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DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
U.S. Industrialization
The United States. The first industrialization outside Europe occurred in the British
colonies that became the United States. The colonies had a wide range of industries.
The most successful was shipbuilding. By the time the colonies declared their
independence in 1776, about a third of Britain's ships were being built in America.
Iron manufacturing was also a major industry, and a few American companies
exported iron to Great Britain.
By the early 1800's, the small arms industry in the United States had developed
machines and machine tools that could produce standard parts that were required for
mass production. Industrial production, especially of textiles and light metals, began
to increase sharply in the United States in the 1820's. The greatest increases in
manufacturing took place in New England. Industrialization also benefited from
improvements made in rivers and canals. These improvements reduced the cost of
transporting goods to and from the interior of the country.
Beginning in the 1830's, industrialization increased rapidly throughout the Eastern
United States. The iron industry in Pennsylvania made especially great advances as
iron was adapted for agricultural tools, railroad track, and a variety of structural uses.
By the 1850's, the quality and price of American iron enabled U.S. ironmakers to
compete with Great Britain's ironmakers in the international market.
During the mid-1800's, the agricultural, construction, and mining industries expanded
as the population spread westward. Manufacturing accounted for less than a fifth of all
U.S. production in 1840. By 1860, it accounted for a third. However, agricultural
products made up more than two-thirds of the value of all U.S. exports in 1860, and
the country still imported more manufactured goods than it exported. But by the late
1800's, the United States had become the largest and most competitive industrial
nation in the world.
By 1870, the main trends of the Industrial Revolution were clearly marked in all
industrialized countries. Industry had advanced faster than agriculture. Goods were
being made by power-driven machinery and assembled in factories, where
management planned operations and the workers did little more than tend the
machines. Capital controlled industrial production, but labor was being allowed to
organize to fight for higher wages, shorter hours, and better working conditions. The
railroad, the improved sailing ship, the steamship, and the telegraph had reduced the
cost and time of transportation and communication. Living standards of the workers in
industrial countries were higher than they had ever been. Populations grew rapidly,
and more people lived in cities than ever before.
Wherever the Industrial Revolution spread, it destroyed a traditional way of life. But
as the revolution progressed in each country, more and more workers came to accept
the routines and disciplines of industrialization.
Industrialization and reform (1870-1916)
The industrial growth that began in the United States in the early 1800's continued
steadily up to and through the Civil War. Still, by the end of the war, the typical
American industry was small. Hand labor remained widespread, limiting the
production capacity of industry. Most businesses served a small market and lacked the
capital needed for business expansion.
After the Civil War, however, American industry changed dramatically. Machines
replaced hand labor as the main means of manufacturing, increasing the production
capacity of industry tremendously. A new nationwide network of railroads distributed
goods far and wide. Inventors developed new products the public wanted, and
businesses made the products in large quantities. Investors and bankers supplied the
huge amounts of money that business leaders needed to expand their operations.
Many big businesses grew up as a result of these and other developments. They
included coal mining, petroleum, and railroad companies; and manufacturers and
sellers of such products as steel, industrial machinery, automobiles, and clothing.
The industrial growth had major effects on American life. The new business activity
centered in cities. As a result, people moved to cities in record numbers, and the cities
grew by leaps and bounds. Many Americans amassed huge fortunes from the business
boom, but others lived in extreme poverty. The sharp contrast between the rich and
the poor and other features of American life stirred widespread discontent. The
discontent triggered new reform movements, which--among other things--led to
measures to aid the poor and control the size and power of big business.
The industrial growth centered chiefly in the North. The war-torn South lagged behind
the rest of the country economically. In the West, frontier life was ending.
America's role in foreign affairs also changed during the late 1800's and early 1900's.
The country built up its military strength and became a world power.
The value of goods produced by American industry increased almost tenfold between
1870 and 1916. Many interrelated developments contributed to this growth.
Development of new products. Inventors created, and business leaders produced and
sold, a variety of new products. The products included the typewriter (1867), barbed
wire (1874), the telephone (1876), the phonograph (1877), the electric light (1879),
and the gasoline automobile (1885). Of these, the automobile had the greatest impact
on the nation's economy. In the early 1900's, Ransom Eli Olds and Henry Ford began
turning out cars by mass production. Automobile prices dropped, and sales soared.
The number of automobiles owned by Americans jumped from 8,000 in 1900 to
almost 3,500,000 in 1916.
