. American businessmen saw huge profits beckoning in heavily
populated Latin America and Asia, and they wanted to get their share of these
markets, as well as access to the sugar, coffee, fruits, oil, rubber, and minerals
that were abundant in these lands.
Understanding that commercial expansion required a stronger navy and coaling
stations and colonies, business interests began to shape diplomatic and
military strategy. Senator Orville Platt of Connecticut said in 1893: “A policy
of isolationism did well enough when we were an embryo nation, but today
things are different.” By 1901, the economic adviser for the State Department
described overseas commercial expansion as a “natural law of economic and
race development.” But not all businessmen in the 1890s liked commercial
expansion or a vigorous foreign policy. Some preferred traditional trade with
Canada and Europe rather than risky new ventures in Asia and Latin America.
Taking colonies and developing faraway markets not only was expensive but
might involve the United States in wars in distant places. Many thought it more
important to recover from the depression than to annex islands.
But the drop in domestic consumption during the depression also
encouraged businessmen to expand into new markets to sell surplus goods.
The tremendous growth of American production in the post–Civil War years
made expansionism more attractive than drowning in overproduction, cutting
prices, or laying off workers, which would increase social unrest. The newly
formed National Association of Manufacturers, which led the way, proclaimed
in 1896 that “the trade centers of Central and South America are natural
markets for American products.”
Despite the 1890s depression, products spewed from American factories at
a staggering rate. The United States moved from fourth place in the world in
manufacturing in 1870 to first place in 1900, doubling the number of factories
and tripling the value of farm output—mainly cotton, corn, and wheat. The United
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
Theme One Excerpts
States led the world in railroad construction and mass-produced technological
products such as agricultural machinery, sewing machines, electrical implements,
telephones, cash registers, elevators, and cameras. Manufactured goods grew
nearly fivefold between 1895 and 1914. The total value of American exports
tripled, from $434 million in 1866 to nearly $1.5 billion in 1900. By 1914, exports
had risen to $2.5 billion, a 67 percent increase over 1900 . . .
Investments followed a similar pattern. American direct investments abroad
increased from about $634 million to $2.6 billion between 1897 and 1914.
Although the greatest activity was in Britain, Canada, and Mexico, most
attention focused on actual and potential investment in Latin America and
Eastern Asia. Central American investment increased from $21 million in 1897
to $93 million by 1914, mainly in mines, railroads, and banana and coffee
plantations. At the turn of the century came the formation and growth of
America’s biggest multinational corporations: the United Fruit Company, Alcoa
Aluminum, Du Pont, American Tobacco, and others. Although slow to respond
to investment and market opportunities abroad, these companies soon
supported an aggressive foreign policy.
Nash et al., 682–83.
3. Patriotism: Asserting National Power
[While imperialism appealed to some Americans for economic reasons, others
viewed expansion in terms of national glory and greatness.] In the late 1890s,
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt and Massachusetts Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge emerged as highly influential leaders of a changing American
foreign policy. Along with a group of other intensely nationalistic young men, they
shifted official policy to what Lodge called the “large policy.” Roosevelt agreed
that economic interests should take second place to questions of what he called
“national honor.” And by 1899, a State Department official wrote that the United
States had become “a world power . . . Where formerly we had only commercial
interests, now we have territorial and political interests as well.”
Nash et al., 683.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
Theme One P rimary Source
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History
Question to Consider
Creator:
Alfred Thayer Mahan
Context:
Some Americans
viewed territorial
Why did Mahan urge the United States to build a canal through
Central America?
The history of Sea Power is largely, though by no means
solely, a narrative of contests between nations, of mutual
rivalries, of violence frequently culminating in war . . .
expansion as an
assertion of national
power.
Audience:
The State Department
and other government
officials who shaped
In these three things—production, with the necessity of
exchanging products, shipping, whereby the exchange is
carried on and colonies, which facilitate and enlarge the
operations of shipping and tend to protect it by multiplying
points of safety—is to be found the key to much of the
history, as well as of the policy of nations bordering upon
the sea . . .
If one [a Central American canal] be made, and fulfill the
hopes of its builders, the Caribbean will be changed from a
terminus, and place of local traffic, or a best a broken and
imperfect line of travel as it now is, into one of the great
highways of the world. Along this path great commerce will
travel, bringing the interests of the other great nations, the
European nations, close along our shores, as they have
never been before . . .
foreign policy
Purpose:
To argue that naval
supremacy determined
a nation’s power
Historical Significance:
During the 1890s, Rear Admiral
Alfred Thayer Mahan’s books shaped
American foreign policy by arguing
that national power was contingent
on control of the seas, allocation of
domestic natural resources, and the
expansion of foreign markets. He
supported the establishment of colonies
in the Caribbean and Pacific and joining
Furthermore, as her distance from the Isthmus, though
relatively less, is still considerable, the United States will
have to obtain in the Caribbean stations fit for contingent,
or secondary, bases of operations; which by their natural
advantages, susceptibility of defence, and nearness to the
central strategic issue, will enable her fleets to remain as
near the scene as any opponent . . .
them by a U.S.-controlled canal through
the Central American isthmus. His
writings influenced Theodore Roosevelt,
Henry Cabot Lodge, and American
territorial expansion.
. . . we can live off ourselves indefinitely in ‘our little
corner,’ to use the expression of a French officer to the
author. Yet should that little corner be invaded by a new
commercial route through the Isthmus, the United States
in her turn may have the rude awakening of those who
have abandoned their share in the common birthright of all
people, the sea . . .
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
10
Theme One P rimary Source
. . . The government by its policy can favor the natural
growth of a people’s industries and its tendencies to seek
adventure and gain by way of the sea . . . The influence of
the government will be felt in its most legitimate manner in
maintaining an armed navy, of a size commensurate with the
growth of its shipping and the importance of the interests
connected with it.
[Americans also became more intensely nationalistic, in
part because large numbers of immigrants who spoke
little English moved to cities. Americans witnessed the
immigrants’ poverty in the cities but also blamed the
immigrants for the poverty; they thought the diseases came
from the immigrants rather than their living conditions. Some
Americans regarded immigrants as radicals who embraced
alarming ideologies. Paradoxically, immigrants supported
imperialism as a way to proclaim their own Americanness
and distance themselves from allegedly inferior peoples.
Emanating from this sense of nationalism was a new
movement called “muscular Christianity” that fueled
imperialism. Anxiety about manliness and gender roles was
evident throughout the culture during this period. Muscular
Christianity purported that participation in outdoor activities,
such as camping and boxing, developed a “manly”
character and contributed to Christian moral development.
In the United States, Josiah Strong and Theodore Roosevelt
regarded the growth of urbanization, white-collar jobs, and
immigration as “threats.” They encouraged Americans to
practice a “strenuous life” full of sports and other activities
that espoused aggressive male behavior. Lasting from 1880
to 1920, muscular Christianity contributed to an environment
for the invention of basketball and volleyball, and the
creation of organized camping and public playgrounds.
Heroes such as Tarzan and organizations such as the
Boy Scouts, became symbols of manliness and further
strengthened the ideas of muscular Christianity.]
Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1805
(Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1890), 1–5.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One P rimary Source
Our Country: Its Possible Future
Its Present Crisis
and
Question to Consider
Creator:
Josiah Strong, a
Congregationalist
minister
Context:
Territorial expansion
by nations throughout
the world
Audience:
The general public
Purpose:
To show the Christian
justification for
American imperialism
What influence did Darwin’s theory of evolution have on Strong?
It seems to me that God, with infinite wisdom and skill, is
training the Anglo-Saxon race for an hour sure to come
in the world’s future. Heretofore there has always been in
the history of the world a comparatively unoccupied land
westward, into which the crowded countries of the East
have poured their surplus populations. But the widening
waves of migration, which millenniums ago rolled east
and west from the valley of the Euphrates, meet to-day
on our Pacific coast. There are no more new worlds. The
unoccupied arable lands of the earth are limited, and will
soon be taken. The time is coming when the pressure of
population on the means of subsistence will be felt here as
it is now felt in Europe and Asia. Then will the world enter
upon a new stage of its history-the final competition of
races, for which the Anglo-Saxon is being schooled. Long
before the thousand millions are here, the mighty centrifugal
tendency, inherent in this stock and strengthened in the
United States, will assert itself. Then this race of unequaled
energy, with all the majesty of numbers and the might of
wealth behind it-the representative, let us hope, of the largest
liberty, the purest Christianity, the highest civilization-having
developed peculiarly aggressive traits calculated to impress
its institutions upon mankind, will spread itself over the earth.
