Time Period 7: 1898-1945

New Imperialism

Causes:

• Industrialization and economic transformation
• Racial issues (immigration policy)
• Power of ideas/social thought (Social Darwinism, white man’s burden)
• Promoted by the rich to become richer
• Religious- wanted to convert people
• Ideological- people needed to be “civilized”
• Political- land for armies (power, prestige, patriotism)
• Economic- cheap labor and access to/control of new markets as production increased greatly (2 to 8 times)

Spanish-American-Cuban War

• Before this point, the US mainly stayed away from foreign entanglement
• Causes
  • Humanitarian
  • Spanish general Weyler was putting civilians into concentration camps
  • Economic
  • US had over $150 million invested in sugar plantations
  • Yellow Journalism
  • U.S.S Maine exploded, killing 266 men; blamed it on Spain
  • De Lome
  • Letter written by the Spanish Ambassador to the US, criticizing McKinley and angering him
• McKinley didn’t want to go to war, but felt pressured to do so
• Declaration of war passed quickly in Congress
• Battle of San Juan Hill
  • Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders won

Yellow Journalism

“Fake news”

Exaggeration and lies to get people to buy more newspapers

China Open Door policy

• Germany, France, Russia and Japan started carving up China- spheres of influence
• Feared these nations would restrict US trading in China

Filipino insurrection

1899-1902

Causes

• Americans sank the Spanish fleet and only one of their men died
• The Philippines wanted freedom after the Spanish-American war
• Americans didn’t want to leave after the war, the Philippines would be ruled by rival European powers or themselves, and could be taken over again
• McKinley thought they had to uplift, civilize, and Christinize them
• War to put down Filipino rebellions

Effects

• More than 4,200 American and 16,000 Filipino soldiers died
• Atrocities and starvation
  • Civilians killed for the death of one American soldier
• Filipinos used guerilla warfare
• Established the Philippine Republic
• Photos of the war made their way to the US

Panama Canal

• France tried to build one first but was unsuccessful
• Creation a new country
  • US overthrew the country of Columbia in only a few hours
  • The Bunau-Varilla treaty gave the US control of a 10 mile zone around the canal
  • Panamanians wanted the Americans out, but Roosevelt sent the military in
  • Teddy Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” policy
• Time to travel from the east to west coast was cut in half

Progressive Movement

Wide variety of reforms were needed

• Working and living conditions

• Transforming individuals (natives and immigrants)

• Racial tensions and Jim Crow laws

• Child and women’s labor

• Women’s suffrage

• Making government more responsive- 17th amendment let people vote for their senators

• Anti-monopolies and fear of consolidation

• Social bonds helping each other as society is a collected whole

• Science, expertise, and efficiency: education and scientific reforming

Muckrakers

• Includes Upton Sinclair and Ida Tarbell

• Wrote books and articles to inform about issues they cared about

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Written about an immigrant’s perils but society’s main takeaway was that it revealed bad (labor and sanitary) conditions in the meatpacking industry

Ida Tarbell

Described how Rockefeller unethically monopolized the oil company, leading to the breaking up of Standard Oil

Square Deal

• Labor

  Corporate reform

  • Wanted to break up trusts with negative effects
  • Broke up the Northern Securities Company

• Consumer protection

• Conservation policy

Anthracite Coal Strike

Led to a deal that gave them a wage increase and hour reduction; first time government didn’t oppose strikers

Elkins Act

(1903)- fines on railroads that gave rebates

Hepburn Act Of 1906

Restricted free passes and expanded the Interstate Commerce Commission to include more companies

Meat Inspection Act of 1906

After The Jungle was published- federal inspection of meat in between state lines

Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906

prevented adulteration and mislabeling of foods and medicines