Natural resources. America's rich and varied natural resources played a key role in the
rise of big business. The nation's abundant water supply helped power the industrial
machines. Forests provided lumber for construction and wooden products. Miners
took large quantities of coal and iron ore from the ground. Andrew Carnegie and other
business leaders made steel from these minerals. Steel played a vital role in the
industrialization process. It was used to build machines, railroad tracks, bridges,
automobiles, and skyscrapers. Other industrially valuable minerals included copper,
silver, and petroleum. Petroleum--the source of gasoline--became especially important
after the automobile came into widespread use in the early 1900's.
A growing population. More than 25 million immigrants entered the United States
between 1870 and 1916. Immigration plus natural growth caused the U.S. population
to more than double during the same period, rising from about 40 million to about 100
million. Population growth helped the economic boom in two ways. It increased the
number of consumers, and thus enlarged the market for products. It also provided the
additional workers needed for the jobs created by the new business activity.
Distribution, sales, and communication. In the late 1800's, the American railroad
system became a nationwide transportation network. The distance of all railroad lines
in operation in the United States soared from about 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) in
1850 to almost 200,000 miles (320,000 kilometers) in 1900. A high point in railroad
development came in 1869, when workers laid tracks that joined the Central Pacific
and Union Pacific railroads near Ogden, Utah. This event marked the completion of
the world's first transcontinental railroad system. The system linked the United States
by rail from coast to coast.
The new railroads spurred economic growth. Mining companies used them to ship
raw materials to factories over long distances quickly. Manufacturers distributed their
finished products by rail to points throughout the country. The railroads became
highly profitable businesses for their owners, including Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay
Gould.
Improved sales methods also aided economic growth. Owners of big businesses sent
salespeople to all parts of the country to promote their products. Enterprising
merchants opened huge department stores in the growing cities. They included
Marshall Field of Chicago, R. H. Macy of New York, and John Wanamaker of
Philadelphia. The stores offered a wide variety of products at reasonable prices. Other
merchants--including Montgomery Ward and Richard Sears--began mail-order
companies, chiefly to serve people who lived far from stores. The companies
published catalogs that showed their products. Buyers used the catalogs to order
goods by mail.
Investment and banking. The business boom triggered a sharp increase in investments
in the stocks and bonds of corporations. As businesses prospered, persons eager to
share in the profits invested heavily. Their investments provided capital that
companies needed to expand their operations.
New banks sprang up throughout the country. Banks helped finance the nation's
economic growth by making loans to businesses. Some bankers of the era, especially
J. P. Morgan, assumed key positions in the American economy because of their ability
to provide huge sums of capital.
Monopolies. The government did little to regulate business during the 1800's.
Unrestricted, business executives in the United States struggled to wipe out
competition and gain complete control of their industries. They formed monopolies,
which--for the most part--are illegal today. Some business owners in the same
industry merged (united to form a single company) in order to reduce or eliminate
competition. Other business leaders formed trusts. A trust was a monopoly in which a
group of managers controlled rival businesses without formal ownership of the
businesses.
The monopolies had some favorable effects on the economy. They helped make
possible the giant, efficient corporations that contributed so much to economic
growth. The monopolies also enabled businesses to avoid sharp fluctuations in price
and output, and thus keep sales steady. On the other hand, monopolies gave some
business leaders so much power that they could take unfair advantage of others. A
business executive with little or no competition could demand goods from suppliers at
low cost, while charging high prices for the finished product. The executive could also
save money by reducing a product's quality.
Contributor: Eric Edwin Lampard, Ph.D., Prof. of History, State Univ. of New York at
Stony Brook; Former Prof. of History, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison.
The wealthy class is becoming more wealthy; but the poorer class is becoming more dependent. The
gulf between the employed and the employer is growing wider; social contrasts are becoming
sharper; as livered
Industrialization in America was a surprisingly quick process given the slow crawl in Europe toward
the growth of manufacturing and industry. In 1860, America was fourth in the world in
manufacturing but by the turn of the 20th century was the biggest industrial nation in the world by
far. Profiteering during and after the Civil War as well as the favorable, pro-business presidencies of
Ulysses Grant along with the hands-off presidencies of the Gilded Age led to an upsurge in wealth
accumulation. This excessive accumulation in the hands of a few business leaders was then invested
into expensive manufacturing operations, which was used to extract massive amounts of natural
resources and import cheap labor from southern and eastern Europe. As well, this tangent of great
wealth was fortunate to run into the creation of Bell’s telephone in 1876 and Edison’s light bulb in
1879 to create the first massive infiltration by businesses into the household. Prosperity and the want
of prosperity were the signs that industrialization’s effects had reached communities across the
United States. hree major business figures emerged at the end of the 19th century. These “robber
barons” were Andrew Carnegie in the steel industry, J.P. Morgan in the banking industry, and John
Rockefeller in the oil
industry. Morgan became the most important figure of the three major barons because his banking
empire was able to tie together all of the other magnates to control a good portion of the American
economy. This included consolidating businesses wounded by competition in order to run out
competing businesses and forcing the hand of weak presidents and Congresses over four decades.