If I read not amiss, this powerful race will move down upon
Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the
islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can any
one doubt that the result of this competition of races will be
the “survival of the fittest?”
Historical Significance:
In his book, Our Country: Its Possible
Future and Its Present Crisis, Josiah
Strong championed American
missionary expansionism by arguing
that God had “divinely commissioned”
the United States to spread democracy,
and “to civilize and Christianize”
Central and South America, Africa,
and beyond. In China alone, American
Protestant missionaries grew from 436
in 1874 to 5,462 by 1914.
Josiah Strong, Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis
(New York: The American Home Missionary Society, 1885), 174–175.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
12
Theme One P rimary Source
The Ultimate Cause
Question to Consider
How does the artist satirize American imperialism?
Creator:
Frank A. Nankivell, artist
Context:
Anti-imperialism of
labor unions
Audience:
Readers of Puck
magazine
Purpose:
To satirize the antiimmigration sentiment
of American labor
unions
Historical Significance:
In 1898, the American Anti-Imperialist
League organized to protest the
annexation of the Philippines. Around
1900, Puck satirized American political
and social issues through political
cartoons on the magazine’s front
cover. Anti-imperialists such as these
opposed imperialism for economic,
legal, and moral reasons. Samuel
Gompers was against imperialism out
of a fear that the “hordes of Chinese
and the semi-savage races” would
become part of the United States, take
away jobs, and affect the wages of
American workers.
Item 4204
Frank A. Nankivell, The Ultimate Cause (Puck, Dec. 19, 1900, cover).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
See Appendix for larger image – pg. 55
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
13
Theme One Excerpts
4. Politics: Manipulating Public Opinion
Although less significant than the other factors, politics also played a role. For
the first time in American history, public opinion on international issues helped
shape presidential politics. The psychological tensions and economic hardships
of the 1890s depression jarred national self-confidence. Foreign adventures then,
as now, provided an emotional release from domestic turmoil and promised to
restore patriotic pride and win votes.
This process was helped by the growth of a highly competitive popular press,
the penny daily newspapers, which brought international issues before a
mass readership. When New York City newspapers, notably William Randolph
Hearst’s Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s World, competed in stirring up public
support for the Cuban rebels against Spain, politicians dared not ignore the
outcry. Daily reports of Spanish atrocities in 1896 and 1897 kept public moral
outrage constantly before President McKinley. His Democratic opponent, William
Jennings Bryan, entered the fray, advocating American intervention in Cuba on
moral grounds of a holy war to help the oppressed. He even raised a regiment of
Nebraska volunteers to go to war, but the Republican administration kept him far
from battle and therefore far from the headlines.
Politics, then, joined profits, patriotism, and piety in motivating the expansionism
of the 1890s. These four impulses interacted to produce the Spanish-American
War, the annexation of the Philippine Islands and subsequent war, and the
energetic foreign policy of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Nash et al., 684.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
14
Theme One P rimary Source
New York Journal and New York World
Creator:
William Randolph
Hearst’s New York
Journal and Joseph
Questions to Consider
1. How did penny presses sensationalize the news?
2. What are the similarities and differences in how the New
York Journal and New York World reported the sinking of
the USS Maine?
Item 4726
William Randolph
Hearst’s New York
Journal (February 17,
1898, cover).
Courtesy of the
Image Works.
Pulitzer’s New York
World
Context:
The penny newspapers
stirred up public
opinion in support of
international issues and
events, such as the
Spanish American War.
Audience:
The readers of the New
York Journal and the
See Appendix for
larger image – pg. 56
New York World
Purpose:
To boost circulation
and profits
Historical Significance:
Politics played a role in driving
American expansionism. Public opinion
on international issues helped to
influence presidential elections, and
spurred the growth of a competitive
press that sensationalized news
Item 6833
Joseph Pulitzer’s New
York World, (February
17, 1898, cover).
Courtesy of Ross Collins.
Originally printed in
New York Extra. A
Newspaper History of
the Greatest City in the
World from 1671 to the
1939 Worlds Fair. From
the Collection of Eric
C. Caren. Edison, NJ,
Castle Books, 2000.
reporting for a mass readership. With
the intent of increasing circulation and
profits, Hearst’s Journal and Pulitzer’s
World attempted to stir up public
support for Cuban rebels against Spain
by blurring the line between fact and
fiction in their coverage of the news.
See Appendix for
larger image – pg. 57
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
15
Theme One Secondary Source
U.S. Interests and Interventions in the Caribbean
Region, 1898–1939
This map illustrates the extent of American interests and military interventions
in the Caribbean between 1898 and 1939. Why did the United States military
intervene in this region?
Peter H. Wood et al., eds. Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States
(New York: Pearson Education, 2003), 675.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
16
Theme One Excerpts
5. The Philippines Debates and War
[In 1898, a newspaper blamed Spain for sinking the USS Maine off the coast of
Cuba. Public outrage at the incident led McKinley to declare war on Spain. The
Spanish-American War displayed the power and might of the United States,
and many Americans regarded the war over Cuba in terms of national glory and
greatness. Once under U.S. control, American corporations quickly gained control
of two-thirds of Cuba’s sugar industry. Corporations wanted the freedom to go
into Cuba and purchase large amounts of land in order to grow sugar that the
United States reimported.
The U.S. also waged war in the Philippines, but expansion was more complicated
than Cuba. Public opinion toward expansion in the Philippines was different
than expansion in Cuba. There was the hope that the Cubans could become
“civilized,” but many Americans regarded the Philippines as too primitive. A
debate ensued over how to treat Filipinos. Conservative expansionists promoted
the takeover of a primitive people, while liberal expansionists wanted to “uplift”
the Filipinos — in other words, let the local Filipinos who were friendly to
American business interests be in charge. The concern among all expansionists
was what would the implications be by making Filipinos American citizens. In
spite of the differences in expansion, the need for raw materials and a desire to
Christianize Filipinos was evident in Cuba and the Philippines.]
[Even before the official end of the Spanish-American War,] McKinley immediately
began shaping American public opinion to accept the “political, commercial [and]
humanitarian” reasons for annexing all 7,000 of the Philippines islands. The Treaty
of Paris gave the United States all of the islands in exchange for a $20 million
payment to Spain. [McKinley wanted to acquire the Philippines for business
interests because it was the gateway to China and to aid religious groups who
hoped to convert Spanish-speaking Roman Catholics to Protestantism.]
Fellow Republicans confirmed McKinley’s arguments for annexation, and
many Democrats supported the president out of fear of being labeled disloyal.
Americans of both parties added arguments reflecting the openly racist thought
that flourished in the United States. Filipinos were described as childlike, dirty,
and backward; they were compared to blacks and Indians. “The country won’t
be pacified,” a Kansas veteran of the Sioux wars told a reporter, “until the
niggers are killed off like the Indians.” Roosevelt called Aguinaldo a “renegade
Pawnee” and said that the Filipinos had no right “to administer the country which
they happen to be occupying.”
Nash et al., 689.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One Excerpts
6. The Philippines Debate and War
A small but prominent and vocal Anti-Imperialist League vigorously opposed
war and annexation. These dignitaries included ex-presidents Harrison and
Cleveland, Samuel Gompers and Andrew Carnegie, Jane Addams, and Mark
Twain. The anti-imperialists argued that imperialism in general and annexation
in particular contradicted American ideals. First, the annexation of territory
without immediate or planned steps toward statehood was unprecedented and
unconstitutional. Second, to occupy and govern a foreign people without their
consent violated the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Third, social
reforms needed at home demanded American energies and money before
foreign expansionism. “Before we attempt to teach house-keeping to the world,”
one writer put it, we needed “to set our own house in order.”
Not all anti-imperialist arguments were so noble. A racist position alleged that
Filipinos were nonwhite, Catholic, inferior in size and intelligence, and therefore
unassimilable. Annexation would lead to miscegenation and contamination of
Anglo-Saxon blood. South Carolina Senator Ben Tillman opposed “incorporating
any more colored men into the body politic.” A practical argument suggested
that once in possession of the Philippines, the United States would have to
defend them, possibly even acquiring more territories—in turn requiring higher
taxes and bigger government, and perhaps demanding that American troops
fight distant Asian wars.
