Comprehensive US History: Imperialism, Progressivism, WWI, and the 1920s

Empire

• A system of power that can take many forms

• depending variously on military conquest, colonization, occupation, or direct resource exploitation.

• Following the Civil War, the U.S. practiced something that looked remarkably like empire in the Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Open Door Policy

• Articulated by Secretary of State John Hay in 1899,

• this policy called for all Western powers to have equal access to Chinese markets.

• Hay feared that other imperial powers planned to divide China into spheres of influence.

Guano Islands Act of 1856

• This legislation authorized and encouraged Americans to venture into the seas

• and claim islands containing guano (collected bird excrement, a popular fertilizer integral to industrial farming) for the United States.

• These acquisitions were the first insular, unincorporated territories of the U.S.

Yellow Journalism

• Refers to newspapers, such as William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal,

• that promoted sensational stories, notoriously at the cost of accuracy, often calling for war with Spain.

Spanish-American War

• A conflict in 1898 which was a crucial turning point in American interventions abroad,

• leading to the U.S. acquiring Spain's former holdings of Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.

• Secretary of state John Hay famously referred to it as a 'splendid little war'

Philippine-American War

• Also known as the Philippine Insurrection (1899-1902),

• this was a bloody conflict waged by the United States against Filipino insurrectionists,

• led by Emilio Aguinaldo, who sought freedom from the U.S. rather than just Spain.

Anti-Imperialist League

• Founded in 1899 and populated by prominent Americans such as Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, and Jane Addams,

• this organization protested U.S. imperial actions and upheld the rights of all to self-governance.

Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine

• Pronounced by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904,

• this expanded the Monroe Doctrine by proclaiming U.S. police power in the Caribbean

• and asserting the right to preemptive action/intervention in any Latin American nation to correct administrative and fiscal deficiencies.

"Big Stick" Diplomacy

• Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy approach,

• which insisted that the persuasive power of the U.S. military could ensure U.S. hegemony over strategically important regions in the Western Hemisphere.

Dollar Diplomacy

• A method of informal empire used by the U.S.

• (starting under Roosevelt and continued by Taft and Wilson)

• where Washington worked with bankers to provide loans to Latin American nations

• in exchange for some level of control over their national fiscal affairs.

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

• Passed by Congress, this law suspended the immigration of all Chinese laborers,

• making them the first immigrant group subject to admission restrictions on the basis of race.

Progressive Era

• A period of swift changes and reform movements that sought to address widespread dissatisfaction

• stemming from the problems of the Gilded Age,

• such as inequality, urban squalor, and corporate power.

Muckrakers

• A label given by Theodore Roosevelt to journalists who exposed business practices, poverty, and corruption

• (e.g., Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle),

• thereby arousing public demands for reform.

Social Gospel

• A movement within Protestant Christianity at the end of the nineteenth century

• emphasizing the need for Christians to be concerned for the salvation of society,

• challenge social and economic structures, and help the less fortunate.

• A notable advocate was Walter Rauschenbusch.

Hull House (Settlement House)

• Founded in Chicago in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr,

• it was an experimental effort to aid in solving urban social and industrial problems.

WCTU (Woman's Christian Temperance Union)

• Initially founded in 1874 to combat drunkenness,

• Frances Willard later transformed it into a national political organization

• embracing a 'do everything' policy to improve social welfare and advance women's rights,

• with prohibition always remaining a large focus.

Trusts

• A monopoly or cartel associated with large corporations

• (like Standard Oil or Carnegie Steel)

• that consolidate power to exercise exclusive control over a specific product or industry,

• often resulting in artificially inflated prices.

Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)

• Federal legislation that aimed to limit anticompetitive practices

• by declaring that a 'trust . . . or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce . . . is declared to be illegal'.

Conservation

• An environmental strategy,

• championed by Gifford Pinchot,

• emphasizing environmental utilitarianism

• and the efficient use of available resources for the 'greatest good for the greatest number,' often benefiting financial interests.

Preservation

• An environmental strategy,

• championed by John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club),

• advocating the setting aside of pristine lands for their aesthetic and spiritual value.

Disenfranchisement (South)

• A series of progressive electoral reforms adopted by Southern states

• (1895-1908)

• to restrict Black voting and combat corruption, utilizing tools like the poll tax, literacy tests

• (with 'understanding clauses' for illiterate whites), and all-white primaries.

Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

• A landmark Supreme Court case that ruled against Homer Plessy

• and established the constitutional fallacy of 'separate but equal,' thereby codifying

• and enforcing racial segregation in public spaces for nearly sixty years.

Booker T. Washington

• A leading Black spokesperson who advocated for racial accommodationism

• and encouraged Black Americans to focus on industrial education and vocational training

• (e.g., Tuskegee Institute) to achieve economic independence under segregation.

W. E. B. Du Bois

• A Black intellectual and scholar

• who criticized Washington approach, arguing that he 'implicitly abandoned all political and social rights'.

• advocated for persistent, manly agitation for equal rights under the law and was a co-founder of the NAACP.

Triple Entente

• The alliance between Great Britain, France, and Russia

• formed in the early twentieth century to counter the rising power of Germany and its allies.

Zimmermann Telegram

• A message from German diplomat offering support to the Mexican government to help them regain Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona

• if Mexico sided with Germany in WWI. The revelation of this telegram helped usher the U.S. into the war.