Carnegie’s efficient steel making and marketing processes allowed America to
outproduceGermany and England combined by the end of the century and the preeminence of
Carnegie in steel meant that huge profits rolled in with little consideration to taxes. Rockefeller’s
Standard Oil controlled 95 percent of the global petroleum market in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries and the introduction of home lighting and heating, along with the need of fuel in factories
and vehicles, meant an almost endless amount of revenue sources for Standard. The cooperative
alliances between the three industries, or “trusts,” provided cheaper goods, streamlined production
and eliminated rate wars. However, it also led to poorer working conditions (leading to labor unions
during this time), the promotion of elitism, and a danger to democracy when they held up Congress
for greater profits and control over the economy.
One would be remiss in a discussion about industrialization in America without discussing the
expansion of railroads, which allowed for the rapid expansion of industry across America. Between
1865-1900, railroad mileage in America increased from 35,000 miles to 192,000 miles thanks to
congressional land grants and the end of partisan wrangling during the Civil War. Towns along the
tracks and those that developed for the purpose of supporting rail workers flourished in the western
territories and the profits of robber baron Cornelius Vanderbilt and his railroad business were made
possible by the increasing property value for rail towns and the cheap labor brought in
from Chinaand Ireland. While the railroad was profitable and beneficial to the overall growth of the
United States, it did expose the labor problems in the United States, along with the problems of non-
regulation brought by the protests of early populist groups like the Grange movement. The
industrialization of America, however, was beyond the control of politicians and the public alike as
the Gilded Age was the era of big business. This would change, however slightly, during the 1900s
and 1910s when the Progressive movement was able to take over Congress and the White House.
The beginning of Flexible Mass Production. The assembly line typifies the move of
reductionism in the factory--this is a reduction of work to simple labor, robbed of all
inherent interest or value. "The worker, making a few turns of the wrist or sweeps of
the arm, becomes a specialized machine, doomed to repeat these simple mechanical
movements eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year. Nothing seems
more brutalizing, not because of felt pain or discomfort--for many studies show that
workers do adjust to the rhythms of movement imposed by the line and may derive
pleasure from the experience of continuity--but rather because experiences and
potentials are lost forever as intelligent people are robbed of their ability to think,
puzzle out, and discover" (Hirschhorn, 1984, p.13).
According to Nuwer (1988), the introduction of mass production techniques into the
workplace was often related to the large amount of machine-tending jobs.
Technological changes in manufacturing practices, such as mass production and the
assembly line, increased the scale of production of goods by standardizing productive
operations. This created a large class of machine operators in American factories who,
overall, had lower skills than the craft production workers that were displaced.
The start of mass production, originally called "Fordism" led to the use of mass
production in other automobile companies with manufacturers of consumer durable
goods soon following. Mass production was viewed by industrialists as industry on a
scientific basis while social critics decried its dehumanizing effects on the workforce.
Edward Filene argued that mass production represented the "second" Industrial
Revolution. Ford’s system of mass production was so successful because his product,
the Model T, did not vary. However, variety and options became the hallmark of the
new consumer society which developed. So, Ford’s pure assembly line was modified
widely to become more of a flexible line which allowed variations in assembly.
The assembly line, and its derivatives, are still a significant force in the
manufacturing world of today. Now called traditional manufacturing, the system
of melding worker to the machine is used to build almost all durable goods. And,
the development of hierarchy and planning, which are maximized by this system,
are still common in American production. Manifest Destiny
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An Introduction
Manifest Destiny – a phrase used by leaders and politicians in the 1840s to explain continental expansion by the
United States – revitalized a sense of "mission" or national destiny for Americans.
The people of the United States felt it was their mission to extend the "boundaries of freedom" to others by imparting
their idealism and belief in democratic institutions to those who were capable of self-government. It excluded those
people who were perceived as being incapable of self-government, such as Native American people and those of
non-European origin.