Nash et al., 689.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
18
Theme One P rimary Source
The White Man’s Burden
Questions to Consider
Creator:
Rudyard Kipling
Context:
Philippine-American
War and the ratification
1. What is Kipling’s view of the “new-caught, sullen peoples”?
2. How does poem reflect the view that Anglo-Saxon nations had a
moral duty to help non-Western cultures?
3. Why does an alternative interpretation portray the poem as a
satire on imperialism?
The White Man’s Burden
Take up the White Man’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
of a treaty in which
Cuba, Guam,
the Philippines, and
Puerto Rico came
under U.S. control
Audience:
Readers of McClure’s
Magazine
Purpose:
To encourage the
United States to take up
the “burden” of empire
Historical Significance:
In 1899, British poet Rudyard Kipling
enjoined the United States to take up
the “burden” of empire in his poem
“The White Man’s Burden: The United
Take up the White Man’s burden—
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.
States and The Philippine Islands.”
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge noted
that it was “rather poor poetry, but
good sense from the expansion point
of view.” For some, the idea of the
“White Man’s Burden” became a
justification for American imperialism.
An alternative reading of the poem
cautions the United States on the
Take up the White Man’s burden—
The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
heavy toll of imperialism.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One P rimary Source
Take up the White Man’s burden—
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper—
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man’s burden—
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard—
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:—
“Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?”
Take up the White Man’s burden—
Ye dare not stoop to less—
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man’s burden—
Have done with childish days—
The lightly preferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years }
Cold, edged with dear-bough wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden: The United States
and The Philippine Islands,” McClure’s Magazine 12 (February 1899).
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One P rimary Source
The Real White Man’s Burden
Questions to Consider
Creator:
Ernest Howard Crosby
Context:
Expansion into the
Philippines created
1. What was the main idea of Crosby’s parody?
2. What did Crosby think would result from expansion?
anti-imperialists who
attacked American
imperialism.
Take up the White Man’s burden;
Send forth your sturdy sons,
And load them down with whisky
And Testaments and guns . . .
And don’t forget the factories.
On those benighted shores
They have no cheerful iron-mills
Nor eke department stores.
They never work twelve hours a day,
And live in strange content,
Altho they never have to pay
A single cent of rent.
Take up the White Man’s burden,
And teach the Philippines
What interest and taxes are
And what a mortgage means.
Give them electrocution chairs,
And prisons, too, galore,
And if they seem inclined to kick,
Then spill their heathen gore.
Audience:
The general public and
readers of his poetry
Purpose:
To parody Rudyard
Kipling’s “The White
Man’s Burden” by
attacking American
imperialism
Historical Significance:
Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The
White Man’s Burden” argued that
imperialism spread the benefits of
civilization. Ernest Crosby’s poem,
“The Real White Man’s Burden,”
parodied Kipling’s, and showed
his anti-imperialist abhorrence
of war and sympathy for the
Filipinos. The anti-imperialists were
unable to stop the annexation of
the Philippines, and their efforts
went counter to the expansionist
nationalism of those in power.
They need our labor question, too,
And politics and fraud,
We’ve made a pretty mess at home;
Let’s make a mess abroad.
And let us ever humbly pray
The Lord of Hosts may deign
To stir our feeble memories,
Lest we forget — the Maine.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One P rimary Source
Take up the White Man’s burden;
To you who thus succeed
In civilizing savage hoards
They owe a debt, indeed;
Concessions, pensions, salaries,
And privilege and right,
With outstretched hands you raise to bless
Grab everything in sight.
Take up the White Man’s burden,
And if you write in verse,
Flatter your Nation’s vices
And strive to make them worse.
Then learn that if with pious words
You ornament each phrase,
In a world of canting hypocrites
This kind of business pays.
Ernest Howard Crosby, “The Real White Man’s Burden,”
Cleveland Gazette 16, no. 37
(April 15, 1899), 2.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One P rimary Source
Pears’ Soap Advertisement
Question to Consider
Creator:
Unknown
Context:
The White Man’s Burden
became an idea that
Why did the advertisement use the images of a ship captain and
priest to persuade readers to purchase soap?
American imperialists
used to justify territorial
expansion.
Audience:
Cosmopolitan readers
Purpose:
To show how
businesses capitalized
on the idea of the
White Man’s Burden
Historical Significance:
In October 1899, this advertisement
appeared in Cosmopolitan to
persuade readers that purchasing
Pears’ Soap would lighten the
White Man’s Burden by “teaching
the virtues of cleanliness.” The
advertisement shows Admiral George
Dewey washing his hands, ships in
the background, and the scene of a
missionary handing soap to a native.
Item 6827
Pears’ Soap Company, Lightening the White Man’s Burden (1899).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
See Appendix for larger image – pg. 58
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One Excerpts
7. The Philippines Debates and War
As U.S. treatment of the Filipinos became more and more like Spanish treatment
of the Cubans, the hypocrisy of American behavior became even more evident.
This was especially true for black American soldiers who fought in the Philippines.
They identified with the dark-skinned insurgents, whom they saw as tied to the
land, burdened by debt and pressed by poverty like themselves. “I feel sorry for
these people,” a sergeant in the 24th Infantry wrote. “You have no idea the way
these people are treated by the Americans here.”
The war starkly exposed the hypocrisies of shouldering the white man’s burden.
After the war, Aguinaldo wrote that Americans made “vague verbal offers of
friendship and aid and then fairly drowned them out with the boom of cannons
and the rattle of Gatling guns.” On reading a report that 8,000 Filipinos had been
killed in the first year of the war, Carnegie wrote a letter, dripping with sarcasm,
congratulating McKinley for “civilizing the Filipinos . . . About 8,000 of them have
been completely civilized and sent to Heaven. I hope you like it.” Another writer
penned a devastating one-liner: “Dewey took Manila with the loss of one man—
and all our institutions . . .”
The anti-imperialists failed either to prevent annexation or to interfere with the
war effort. However prestigious and sincere, they had little or no political power.
An older elite, they were out of tune with the period of exuberant expansionist
national pride, prosperity, and promise.
Nash et al., 689–90.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One P rimary Source
Letter to the American People
Question to Consider
How does the author of the pamphlet make his argument against
American occupation?
Creator:
Central Filipino
Committee
Context:
Philippine-American
War
Audience:
The American people
and readers of
June 1900.
God Almighty knows how unjust is the war which the Imperial arms
have provoked and are maintaining against our unfortunate country!
If the honest American patriots could understand the sad truth of
this declaration, we are sure they would, without the least delay, stop
this unspeakable horror.
When we protested against this iniquitous ingratitude, then the
guns of the United States were turned upon us; we were denounced
as traitors and rebels; you destroyed the homes to which you had
been welcomed as honored guests, killing thousands of those who
had been your allies, mutilating our old men, our women and our
children, and watering with blood and strewing with ruins the
beautiful soil of our Fatherland.
pamphlets published by
the Cincinnati
Anti-Imperialist League
and the New England
Anti-Imperialist League
Purpose:
To show the outrage
by Filipinos against
American occupation
Historical Significance:
In 1899, Emilio Aguinaldo, a Filipino
general and politician, declared
Philippine independence and
. . . the Spanish government, whose despotic cruelty American
Imperialism now imitates, and in some respects surpasses, denied
to us many of the liberties which you were already enjoying when,
under pretext of oppression, you revolted against British domination.
Why do the Imperialists wish to subjugate us? What do they intend
to do with us? Do they expect us to surrender — to yield our
inalienable rights, our homes, our properties, our lives, our future
destinies, to the absolute control of the United States? What would
you do with our nine millions of people? Would you permit us to
take part in your elections? Would you concede to us the privilege
of sending Senators and Representatives to your Congress? Would
you allow us to erect one or more federal states? Or, would you tax
us without representation? Would you change your tariff laws so
as to admit our products free of duty and in competition with the
products of our own soil?