Selective Service Act (1917)

• Legislation approved by Congress

• that instituted a reasonably equitable and locally administered system to draft men

• (initially ages twenty-one to thirty) for compulsory military service.

Espionage Act (1917) and Sedition Act (1918)

• Laws signed by President Wilson that stripped dissenters and protesters of their rights to publicly resist the war,

• leading to the imprisonment of critics and targets like immigrants, labor unions, and political radicals.

Fourteen Points

• President Wilson's ambitious statement of war aims and peace terms

• (Jan 1918),

• which included principles for a long-term peace and featured the core idea of a League of Nations.

League of Nations

• The centerpiece of Wilson's Fourteen Points,

• this was a novel international organization charged with keeping worldwide peace through the promise of collective security.

• It ultimately failed because the U.S. Senate (led by Henry Cabot Lodge) refused to ratify the treaty and join.

Influenza Pandemic (1918)

• A deadly strain of the flu virus

• (often misnamed 'Spanish Influenza')

• that spread worldwide, resulting in an estimated fifty million deaths.

• More American soldiers died from influenza than from combat during WWI.

Red Summer (1919)

• A period of racial violence that broke out in at least twenty-five American cities,

• including Chicago and Washington, D.C..

• It was sparked by racial tensions as white northerners and returning veterans fought Black migrants who had arrived during the Great Migration.

Return to Normalcy

• Warren G. Harding's campaign promise and inaugural theme (1921),

• which declared the supreme task was the 'resumption of our onward,

• normal way' following the chaos of WWI and radicalism.

Teapot Dome Scandal

• One of the most corrupt incidents of the Harding administration, involving several officials,

• notably Interior Secretary Albert Fall,

• who conspired to lease government land to oil companies in exchange for cash.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

• Proposed by Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party, t

• his amendment sought the elimination of all legal distinctions 'on account of sex'.

• It was defeated in Congress.

Culture of Consumption

• The new national ethos fueled by mass production (e.g., Henry Ford's assembly line)

• and new marketing strategies that

• led to the widespread purchase of goods like automobiles, convenience foods, and appliances, often using credit.

Flapper

• The figure of the 'New Woman' whose bobbed hair, short skirts, makeup,

• and carefree spirit embodied the rising emphasis on materialism and individual pleasure,

• leading to increased independence and greater premarital sexual activity for some women.

Great Migration

• The mass movement of hundreds of thousands of Black southerners northward

• during and after WWI to escape Jim Crow poverty and find work,

• dramatically increasing the Black populations of cities like New York.

Harlem Renaissance

• A period of intense African American self-reflection and cultural ferment centered in Manhattan's Harlem district

• (the 'Culture Capital'),

• producing significant literature, art, and music, including the popularization of Jazz.

Marcus Garvey/UNIA

• was a Jamaican publisher and Black nationalist who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA),

• which became the largest Black nationalist organization in the world.

• He promoted racial pride, Black economic independence, and the Black Star Line shipping company, as part of a 'return to Africa' vision.

National Origins Act (1924)

• Legislation that permanently established strict country-of-origin quotas for immigrants.

• It restricted annual admission to 2 percent of the population from that country residing in the U.S. in 1890,

• specifically to limit 'new' immigrants from Southern/Eastern Europe and explicitly excluded all Asians.

Christian Fundamentalism

• A religious movement that coalesced around a series of essays (The Fundamentals) t

• hat insisted Christian faith rested on literal truths and viewed the Bible as the inerrant word of God,

• strongly opposing modern liberal theology.

Scopes Trial (1925)

• Known as the 'Monkey Trial,' this legal spectacle in Dayton, Tennessee,

• involved a teacher, John T. Scopes, t

• ried for teaching evolutionary theory. It featured a famous showdown between agnostic Clarence Darrow (defending academic freedom) and literalist William Jennings Bryan.

Ku Klux Klan (Second KKK)

• The reborn white supremacist organization (1915) that expanded nationally in the 1920s,

• appealing largely to middle-class people. Its ideology, summarized as 'Native, white, Protestant supremacy,'

• targeted Black people, immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and other perceived moral enemies. T

• he rebirth was partly inspired by the film The Birth of a Nation and the lynching of Leo Frank.

Philippine-American War (Philippine Insurrection)

A bloody conflict waged by the United States against Filipino insurrectionists from 1899 to 1902.

Civilization

A highly gendered concept underlying imperialism, associated with whiteness, an industrial economy, and a specific gender division of labor.

salvation of society

The need for Christians to be concerned for the welfare of society, challenge social, political, and economic structures, and help those less fortunate.

Segregation

A system adopted by Southern legislatures to enforce racial subordination and deference in public spaces like restaurants, theaters, schools, and train cars.

Culture of Consumption/Consumerism

• The new national ethos fueled by mass production (e.g., Henry Ford's assembly line)

• and new marketing strategies that led to the widespread purchase of goods, often using credit,

• which further stoked consumer desire.

Marcus Garvey/UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association)

• was a Jamaican publisher and Black nationalist who founded the UNIA,

• which became the largest Black nationalist organization in the world.

• He promoted racial pride, Black economic independence,

• and the establishment of commercial ventures,

• notably the Black Star Line shipping company.