But there were other forces and political agendas at work as well. As the population of the original 13 Colonies grew
and the U.S. economy developed, the desire and attempts to expand into new land increased. For many colonists,
land represented potential income, wealth, self-sufficiency and freedom. Expansion into the western frontiers offered
opportunities for self-advancement.
To understand Manifest Destiny, it's important to understand the United States' need and desire to expand. The
following points illustrate some of the economic, social and political pressures promoting U.S. expansion:
○ The United States was experiencing a periodic high birth rate and increases in population due to
immigration. And because agriculture provided the primary economic structure, large families to work the
farms were considered an asset. The U.S. population grew from more than five millon in 1800 to more than
23 million by mid-century. Thus, there was a need to expand into new territories to accommodate this rapid
growth. It's estimated that nearly 4,000,000 Americans moved to western territories between 1820 and
1850.
○ The United States suffered two economic depressions — one in 1818 and a second in 1839. These crises
drove some people to seek their living in frontier areas.
○ Expansion into frontier areas opened opportunities for new commerce and individual self-advancement.
○ Land ownership was associated with wealth and tied to self-sufficiency, political power and independent
"self-rule."
○ Maritime merchants saw an opportunity to expand and promote new commerce by building West Coast
ports leading to increased trade with countries in the Pacific.
While the United States put into motion a quest for its Manifest Destiny, Mexico
faced quite different circumstances as a newly independent country. Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in
1821, but the country suffered terribly from the struggle. The war caused severe economic burdens and recovery was
difficult. The fledgling nation's first attempts at creating a new government included placing the country under the rule
of an emperor. In 1824, the monarchy was overthrown and a constitutional republic was formed. But internal
struggles between the various political factions, such as the Centralist, Federalist, Monarchist and Republican parties,
drained even more of the country's energy and resources. These political factions were not united and new struggles
broke out by the different sides as each tried to secure dominant rule.
Mexico won vast northern territories with its independence from Spain. These borderlands were underpopulated, so
amid its internal political struggles and economic deficits, Mexico was also challenged to colonize these territories
and guard its borders. Protecting and colonizing Mexico's northern territories proved to be nearly impossible for the
staggering country:
○ Due to Mexico's economic system, there were fewer opportunities for individual self-advancement in the
frontier regions and people were less motivated to relocate. Colonization was pushed primarily as part of the
government's political agenda.
○ Constant warfare with Native Americans discouraged people from settling into the areas.
○ The national military system was unable to provide support to guard the countries vast borders.
○ Both the Catholic Church and Mexico's military, the main guardians of the nation's traditions, were unable to
exercise authority in the border areas. Frontier communities were poor, for the most part, and these poverty-
stricken areas could not support the complex institutions that the central government tried to put in place.
The communications necessary to unify the regions were slow and unreliable.
○ Frontier society was more informal, democratic, self-reliant and egalitarian than the core of Mexico's society.
Thus, frontier communities were often at odds with the central government, which imposed restrictions that
affected the economy of these societies.
○ The last decades of the 19th century were a period of imperial expansion for the
United States, as it extended its influence, and at times its domain, over widely
scattered areas in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and into Central America.
The United States took a different course than its European rivals, however,
because of its own history of struggle against European empires and its unique
democratic development.
○ The sources of American expansionism in the late 19th century were varied.
Internationally, it was a period of imperialist frenzy, as European powers raced
to carve up Africa and competed for influence and trade in Asia -- along with a
new rival, Japan. Many Americans, including such influential figures as
Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge and Elihu Root, felt that to safeguard
its own interests, the United States had to stake out spheres of economic
influence as well. That view was seconded by a powerful naval lobby, which
called for an expanded fleet and network of overseas ports as essential to the
economic and political security of the nation. More generally, the doctrine of
"manifest destiny," first used to justify America's continental expansion, was
now revived to assert that the United States had a right and duty to extend its
influence and civilization in the Western Hemisphere and the Caribbean, as
well as across the Pacific.
○ At the same time, the voices of anti-imperialism from diverse coalitions of
Northern Democrats and reform-minded Republicans remained loud and
constant. As a result, the acquisition of an American empire was piecemeal and
ambivalent, and colonial administrations were often more concerned with trade
and economic issues than political control.