Emilio Aguinaldo, Central Filipino Committee,
LETTER TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE (1899).
proclaimed the Philippines as the
First Philippine Republic. The United
States did not recognize Aguinaldo’s
government, and Aguinaldo declared
war on the United States. Antiimperialists opposed United States
occupation of the Philippines and
attempted to muster support to stop
the war by publishing pamphlets
such as this one. By 1901, the United
States had captured Aguinaldo, but
sporadic resistance by Filipino rebels
continued for another decade. By
the end of the war, more than 4,000
American and 16,000 Filipino soldiers
had lost their lives.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One Excerpts
8. Intervening in Mexico and Central America
[Since the nineteenth century, U.S. corporations had purchased huge quantities
of land from Spanish elitists who dominated Nicaragua and were friendly to
American business. When the Nicaraguan economy worsened in the 1920s, U.S.
corporations had difficulty accessing their goods and suffered economically; the
U.S. military intervened.]
. . . Combining the zeal of a Christian missionary with the conviction of a college
professor, [Wilson] spoke of “releasing the intelligence of America for the service
of mankind.” Along with his secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, Wilson
denounced the “big stick” and “dollar diplomacy” of the Roosevelt and Taft
years. Yet Wilson’s administration used force more systematically than did his
predecessors. The rhetoric was different, yet just as much as Roosevelt, Wilson
tried to maintain stability in the countries to the south in order to promote
American economic and strategic interests.
At first, Wilson’s foreign policy seemed to reverse some of the most callous
aspects of dollar diplomacy in Central America. Bryan signed a treaty with
Colombia in 1913 that agreed to pay $5 million for the loss of Panama and
virtually apologized for the Roosevelt administration’s treatment of Colombia. The
Senate, not so willing to admit that the United States had been wrong, refused to
ratify the treaty.
The change in spirit proved illusory. After a disastrous civil war in the Dominican
Republic, the United States offered in 1915 to take over the country’s finances
and police force. When the Dominican leaders rejected a treaty making their
country virtually a protectorate of the United States, Wilson ordered in the
marines. They took control of the government in May 1916. Although Americans
built roads, schools, and hospitals, people resented their presence. The United
States also intervened in Haiti with similar results. In Nicaragua, the Wilson
administration kept the marines sent by Taft in 1912 to prop up a pro-American
regime and acquired the right, through treaty, to intervene at any time to preserve
order and protect American property. Except for a brief period in the mid-1920s,
the marines remained until 1933.
Wilson’s policy of intervention ran into the greatest difficulty in Mexico, a country
that had been ruled by dictator Porfirio Díaz, who had long welcomed American
investors. By 1910, more than 40,000 American citizens lived in Mexico, and
more than $1 billion of American money was invested there. In 1911, however,
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One Excerpts
Francisco Madero, a reformer who wanted to destroy the privileges of the upper
classes, overthrew Díaz. Two years later, Madero was deposed and murdered by
order of Victoriano Huerta, the head of the army.
To the shock of many diplomats and businessmen, Wilson refused to recognize
the Huerta government. Everyone admitted that Huerta was a ruthless dictator,
but diplomatic recognition, the exchange of ambassadors, and the regulation of
trade and communication had never meant approval. In the world of business and
diplomacy, it merely meant that a particular government was in power. But Wilson
set out to remove what he called a “government of butchers.”
At first, Wilson applied diplomatic pressure. Then, using a minor incident as an
excuse, he asked Congress for power to involve American troops if necessary.
Few Mexicans liked Huerta, but they liked the idea of North American interference
even less, and they rallied around the dictator. The United States landed troops at
Veracruz, Mexico. Angry Mexican mobs destroyed American property wherever
they could find it. Wilson’s action outraged many Europeans and Latin Americans
as well as Americans.
Wilson’s military intervention drove Huerta out of office, but a civil war between
forces led by Venustiano Carranza and those led by General Francisco “Pancho”
Villa ensued. The United States sent arms to Carranza, who was considered less
radical than Villa, and Carranza’s soldiers defeated Villa’s. When an angry Villa
led what was left of his army in a raid on Columbus, New Mexico, in March 1916,
Wilson sent an expedition commanded by Brigadier General John Pershing to
track down Villa and his men. The strange and comic scene developed of an
American army charging 300 miles into Mexico unable to catch the retreating
villain. The Mexicans feared that Pershing’s army was planning to occupy
northern Mexico. Carranza shot off a bitter note to Wilson, accusing him of
threatening war, but Wilson refused to withdraw the troops. Tensions rose. An
American patrol attacked a Mexican garrison, with loss of life on both sides. Just
as war seemed inevitable, Wilson agreed to recall the troops and to recognize the
Carranza government. But this was in January 1917, and if it had not been for the
growing crisis in Europe, it is likely that war would have resulted.
Nash et al., 753–54.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme One
Conclusion
The United States entered the imperialistic race to carve up the globe. Justification
for territorial acquisition was motivated by financial gain, missionary enthusiasm, and
nationalism. During this period, American imperialism evolved from military intervention
to maintaining business interests. Critics of imperialism used a variety of arguments
to counter expansion, but they were unable to slow the drive to establish an overseas
empire. Racism bedeviled both imperialists and anti-imperialists.
Questions to Consider
1. What were some of the arguments for and against overseas expansion? Who
made these arguments, and how did their position reflect their own interests
and attitudes?
2. Why were business interests looking abroad to countries such as Cuba, Hawaii,
Mexico, Nicaragua, and the Philippines?
3. Why did the United States annex Hawaii but not Cuba or the Philippines?
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power 28
Theme T
Owo
ne
Theme Two: American imperial ambitions and the events of World War I
forged a new partnership between business and government.
Overview
After 1900, the government relied increasingly on technology and innovation from private
industries to build up its military. When the United States entered World War I, the federal
government organized public and private resources for the war effort. President Wilson
believed that centralized planning in the mass production of war materials would lead
to military victory. The government restructured the economy by creating new federal
agencies—such as the Bureau of War Risk Insurance (1917) and the United States
Railroad Administration (1918)—to manage the war effort. The BWRI was successful
in its system of federal payments to servicemen’s dependents, and the railroads ran
more efficiently under the USRA. The government also succeeded in collaborating with
the private sector when it came to building cheap, efficient ships to carry cargo across
the Atlantic. Wilson looked to Charles Schwab the world’s biggest shipbuilder to fix the
problem, just as Roosevelt would look to Kaiser Shipyards three decades later.
The federal government’s large expenditures gave businesses involved in war
production a financial windfall. Corporate earnings soared because of the industrygovernment partnership and the demand for war materials from the Allies. As the war
progressed, the federal government’s reliance on industry intensified. This relationship
extended to large tax breaks that the government gave wealthy businessmen
through their foundations, such as the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations. The
understanding between big business and government was that these foundations
would invest their savings from tax breaks in scientific research to benefit both the
government and industry.
Questions to Consider
1. How did the American economy change during and after World War I?
2. In what ways did the power of the federal government increase and redefine its
relationship to industry during and after World War I?
3. How did the modern corporation develop in the way it did after World War I?
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Owo
ne Excerpts
xcerpts
1. Financing the War
[When World War I ended in 1919,] by one calculation, it cost the United
States over $33 billion. Interest and veterans’ benefits bring the total to nearly
$112 billion. Early on, when an economist suggested that the war might
cost the United States $10 billion, everyone laughed. Yet many in the Wilson
administration knew the war was going to be expensive, and they set out to
raise the money by borrowing and by increasing taxes.
. . . [T]he wealthy were not . . . pleased with [Secretary of Treasury William]
McAdoo’s other plan to finance the war: raising taxes. The War Revenue Act of
1917 boosted the tax rate sharply, levied a tax on excess profits, and increased
estate taxes. The next year, another bill raised the tax on the largest incomes to
77 percent. The wealthy protested, but a number of progressives were just as
unhappy with the bill, for they wanted to confiscate all income over $100,000 a
year. Despite taxes and liberty bonds, however, World War I, like the Civil War,
was financed in large part by inflation. Food prices, for example, nearly doubled
between 1917 and 1919.
Nash et al., 767.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme Two P rimary Source
Boy Scouts of America Weapons for Liberty
Creator:
J.C. Leyendecker, an
artist for the American
Lithographic Company
Context:
The federal government
Questions to Consider
1. Why did the artist use the Boy Scouts of America to sell
liberty bonds?
2. How does this poster reflect the idea of muscular Christianity?
initiated a campaign
to sell liberty bonds at
a low interest rate to
Americans.
