Week 9:  The U.S. and the World, 1898 -- 1920 

1. An Imperial Democracy:

1) Toward empire: forcing France out of Mexico (1865); purchase of Alaska and annexation of Midway Islands (1867); annexation of Hawaii (1898).

2) Imperial ideologies: racism and the “white man’s burden”; Social Darwinism; Alfred Mahan on naval strength and world power.

3) The “yellow” press and the “splendid little war” with Spain over Cuba; Theodore Roosevelt and Admiral Dewey seize popular imagination.

4) Spain cedes Puerto Rico, Guam, Philippines and grants Cuban independence.

5) Fierce national debate over “imperial democracy”: treaty ratified by one vote more than 2/3 required for ratification.

6) The Platt Amendment establishes de facto U.S. control over Cuba; suppression of Philippine nationalists.

7) The Open Door Policy: U.S. joins international intervention in China; TR’s “revolution” in Panama; building the “path between the seas”.

9) The “Roosevelt Corollary” to Monroe Doctrine, Taft’s Dollar Diplomacy in Latin America and Asia; Wilson intervenes in Haiti and Mexico.

2.  The U.S. and the Great War:

1) Wilson’s call for “neutrality in thought and action conflicts with American sympathy for and investment in the Allied cause; the debate over preparedness.

2) Conflict over “neutral rights” on the high seas; German unrestricted submarine warfare leads to American intervention in April, 1917.

3) Unprecedented federal wartime economic controls over production, labor relations,

railroads, shipping and utilities; Herbert Hoover and U.S. Food Administration.

4) The draft reveals widespread health deficiencies among young Americans.

5) Committee on Public Information enforces “loyalty”; pacifists and opponents of the war arrested and dissent suppressed.

6) The Great Migration of southern blacks to northern cities; anti-black urban riots erupt as black soldiers return from service in segregated armed forces.

7) Women enter wartime industries; Prohibition and Women’s Suffrage Amendments ratified.

8) Anti-Bolshevik hysteria, the Palmer raids, the Red Scare and the Sacco-Vanzetti case.

9) Wilson at Versailles: U.S. rejects treaty as Wilson refuses to compromise on League of Nations.