○ America's first venture beyond her continental borders was the purchase of
Alaska -- sparsely populated by Inuit and other native peoples -- from Russia in
1867. Most Americans were either indifferent to or indignant at this action by
Secretary of State William Seward, and Alaska was widely referred to as
"Seward's Folly" and "Seward's Icebox." But 30 years later, when gold was
discovered on Alaska's Klondike River, thousands of Americans headed north,
and many of them settled in Alaska permanently. When Alaska became the
49th state in 1959, it replaced Texas as the largest state in the Union.
○ The Spanish-American War, which was fought in 1898, marked a turning point
in American history. Within a few years after the war ended, the United States
was exercising control or influence over islands in the Caribbean Sea, the mid-
Pacific and close to the Asian mainland.
○ By the 1890s, Cuba and Puerto Rico were the only remnants of Spain's once
vast empire in the New World, while the Philippine Islands comprised the core
of Spanish power in the Pacific. The outbreak of war had three principal
sources: popular hostility to autocratic Spanish rule; American sympathy with
demands for independence; and a new spirit of national assertiveness in the
United States, stimulated in part by a "jingoistic" or nationalistic and
sensationalist press.
○ In 1895 Cuba's growing wrath against the tyranny of the mother country burst
into a war of independence. The United States watched the course of the
uprising with mounting concern. Most Americans were sympathetic with the
Cubans, but President Cleveland was determined to preserve neutrality. Three
years later, however, during the McKinley administration, the U.S.
warship Maine was destroyed while lying at anchor in Havana harbor, under
circumstances that are still unclear. More than 250 men were killed, and an
outburst of indignation, intensified by sensationalized press coverage, swept
across the country. Although for a time McKinley tried to preserve the peace,
within a few months, believing delay futile, he recommended armed
intervention.
○ The war with Spain was swift and decisive. During the four months it lasted,
not a single American reverse of any importance occurred. A week after the
declaration of war, Commodore George Dewey, then at Hong Kong, proceeded
with his squadron of six vessels to the Philippines. His orders were to prevent
the Spanish fleet based there from operating in American waters. He caught the
entire Spanish fleet at anchor and destroyed it without losing an American life.
○ Meanwhile, in Cuba, troops landed near Santiago, where, after winning a rapid
series of engagements, they fired on the port. Four armored Spanish cruisers
steamed out of Santiago Bay and a few hours later were reduced to ruined
hulks.
○ From Boston to San Francisco, whistles blew and flags waved when word came
that Santiago had fallen. Newspapers dispatched correspondents to Cuba and
the Philippines, who trumpeted the renown of the nation's new heroes. Chief
among them were George Dewey of Manila fame and Theodore Roosevelt,
who resigned as assistant secretary of the navy to lead the "Rough Riders," a
volunteer regiment he recruited for service in Cuba. Spain soon sued for peace,
and in the treaty signed on December 10, 1898, transferred Cuba to the United
States for temporary occupation preliminary to the island's independence. In
addition, Spain ceded Puerto Rico and Guam in lieu of war indemnity, and the
Philippines on payment of $20 million.
○ Having overseas possessions was a new experience for the United States.
Consequently, the new territories were encouraged to move toward democratic
self-government, a political system with which none of them had any previous
experience.
○ Nevertheless, the United States found itself in a familiar colonial role when it
suppressed an armed independence movement in the Philippines in the first
decade of its occupation. The Philippines gained the right to elect both houses
of its legislature in 1916, and in 1936 a largely autonomous Philippine
Commonwealth was established. In 1946, after World War II, the islands
attained full independence.
○ American involvement in the Pacific area was not limited to the Philippines,
however. The year of the Spanish-American War also saw the beginning of a
new relationship with the Hawaiian Islands. Earlier contact with Hawaii had
been mainly through missionaries and casual traders. After 1865, however,
Americans began to develop the islands' resources -- chiefly sugar cane and
pineapples. When the royal government announced its intention to end foreign
influence in 1893, American businessmen joined with influential Hawaiians to
install a new government, which then asked to be annexed to the United States.
○ Widespread protests in the United States against the use of American soldiers
and the idea of colonial rule persuaded President Grover Cleveland and
Congress to reject annexation at first. But, responding to the surge of
nationalism generated by the Spanish-American War, Congress voted
overwhelmingly in July 1898 to annex the islands, thus also acquiring an
important naval base at Pearl Harbor. In 1959 Hawaii became the 50th state in
the Union.
○ Cuba acquired nominal independence when American troops departed in 1902.