Audience:
The general public
Purpose:
People bought liberty
bonds to support the
war effort.
Historical Significance:
The federal government appealed
to the emotions of citizens by
organizing a campaign to sell
liberty bonds to finance the huge
expenditures of World War I. When
redeemed, one received the original
value of the bond plus interest. The
campaign relied on celebrities and
the Boy Scouts to pitch the sell. The
public responded enthusiastically—
only to discover that the value of the
bonds had dropped 80 percent of
their face value after the war.
Item 5698
J.C. Leyendecker, American Lithographic Co., Third Liberty Loan Campaign
— Boy Scouts of America Weapons for liberty (1917).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
See Appendix for larger image – pg. 59
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme Two P rimary Source
Must Children Die and Mothers Plead in
Vain? Buy More Liberty Bonds
Creator:
Walter H. Everett
Context:
The federal government
initiated a campaign to
Questions to Consider
sell Liberty Bonds at
1. How did the artist persuade people to buy Liberty Bonds?
2. Who financed the war? Who profited from the war?
a low interest rate to
Americans.
Audience:
The general public
Purpose:
People bought Liberty
Bonds to support the
war effort.
Historical Significance:
In 1918, the federal government
issued this poster as part of a
campaign to finance the war by selling
bonds. William Gibbs McAdoo, the
Secretary of Treasury, had hoped
to establish a broad market for
government bonds by rallying the
American public to purchase Liberty
Bonds. McAdoo recruited renowned
artists to sell the idea to the American
people, and orchestrated bond rallies
that featured Hollywood stars such as
Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and
Charlie Chaplin.
Item 5981
Walter H. Everett, for the Sackett & Wilhelms Corporation,
Must children die and mothers plead in vain? Buy more
Liberty Bonds (1918). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
See Appendix for larger image – pg. 60
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Owo
ne Excerpts
xcerpts
2. Domestic Impact of the War
For at least 30 years before the United States entered the Great War, a debate
raged over the proper role of the federal government in regulating industry
and protecting people who could not protect themselves. Controversy also
centered on the question of how much power the federal government should
have to tax and control individuals and corporations and the proper relation of
the federal government to state and local governments. Even within the Wilson
administration, advisers disagreed on the proper role of the federal government.
In fact, Wilson had only recently moved away from what he defined in 1912
as the New Freedom—limited government and open competition. But the war
and the problems it raised increased the power of the federal government in a
variety of ways. The wartime experience did not end the debate, but the United
States emerged from the war a more modern nation, with more power residing in
Washington. At the same time, the federal government with its huge expenditures
provided immense economic advantage to businesses engaged in war production
and to the cities where those businesses were located. [After the war, the
structure of American business companies diverted increasing amounts of capital
from production into management, service, distribution, and research.]
Nash et al., 766–67.
3. Increasing Federal Power
The major wars of the twentieth century made huge demands on the nations
that fought them and helped to transform their governments. The United States
was no exception. At first, Wilson tried to work through a variety of state
agencies to mobilize the nation’s resources. The need for more central control
and authority soon led Wilson to create a series of federal agencies to deal with
the war emergency. The first crisis was food. Poor grain crops for two years and
an increasing demand for American food in Europe caused shortages. Wilson
appointed Herbert Hoover, a young engineer who had won great prestige as
head of the Commission for Relief of Belgium, to direct the Food Administration.
Hoover set out to meet the crisis not so much through government regulation
as through an appeal to the patriotism of farmers and consumers alike. He
instituted a series of “wheatless” and “meatless” days and urged housewives
to cooperate. In Philadelphia, a large sign announced, “FOOD WILL WIN THE
WAR; DON’T WASTE IT.” Women emerged during the war as the most important
group of consumers. The government urged them to save, just as later it would
urge them to buy.
Nash et al., 767.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Owo
ne E
Journal
xcerptsof A merican History A rticle
War, Region, and Social Welfare: Federal Aid to
Servicemen’s Dependents in the South, 1917–1921
In its sudden growth, wide distribution of benefits, and bureaucratic
administration, the system of federal payments to the dependents of World
War I servicemen was a milestone in the development of the American welfare
state. When the system was in effect (between November 1, 1917, and July 31,
1921), 2.1 million beneficiaries “in almost every State, city, town, and hamlet of
the United States” received such payments, officially entitled “Allotments and
Allowances” and provided under the War Risk Insurance Act (WRIA) of October
1917. The Bureau of War Risk Insurance (BWRI), a small agency established
in the Treasury Department in 1914 to insure ships and crews engaged in the
Atlantic trade during the war, quickly grew into one of the largest federal agencies
after it was charged with administering benefits created by WRIA. The BWRI had
15,480 employees by July 1919. It dispensed almost $570 million in allotments
and allowances, a sum equivalent to two-thirds of the federal budget for the last
fiscal year before the outbreak of war in 1914. Monthly payments amounted to
not less than $30 for wives—the largest group of beneficiaries—and as much
as $65 for wives and children. Often benefits exceeded prewar family income,
especially in rural and low-income regions such as the South. The system of
family support payments, officials of the BWRI proudly stated, represented “one
of the largest financial undertakings the country has ever known.”
Progressive reformers, Congress, and beneficiaries endorsed the system of
allotments and allowances because it, like other contemporary social policies,
conformed to established social norms regarding men’s and women’s family
responsibilities, economic roles, and citizenship. The system automatically
allotted part of an enlisted man’s pay to his wife and supplemented that
with an allowance that varied according to the size of the family . . . [F]amily
support payments were intended to allow dependent women to dedicate
themselves to the care of home and children when they could not rely on the
income of a husband . . .
Female beneficiaries, black and white, quickly realized the economic advantages
and political implications of allotments and allowances. In claiming benefits
under the War Risk Insurance Act, they drew on conventional notions of women’s
dependence to involve the national state in the welfare of families. But they did
so to increase their leverage in family affairs, to improve their financial condition,
and to create a social citizenship that included women, along with white men, in
the public sphere. Such women both submitted to, and took advantage of, the
power of the state in shaping the political economy of the family . . .
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Owo
ne E
Journal
xcerptsof A merican History A rticle
Even though the system of family support payments was dismantled in 1921, in
its dialectic of gender and race it prefigured federal social policies of the 1920s
and 1930s. Allotments and allowances cemented the principle, laid out in Civil
War and mothers’ pensions, that social benefits in the emerging national welfare
state would be channeled through male heads of households as a validation
of their citizenship and their role as wage earners, while women could receive
benefits only indirectly and only as mothers of future citizens. Moreover, the
system of family support payments was based on the requirement that male
heads of families make compulsory contributions from their pay if they wanted
to secure the benefit of federal protection for their dependents. In this sense
the system might well represent an important conceptual and political stage in
the transition from noncontributory Civil War pensions to the contributory Social
Security insurance implemented during the New Deal.
K. Walter Hickel, “War, Region, and Social Welfare: Federal Aid to Servicemen’s Dependents in the
South, 1917–1921,” The Journal of American History 87, no. 4 (March 2001), 1362–91.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
35
Theme T
Owo
ne Excerpts
xcerpts
4. Increasing Federal Power
. . . The Wilson administration used the authority of the federal government
to organize resources for the war effort. The National Research Council and
the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics helped mobilize scientists in
industry and the universities to produce strategic materials formerly imported
from Germany, especially optical glass and chemicals to combat poison-gas
warfare. American companies also tried to reproduce German color lithography
that had dominated the market for postcards, posters, and magazine illustrations
before the war. Perhaps most valuable were the efforts of scientists in industry
to improve radio, airplanes, and instruments to predict the weather and detect
submarines. The war stimulated research and development and made the United
States less dependent on European science and technology.
The War Industries Board, led by Bernard Baruch, a shrewd Wall Street broker,
used the power of the government to control scarce materials and, on occasion,
to set prices and priorities. But cooperation among government, business, and
university scientists to promote research and develop new products was one
legacy of the war. The government itself went into the shipbuilding business.
The largest shipyard, at Hog Island, near Philadelphia, employed as many as
35,000 workers but did not launch its first ship until the late summer of 1918.
San Francisco and Seattle also became major shipbuilding centers, while San
Diego owed its rapid growth to the presence of a major naval base.