But the United States retained the right to intervene to preserve civil order,
which it did on three occasions before renouncing that right in 1934. Even with
full Cuban independence, however, American economic and political influence
remained strong until 1959, when Fidel Castro overthrew the government in
power, establishing a Marxist regime with close ties to the Soviet Union.
○ Puerto Rico, the island lying east of Cuba, followed an apprenticeship similar
to that of Cuba and the Philippines. In 1917 the U.S. Congress granted Puerto
Ricans the right to elect all of their legislators. But the same law created a
different path for the island, making it officially a U.S. territory and, more
importantly, giving its people American citizenship. In 1950 Congress granted
Puerto Rico complete freedom to decide its future. In the referendum of 1952,
the citizens voted to reject either statehood or total independence, and chose
instead a commonwealth status. Large numbers of Puerto Ricans have settled
on the mainland, to which they have free access and where they acquire all the
political and civil rights of any other citizen of the United States.
The last decades of the 19th century were a period of imperial expansion for the United
States. The American story took a different course from that of its European rivals,
however, because of the U.S. history of struggle against European empires and its
unique democratic development.
By 1910, a handful of colonial powers had carved up most of the world. About the map
The sources of American expansionism in the late 19th century were varied.
Internationally, the period was one of imperialist frenzy, as European powers raced to
carve up Africa and competed, along with Japan, for influence and trade in Asia. Many
Americans, including influential figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge,
and Elihu Root, felt that to safeguard its own interests, the United States had to stake
out spheres of economic influence as well. That view was seconded by a powerful naval
lobby, which called for an expanded fleet and network of overseas ports as essential to
the economic and political security of the nation. More generally, the doctrine of
“manifestdestiny,” first used to justify America’s continental expansion, was now
revived to assert that the United States had a right and duty to extend its influence and
civilization in the Western Hemisphere and the Caribbean, as well as across the Pacific.
At the same time, voices of anti-imperialism from diverse coalitions of Northern
Democrats and reform-minded Republicans remained loud and constant. As a result, the
acquisition of a U.S. empire was piecemeal and ambivalent. Colonial-minded
administrations were often more concerned with trade and economic issues than
political control.
The United States’ first venture beyond its continental borders was the purchase of
Alaska – sparsely populated by Inuit and other native peoples – from Russia in 1867.
Most Americans were either indifferent to or indignant at this action by Secretary of
State William Seward, whose critics called Alaska “Seward’s Folly” and “Seward’s
Icebox.” But 30 years later, when gold was discovered on Alaska’s Klondike River,
thousands of Americans headed north, and many of them settled in Alaska
permanently. When Alaska became the 49th state in 1959, it replaced Texas as
geographically the largest state in the Union.
A cartoon in the Chicago Tribune portrayed Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines as dirty and backwards children knocking
on Uncle Sam’s door. About the illustration
The Spanish-American War, fought in 1898, marked a turning point in U.S. history.
It left the United States exercising control or influence over islands in the Caribbean Sea
and the Pacific.
By the 1890s, Cuba and Puerto Rico were the only remnants of Spain’s once vast
empire in the New World, and the Philippine Islands comprised the core of Spanish
power in the Pacific. The outbreak of war had three principal sources: popular hostility
toautocratic Spanish rule in Cuba; U.S. sympathy with the Cuban fight for
independence; and a new spirit of national assertiveness, stimulated in part by a
nationalistic and sensationalist press.
By 1895 Cuba’s growing restiveness had become a guerrilla war of independence.
Most Americans were sympathetic with the Cubans, but President Cleveland was
determined to preserve neutrality. Three years later, however, during the
administration of William McKinley, the U.S. warship Maine, sent to Havana on a
“courtesy visit” designed to remind the Spanish of American concern over the rough
handling of theinsurrection, blew up in the harbor. More than 250 men were killed. The
Maine was probably destroyed by an accidental internal explosion, but most Americans
believed the Spanish were responsible. Indignation, intensified by sensationalized press
coverage, swept across the country. McKinley tried to preserve the peace, but within a
few months, believing delay futile, he recommended armed intervention.
The war with Spain was swift and decisive. During the four months it lasted, not a
single American reverse of any importance occurred. A week after the declaration of
war, Commodore George Dewey, commander of the six-warship Asiatic Squadron then
at Hong Kong, steamed to the Philippines. Catching the entire Spanish fleet at anchor in
Manila Bay, he destroyed it without losing an American life.
Meanwhile, in Cuba, troops landed near Santiago, where, after winning a rapid
series of engagements, they fired on the port. Four armored Spanish cruisers steamed
out of Santiago Bay to engage the American navy and were reduced to ruined hulks.
From Boston to San Francisco, whistles blew and flags waved when word came that
Santiago had fallen. Newspapers dispatched correspondents to Cuba and the
Philippines, who trumpeted the renown of the nation’s new heroes. Chief among them
were Commodore Dewey and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who had resigned as
assistant secretary of the navy to lead his volunteer regiment, the “Rough Riders,” to
service in Cuba. Spain soon sued for an end to the war. The peace treaty signed on
December 10, 1898, transferred Cuba to the United States for temporary occupation
preliminary to the island’s independence. In addition, Spain ceded Puerto Rico and
Guam in lieu of warindemnity, and the Philippines for a U.S. payment of $20 million.
Officially, U.S. policy encouraged the new territories to move toward democratic
self-government, a political system with which none of them had any previous
experience. In fact, the United States found itself in a colonial role. It maintained formal
administrative control in Puerto Rico and Guam, gave Cuba only nominal independence,
and harshly suppressed an armed independence movement in the Philippines. (The
Philippines gained the right to elect both houses of its legislature in 1916. In 1936 a
largely autonomousPhilippine Commonwealth was established. In 1946, after World War
II, the islands finally attained full independence.)
U.S. involvement in the Pacific area was not limited to the Philippines. The year of
the Spanish-American War also saw the beginning of a new relationship with the
Hawaiian Islands. Earlier contact with Hawaii had been mainly through missionaries and
traders. After 1865, however, American investors began to develop the islands’
resources – chiefly sugar cane and pineapples.
When sugar planters and American businessmen threatened to depose her, Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii gave up her
throne to prevent bloodshed.
When the government of Queen Liliuokalani announced its intention to end foreign
influence in 1893, American businessmen joined with influential Hawaiians to depose
her. Backed by the American ambassador to Hawaii and U.S. troops stationed there, the
new government then asked to be annexed to the United States. President Cleveland,
just beginning his second term, rejected annexation, leaving Hawaii nominally
independent until the Spanish-American War, when, with the backing of President
McKinley, Congressratified an annexation treaty. In 1959 Hawaii would become the 50th
state.
To some extent, in Hawaii especially, economic interests had a role in American
expansion, but to influential policy makers such as Roosevelt, Senator Henry Cabot
Lodge, and Secretary of State John Hay, and to influential strategists such as Admiral
Alfred Thayer Mahan, the main impetus was geostrategic. For these people, the major
dividend of acquiring Hawaii was Pearl Harbor, which would become the major U.S.
naval base in the central Pacific. The Philippines and Guam complemented other Pacific
bases – Wake Island, Midway, and American Samoa. Puerto Rico was an important
foothold in a Caribbean area that was becoming increasingly important as the United
States contemplated a Central American canal.
U.S. colonial policy tended toward democratic self-government. As it had done with
the Philippines, in 1917 the U.S. Congress granted Puerto Ricans the right to elect all of
their legislators. The same law also made the island officially a U.S. territory and gave
its people American citizenship. In 1950 Congress granted Puerto Rico complete
freedom to decide its future. In 1952, the citizens voted to reject either statehood or
total independence, and chose instead a commonwealth status that has endured
despite the efforts of a vocal separatist movement. Large numbers of Puerto Ricans
have settled on the mainland, to which they have free access and where they enjoy all
the political and civil rights of any other citizen of the United States.
The canal and the Americas
The fifty-mile Panama Canal, shown here under construction in 1913, shortened travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific by
weeks and realized a centuries-old dream of convenient sea travel from Europe to Asia. It was the most expensive
construction project in U.S. history to that time, and more than 5,000 lives were lost to disease and accidents. About the
photograph
The war with Spain revived U.S. interest in building a canal across the isthmus of
Panama, uniting the two great oceans. The usefulness of such a canal for sea trade had
long been recognized by the major commercial nations of the world; the French had
begun digging one in the late 19th century but had been unable to overcome the
engineering difficulties. Having become a power in both the Caribbean Sea and the
Pacific Ocean, the United States saw a canal as both economically beneficial and a way
of providing speedier transfer of warships from one ocean to the other.