The government also got into the business of running the railroads. When a
severe winter and a lack of coordination brought the rail system near collapse
in December 1917, Wilson put all the nation’s railroads under the control of the
United Railway Administration. The government spent more than $500 million
to improve the rails and equipment, and in 1918, the railroads did run more
efficiently than they had under private control. Some businessmen complained
of “war socialism” and resented the way government agencies forced them to
comply with rules and regulations. But most came to agree with Baruch that a
close working relationship with government could improve the quality of their
products, promote efficiency, and increase profits.
Nash et al., 767–68.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
36
Theme T
Owo
ne Excerpts
xcerpts
5. The Rise of the Modern Corporation
The structure and practice of American business were transformed in the 1920s.
After a crisis created by the economic downturn of 1920–1922, business boomed
until the crash of 1929. Mergers increased during the decade at a rate greater
than at any time since the end of the 1890s—there were more than 1,200 mergers
in 1929 alone—creating such giants as General Electric, General Motors, Sears
Roebuck, Du Pont, and U.S. Rubber. These were not monopolies but oligopolies
(industry domination spread among a few large firms). By 1930, the 200 largest
corporations controlled almost half the corporate wealth in the country.
Perhaps the most important business trend of the decade was the emergence
of a new kind of manager. No longer did family entrepreneurs make decisions
relating to prices, wages, and output. Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., an engineer who
reorganized General Motors, was a prototype of the new kind of manager. He
divided the company into components, freeing the top managers to concentrate
on planning new products, controlling inventory, and integrating the whole
operation. Marketing and advertising became as important as production, and
many businesses began to spend more money on research. The new manager
often had a large staff but owned no part of the company. He was usually an
expert at cost accounting and analyzing data. Increasingly, he was a graduate
of one of the new business colleges . . .
Nash et al., 785.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Owo
ne E
Secondary
xcerpts Source
Senate Committee Investigated America’s Decision
to Enter World War I
During the 1920s and 30s, many Congressmen opposed American involvement
overseas. Why was a Senate Committee investigating the role of American
businesses during World War I?
On a hot Tuesday morning following Labor Day in 1934, several hundred
people crowded into the Caucus Room of the Senate Office Building
to witness the opening of an investigation that journalists were already
calling “historic.” Although World War I had been over for 16 years, the
inquiry promised to reopen an intense debate about whether the nation
should ever have gotten involved in that costly conflict.
The so-called “Senate Munitions Committee” came into being because
of widespread reports that manufacturers of armaments had unduly
influenced the American decision to enter the war in 1917. These
weapons’ suppliers had reaped enormous profits at the cost of more
than 53,000 American battle deaths. As local conflicts reignited in
Europe through the early 1930s, suggesting the possibility of a second
world war, concern spread that these “merchants of death” would again
drag the United States into a struggle that was none of its business. The
time had come for a full congressional inquiry.
To lead the seven-member special committee, the Senate’s Democratic
majority chose a Republican—42-year-old North Dakota Senator Gerald
P. Nye. Typical of western agrarian progressives, Nye energetically
opposed U.S. involvement in foreign wars. He promised, “when the
Senate investigation is over, we shall see that war and preparation for
war is not a matter of national honor and national defense, but a matter
of profit for the few.”
Over the next 18 months, the “Nye Committee” held 93 hearings,
questioning more than 200 witnesses, including J. P. Morgan, Jr., and
Pierre du Pont. Committee members found little hard evidence of an
active conspiracy among arms makers, yet the panel’s reports did little
to weaken the popular prejudice against “greedy munitions interests.”
The investigation came to an abrupt end early in 1936. The Senate cut
off committee funding after Chairman Nye blundered into an attack
on the late Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. Nye suggested
that Wilson had withheld essential information from Congress as
it considered a declaration of war. Democratic leaders, including
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Owo
ne E
Secondary
xcerpts Source
Appropriations Committee Chairman Carter Glass of Virginia, unleashed
a furious response against Nye for “dirtdaubing the sepulcher of
Woodrow Wilson.” Standing before cheering colleagues in a packed
Senate Chamber, Glass slammed his fist onto his desk until blood
dripped from his knuckles.
Although the Nye Committee failed to achieve its goal of nationalizing
the arms industry, it inspired three congressional neutrality acts in the
mid-1930s that signaled profound American opposition to overseas
[military] involvement.
Richard A. Baker, Historical Minutes of the U.S. Senate, “Era of Investigations
(1921–1940): September 4, 1934, ‘Merchants of Death’”;
available at http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/merchants_of_death.htm
(accessed July 16, 2007).
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme Two
Conclusion
During World War I, large military expenditures gave rise to soaring business profits
in a new-found industry/government partnership. After the war, American businesses
shifted funds to research, marketing, and advertising. It also changed the organizational
structure with a new kind of manager who spearheaded the creation of new products,
controlled inventory, and integrated operations. Efficiency and planning were the
goals of this new corporate structure, and it came to depend on the continuation of
the industry/government alliance established during the war. The expansion of credit,
advertising, and the drive to increase profit stimulated the increased production of
consumer goods, while the rhetoric of efficiency justified cutting skilled-labor costs and
hiring cheaper labor.
Questions to Consider
1. On the domestic front, who prospered from the war? Who suffered losses from the
war? What happened to these groups after the war?
2. How did the relationship between industry and government support corporate
expansion after World War I?
3. How did foundations reflect or shape the emerging relationship of business to
government?
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power 40
Theme T
Ohree
ne
Theme Three: While increasingly involved economically with Europe,
the United States turned away politically and socially from Europe and
focused on the Americas.
Overview
Historians have traditionally viewed the decade following World War I as a period of
isolationism in which the United States retreated from the rest of the world, but there is
evidence to support the argument that America significantly increased its involvement
in international affairs. The United States led the effort to resolve the international
financial problems attributed to the war and tried to reduce naval weapons. It also
took an active role in the regional politics of the Western Hemisphere by intervening
in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Panama. Before and after the war, the thread
of continuity was to maintain a climate of stability in the Western Hemisphere that
safeguarded America’s economic and military interests. After World War I, the United
States became increasingly involved with Europe economically, but the U.S. turned
away politically and socially from Europe and focused on the Americas.
Questions to Consider
1. Why did the United States emerge as a global power after World War I?
2. What types of interventions did the United States initiate in Central and South
American countries? Why?
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Ohree
ne Excerpts
Excerpts
1. A Prospering Economy
[American businesses prospered while] much of the rest of the world suffered
in the aftermath of the war. Germany, wracked by inflation so great that it took
millions of marks to buy a loaf of bread, sunk into depression and was unable to
make reparation payments. Great Britain and France recovered slowly from the
war’s devastation. Although it was not clear at the time, it became obvious later
that the United States was part of a global economy and eventually would be
affected by the economic difficulties of the rest of the world.
Nash et al., 784.
2. A Patriotic Crusade
[Wilson launched a propaganda campaign to persuade the American public that
the war promoted the causes of freedom and democracy, but this campaign
turned anti-German and anti-immigrant. After the war, anti-immigration attitudes
extended to the passage of immigration acts that restricted European and Asian
immigration. During World War I, most] school districts banned the teaching of
German, a “language that disseminates the ideals of autocracy, brutality and
hatred.” Anything German became suspect. Sauerkraut was renamed “liberty
cabbage,” and German measles became “liberty measles.” Many families
Americanized their German surnames. Several cities banned music by German
composers from symphony concerts. South Dakota prohibited the use of German
on the telephone, and in Iowa, a state official announced, “If their language
is disloyal, they should be imprisoned. If their acts are disloyal, they should
be shot.” Occasionally, the patriotic fever led to violence. The most notorious
incident occurred in East St. Louis, Illinois, which had a large German population.
A mob seized Robert Prager, a young German American, in April 1918, stripped
off his clothes, dressed him in an American flag, marched him through the streets,
and lynched him. The eventual trial led to the acquittal of the ringleaders on the
grounds that the lynching was a “patriotic murder.”
The Wilson administration did not condone domestic violence and murder, but
heated patriotism led to irrational hatreds and fears. Suspect were not only
German Americans but also radicals, pacifists, and anyone who raised doubts
about the American war efforts or the government’s policies. In New York, the
black editors of The Messenger were given two-and-a-half-year jail sentences
for the paper’s article “Pro-Germanism Among Negroes.” The Los Angeles police
ignored complaints that Mexicans were being harassed, because after learning of
the Zimmermann telegram they believed that all Mexicans were pro-German . . .
Nash et al., 756–57.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Ohree
ne Excerpts
Secondary Source
Areas Excluded from Immigration
United States, 1882–1952
to the
The federal government excluded Chinese immigrants from entering the United
States in 1882, and Japanese and Korean immigrants in 1924. In 1917, the
government also excluded immigrants from India, Indonesia, and the Arabian
Peninsula. Why did the United States limit immigration from Asian countries?
Wood et al., 648.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Ohree
ne Excerpts
Excerpts
3. Immigration and Migration
. . . The immigration acts of 1921, 1924, and 1927 sharply limited European
immigration and virtually banned Asian immigrants. The 1924 law contained a
provision prohibiting the entry of aliens ineligible for citizenship. This provision
was aimed directly at the Japanese, for the Chinese had already been excluded;
but even without this provision, only a small number could have immigrated. “
We try hard to be American,” one California resident remarked, “But Americans
always say you always Japanese.” Denied both citizenship and the right to own
land, the first generation Issei placed all of their hope in the children, but the
second generation Nisei often felt trapped between the land of their parents and
the America they lived in, and they still were treated like second-class citizens. A
California politician called the Japanese a “non-assimilable people” who
threatened to make California a “Japanese Plantation” . . .
Nash et al., 796.
4. Global Expansion
The decade of the 1920s is often remembered as a time of isolation, when the
United States rejected the League of Nations treaty and turned its back on the
rest of the world. It is true that many Americans had little interest in what was
going on in Paris, Moscow, or Rio de Janeiro, and it is also true that a bloc of
congressmen was determined that the United States would never again enter
another European war. But the United States remained involved—indeed,
increased its involvement—in international affairs during the decade. Although
the United States never joined the League of Nations, and a few dedicated
isolationists, led by Senator William Borah, blocked membership in the World
Court, the United States cooperated with many league agencies and conferences
and took the lead in trying to reduce naval armaments and to solve the problems
of international finance caused in part by the war . . .
Nash et al., 806.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme Three P rimary Source
Speech by Henry Cabot Lodge Objecting to
the League of Nations
Creator:
Lodge, chairman of
the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee
Question to Consider
What is Lodge’s reason for not ratifying U.S. entry in the League
of Nations?
Senator Henry Cabot
Context:
The senators debated
on whether or not to
ratify the League
of Nations.
Mr. President:
. . . Contrast the United States with any country on the face
of the earth today and ask yourself whether the situation of
the United States is not the best to be found. I will go as far
as anyone in world service, but the first step to world service
is the maintenance of the United States.
I have always loved one flag and I cannot share that devotion
[with] a mongrel banner created for a League.
You may call me selfish if you will, conservative or
reactionary, or use any other harsh adjective you see fit
to apply, but an American I was born, an American I have
remained all my life. I can never be anything else but an
American, and I must think of the United States first, and
when I think of the United States first in an arrangement
like this I am thinking of what is best for the world, for if the
United States fails, the best hopes of mankind fail with it.
I have never had but one allegiance - I cannot divide it now.
I have loved but one flag and I cannot share that devotion
and give affection to the mongrel banner invented for a
league. Internationalism, illustrated by the Bolshevik and by
the men to whom all countries are alike provided they can
make money out of them, is to me repulsive.
National I must remain, and in that way I like all other
Americans can render the amplest service to the world. The
United States is the world’s best hope, but if you fetter her
in the interests and quarrels of other nations, if you tangle
her in the intrigues of Europe, you will destroy her power for
good and endanger her very existence. Leave her to march
freely through the centuries to come as in the years that
have gone . . .
Audience:
Senators
Purpose:
To show the views of
some senators against
the League of Nations
Historical Significance:
In 1919, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge,
a Republican, argued against the
United States becoming a member of
the League of Nations. His resistance
reflected a belief by many in Congress
that the United States should distance
itself from European politics. Lodge
did not want to pledge American
economic or military aid for the security
of member nations. Lodge proposed
amendments to the League of Nations
that limited the role of the United
States, but President Wilson— who
proposed American participation in
the League of Nations—,refused to
compromise with the Republicans.
Congress, swayed by Senator Lodge,
voted against U.S. entry into the
League of Nations.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme Three P rimary Source
We are told that we shall ‘break the heart of the world’ if we
do not take this league just as it stands. I fear that the hearts
of the vast majority of mankind would beat on strongly and
steadily and without any quickening if the league were to
perish altogether . . .
We would not have our politics distracted and embittered
by the dissensions of other lands. We would not have our
country’s vigour exhausted or her moral force abated, by
everlasting meddling and muddling in every quarrel, great
and small, which afflicts the world.
Our ideal is to make her ever stronger and better and
finer, because in that way alone, as we believe, can she
be of the greatest service to the world’s peace and to the
welfare of mankind.
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr., speaking against the U.S. joining the League of
Nations, on August 12, 1919, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
http://www.etsu.edu/cas/history/docs/lodgeagainst.htm
(accessed February 15, 2007).
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Ohree
ne Excerpts
Excerpts
5. Global Expansion
. . . Business, trade, and finance marked the decade as one of international
expansion for the United States. With American corporate investments overseas
growing sevenfold during the decade, the United States was transformed from a
debtor to a creditor nation. The continued involvement of the United States in the
affairs of South and Central American countries also indicated that the country
had little interest in hiding behind its national boundaries. But it was not just trade
and investment that increased during the decade. The United States increased its
international position in cable communication, wireless telegraphy, news services,
and motion pictures. In most cases, the British had controlled international
communication, but by the end of the decade, the United States government
had positioned itself to compete in global communications by supporting private
companies; in fact, in some areas, such as film, the United States led the world.
In 1925, 95 percent of the films shown in Great Britain and Canada and
70 percent of those shown in France were American made. In addition, American
organizations such as the YMCA, Rotary International, and the Rockefeller
Foundation increased their activities around the world during the decade . . .
American foreign policy in the 1920s tried to reduce the risk of international
conflict, resist revolution, and make the world safe for trade and investment.
Nobody in the Republican administrations even suggested that the United States
should remain isolated from Latin America. American diplomats argued for an
open door to trade in China and in Latin America, but the United States had
always assumed a special and distinct role. Throughout the decade, American
investment in agriculture, minerals, petroleum, and manufacturing increased in
the countries to the south. The United States bought nearly 60 percent of Latin
America’s exports and sold the region nearly 50 percent of its imports. “We are
seeking to establish a Pax Americana maintained not by arms but by mutual
agreement and good will,” Hughes maintained.
Still, the United States continued the process of intervention that was begun
earlier. By the end of the decade, the United States controlled the financial affairs
of 10 Latin American nations. The marines were withdrawn from the Dominican
Republic in 1924, but that country remained a virtual protectorate of the United
States until 1941. The government ordered the marines from Nicaragua in 1925
but sent them back the next year when a liberal insurrection threatened the
conservative government. But the U.S. Marines, and the Nicaraguan troops
they had trained, had a difficult time containing a guerrilla band led by Augusto
Sandino, a charismatic leader and one of Latin America’s greatest heroes. The
Sandinistas, supported by the great majority of peasants, came out of the hills to
attack the politicians and their American supporters. One American coffee planter
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Ohree
ne Excerpts
Excerpts
decided in 1931 that the American intervention had been a disaster. “Today
we are hated and despised,” he announced. “This feeling has been created by
employing American Marines to hunt down and kill Nicaraguans in their own
country.” In 1934, Sandino was murdered by General Anastasio Somoza, a
ruthless leader supported by the United States. For more than 40 years, Somoza
and his two sons ruled Nicaragua as a private fiefdom, a legacy not yet resolved
in that strife-torn country.
Mexico frightened American businessmen in the mid-1920s by beginning to
nationalize foreign holdings in oil and mineral rights. Fearing that further military
activity would “injure American interests,” businessmen and bankers urged
Coolidge not to send marines but to negotiate instead. Coolidge appointed
Dwight W. Morrow of the J. P. Morgan Company as ambassador, and his
conciliatory attitude led to agreements protecting American investments.
Throughout the decade, the goal of U.S. policy toward Central and South
America, whether in the form of negotiations or intervention, was to maintain a
special sphere of influence.