At the turn of the century, what is now Panama was the rebellious northern
province of Colombia. When the Colombian legislature in 1903 refused to ratify a treaty
giving the United States the right to build and manage a canal, a group of impatient
Panamanians, with the support of U.S. Marines, rose in rebellion and declared
Panamanian independence. The breakaway country was immediately recognized by
President Theodore Roosevelt. Under the terms of a treaty signed that November,
Panama granted the United States a perpetual lease to a 16-kilometer-wide strip of land
(the Panama Canal Zone) between the Atlantic and the Pacific, in return for $10 million
and a yearly fee of $250,000. Colombia later received $25 million as partial
compensation. Seventy-five years later, Panama and the United States negotiated a
new treaty. It provided for Panamanian sovereignty in the Canal Zone and transfer of
the canal to Panama on December 31, 1999.
The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914, directed by Colonel George W.
Goethals, was a major triumph of engineering. The simultaneous conquest
of malaria and yellow fever made it possible and was one of the 20th century’s great
feats in preventive medicine.
Elsewhere in Latin America, the United States fell into a pattern of fitful
intervention. Between 1900 and 1920, the United States carried out sustained
interventions in six Western Hemispheric nations – most notably Haiti, the Dominican
Republic, and Nicaragua. Washington offered a variety of justifications for these
interventions: to establish political stability and democratic government, to provide a
favorable environment for U.S. investment (often called dollar diplomacy), to secure the
sea lanes leading to the Panama Canal, and even to prevent European countries from
forcibly collecting debts. The United States had pressured the French into removing
troops from Mexico in 1867. Half a century later, however, as part of an ill-starred
campaign to influence the Mexican revolution and stop raids into American territory,
President Woodrow Wilson sent 11,000 troops into the northern part of the country in a
futile effort to capture the elusive rebel and outlaw Francisco “Pancho” Villa.
Exercising its role as the most powerful – and most liberal – of Western Hemisphere
nations, the United States also worked to establish an institutional basis for cooperation
among the nations of the Americas. In 1889 Secretary of State James G. Blaine
proposed that the 21 independent nations of the Western Hemisphere join in an
organization dedicated to the peaceful settlement of disputes and to closer economic
bonds. The result was the Pan-American Union, founded in 1890 and known today as
the Organization of American States (OAS).
The later administrations of Herbert Hoover (1929-33) and Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1933-45) repudiated the right of U.S. intervention in Latin America. In particular,
Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy of the 1930s, while not ending all tensions between
the United States and Latin America, helped dissipate much of the ill-will engendered by
earlier U.S. intervention and unilateral actions.
The United States and Asia
Newly established in the Philippines and firmly entrenched in Hawaii at the turn of the
century, the United States had high hopes for a vigorous trade with China. However,
Japan and various European nations had acquired established spheres of influence there
in the form of naval bases, leased territories, monopolistic trade rights, and exclusive
concessions for investing in railway construction and mining.
Idealism in American foreign policy existed alongside the desire to compete with
Europe’s imperial powers in the Far East. The U.S. government thus insisted as a matter
of principle upon equality of commercial privileges for all nations. In September 1899,
Secretary of State John Hay advocated an “Open Door” for all nations in China – that is,
equality of trading opportunities (including equal tariffs, harbor duties, and railway
rates) in the areas Europeans controlled. Despite its idealistic component, the Open
Door, in essence, was a diplomatic maneuver that sought the advantages of colonialism
while avoiding the stigma of its frank practice. It had limited success.
With the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, the Chinese struck out against foreigners. In
June, insurgents seized Beijing and attacked the foreign legations there. Hay promptly
announced to the European powers and Japan that the United States would oppose any
disturbance of Chinese territorial or administrative rights and restated the Open Door
policy. Once the rebellion was quelled, Hay protected China from crushing indemnities.
Primarily for the sake of American good will, Great Britain, Germany, and lesser colonial
powers formally affirmed the Open Door policy and Chinese independence. In practice,
they consolidated their privileged positions in the country.
A few years later, President Theodore Roosevelt mediated the deadlocked Russo-
Japanese War of 1904-05, in many respects a struggle for power and influence in the
northern Chinese province of Manchuria. Roosevelt hoped the settlement would provide
open-door opportunities for American business, but the former enemies and other
imperial powers succeeded in shutting the Americans out. Here as elsewhere, the
United States was unwilling to deploy military force in the service of economic
imperialism. The president could at least content himself with the award of the Nobel
Peace Prize (1906). Despite gains for Japan, moreover, U.S. relations with the proud and
newly assertive island nation would be intermittently difficult through the early decades
of the 20th century.
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