The U.S. policy of promoting peace, stability, and trade was not always consistent
or carefully thought out, and this was especially true in its relationships with
Europe. At the end of the war, European countries owed the United States over
$10 billion, with Great Britain and France responsible for about three-fourths of
that amount. Both countries, mired in postwar economic problems, suggested
that the United States forgive the debts, arguing that they had paid for the war
in lives and property destroyed. But the United States, although adjusting the
interest and the payment schedule, refused to forget the debt. “They hired the
money, didn’t they?” Coolidge supposedly remarked . . .
The United States had replaced Great Britain as the dominant force in
international finance, but the nation in the 1920s was a reluctant and
inconsistent world leader. The United States had stayed out of the League
of Nations and was hesitant to get involved in multinational agreements.
However, some agreements seemed proper to sign; the most idealistic of all
was the Kellogg-Briand pact to outlaw war. The French foreign minister, Aristide
Briand, suggested a treaty between the United States and France in large
part to commemorate long years of friendship between the two countries, but
Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg in 1928 expanded the idea to a multinational
treaty to outlaw war. Fourteen nations agreed to sign the treaty, and eventually
62 nations signed, but the only power behind the treaty was moral force rather
than economic or military sanctions.
Nash et al., 806–8.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Ohree
ne Excerpts
Secondary Source
Map of Mexican Population in the United States,
1930
What states had the greatest concentration of Mexicans living in the United
States? Why?
Nash et al., 797.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme T
Ohree
ne Excerpts
Excerpts
6. Immigration and Migration
The immigration laws of the 1920s cut off the streams of cheap labor that had
provided muscle for an industrializing country since the early nineteenth century.
At the same time, by exempting immigrants from the Western Hemisphere, the
new laws opened the country to Mexican laborers who were eager to escape
poverty in their own land and to work in the fields and farms of California and
the Southwest. Though they never matched the flood of eastern and southern
Europeans who entered the country before World War I, Mexican immigrants
soon became the country’s largest first-generation immigrant group. Nearly onehalf million arrived in the 1920s, in contrast to only 31,000 in the first decade
of the century. Mexican farm workers often lived in primitive camps, where
conditions were unsanitary and health care was nonexistent. “When they have
finished harvesting my crops I will kick them out on the country road,” one
employer announced. “My obligation is ended.”
Mexicans also migrated to industrial cities such as Detroit, St. Louis, and
Kansas City. Northern companies recruited them and paid their transportation.
The Bethlehem Steel Corporation brought 1,000 Mexicans into its Pennsylvania
plant in 1923, and U.S. Steel imported 1,500 as strikebreakers to Lorain, Ohio,
about the same time. During the 1920s, the population of El Paso, Texas,
became more than 50 percent Mexican, and that of San Antonio, a little less
than 50 percent Mexican. In California, the Mexican population reached 368,000
in 1929, and in Los Angeles, the population was about 20 percent Mexican. Like
African Americans, the Mexicans found opportunity by migrating, but they did
not escape prejudice or hardship.
Nash et al., 796.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Theme Three
Conclusion
The United States played an active role in the politics of Central and South American
after World War I. Although it retreated from European political affairs, the U.S.
continued to maintain economic trade relations with Europe. Immigration restrictions
from Europe not only reflected this distancing from Europe, but also illustrated fear and
hostility towards immigrants—particularly those from eastern and southern Europe with
its pockets of socialism and anarchism. The United States instead turned southward
and opened its doors to cheap labor from Mexico.
Questions to Consider
1. Why did the United States pass the immigration acts of the 1920s?
2. How can we explain America’s emerging relation to the people and government of
its southern neighbor, Mexico, during an increasingly anti-immigration climate?
3. How was the United States envisioned as developing an intensely nationalistic
globalism?
Unit Conclusion
Between 1900 and 1920, the United States joined the race to carve up the globe.
Critics of imperialism proposed many arguments against expansion, but were unable
to slow the drive to establish an overseas empire. At first, American expansion largely
involved military intervention, but by the end of the period the emphasis shifted to
protecting American business interests.
Business interests also profited from a new industry-government partnership that grew
out of the large military expenditures from World War I. After the war, a new corporate
structure came to depend on the continuation of the industry-government alliance
established during the war. After World War I, the United States played an active role in
the politics of Central and South American, but retreated from European political affairs.
The U.S. continued to maintain economic trade relations with Europe, but distanced
itself by placing immigration restrictions on Europe—particularly eastern and southern
European countries. The United States instead turned southward and opened its doors
to cheap labor from Mexico.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power 51
Timeline
1891 Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani ascends the throne
1893 World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago
1893 Hawaiian coup by sugar growers
1898 Sinking of the USS Maine
1898–99 Spanish-American War
1898 Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands
1898 Puerto Rico seized from Spain
1899 American Samoa acquired
1899–1902 Philippine-American War
1901 Theodore Roosevelt becomes president
1902 Chinese Exclusion Act extended
1904 Roosevelt corollary, gives the right to intervene in Latin America
1904–06 U.S. intervenes in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Cuba
1908 U.S. Marines intervene in Panamanian election contest
1910 Mexican Revolution begins
1910–20 One million Mexicans enter the U.S.
1911 U.S. interests protected in Honduran civil war
1911 Frederick Winslow Taylor writes The Principles of Scientific Management
1911 U.S. intervenes in Nicaragua
1914 The Panama Canal opens
1914–18 World War I
1915 U.S. occupies Haiti
1916 Mexico intervention
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Timeline Continued
1916–24 Marines occupy Dominican Republic
1917 The Russian Revolution
1917 Immigrants from India, Indonesia, and the Arabian
Peninsula restricted from entering U.S.
1917 War Industries Board formed
1919 Red Scare and Palmer raids
1920 First commercial radio broadcast
1924 Immigrants from Korea and Japan restricted from
entering U.S.
1927 Sacco and Vanzetti executed
Unit Reference Materials
- Brandes, Stuart D. Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America. Lexington: The
University Press of Kentucky, 1997.
- Monroy, Douglas. Rebirth: Mexican Los Angeles from the Great Migration to the Great
Depression. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999.
- Nash, Gary B., Julie Roy Jeffrey, John R. Howe. Peter J. Frederick, and Allan M.
Winkler. The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society, 6th ed. New York:
Pearson Education Inc., 2004. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc.
- Silva, Noenoe K. Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American
Colonialism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.
- Wood, Peter, Jacqueline Jones, Thomas Borstelmann, Elaine Tyler May, and Vicki
Ruiz. Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States. New York:
Pearson Education Inc., 2003. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
53
Further Reading
1- Lens, Sidney. The Forging of the American Empire: From the Revolution to Vietnam:
A History of American Imperialism (Human Security). London: Pluto Press, 2003.
2- Loewen, James. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: The New Press, 1995.
3- Samuels, Peggy, and Harold Samuels. Remembering the Maine. Washington and
London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.
Visit the Web Site
Explore these themes further on the America’s History in the Making Web site. See how
this content aligns with your own state standards, browse the resource archive, review
the series timeline, and explore the Web interactives. You can also read full versions of
selected Magazine of History (MOH) articles or selected National Center for History in
the Schools (NCHS) lesson plans.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
54
Appendix 1-1
THEME ONE PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 4204
Frank A. Nankivell, The Ultimate Cause (Puck, Dec. 19, 1900, cover).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Appendix 1-2
THEME ONE PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 4726
William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal (February 17, 1898, cover).
Courtesy of the Image Works.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Appendix 1-2
THEME ONE PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 6833
Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, (February 17, 1898, cover). Courtesy of Ross Collins.
Originally printed in New York Extra. A Newspaper History of the Greatest City in the World from 1671 to the 1939 Worlds Fair.
From the Collection of Eric C. Caren. Edison, NJ, Castle Books, 2000.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Appendix 1-3
THEME ONE PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 6827
Pears’ Soap Company, Lightening the White Man’s Burden (1899).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Appendix 2-1
THEME TWO PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 5698
J.C. Leyendecker, American Lithographic Co., Third Liberty Loan Campaign — Boy Scouts of America
Weapons for liberty (1917). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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Appendix 2-2
THEME TWO PRIMARY SOURCE
Item 5981
Walter H. Everett, for the Sackett & Wilhelms Corporation,
Must children die and mothers plead in vain? Buy moreLiberty Bonds (1918).
Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Unit 16 A Growing Global Power
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