American Empire: Comprehensive Study Notes (The American Yawp)

I. Introduction

• Empire can take many forms; imperial processes occur in various contexts. The question: has the United States, a century after independence, become an empire?
• Post-C Civil War: US asserts power globally in the Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East; Spanish-American War and policies of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft mark expansion of American influence.
• Imperialism framed in relation to immigration: as the US expands abroad, it also acquires more foreign peoples at home; both imperialism and immigration raise questions about American identity, obligations to foreign powers/peoples, and the inclusivity and fluidity of American citizenship.
• The era invites examination of how economic, political, and cultural power shapes other nations and groups, and how domestic questions (nativism, race, citizenship) intersect with foreign policy.

II. Patterns of American Interventions

• Interventions in Mexico, China, and the Middle East reflect a new willingness to protect American economic interests abroad.
  • Pacific trade: American ships to China since $1784$; Asian markets vital to American commerce despite a relatively small share of total trade.
  • Open Door Policy (Secretary of State John Hay, $1899$): equal access to Chinese markets; fear that spheres of influence would be carved by Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Russia; free trade in China aligned with American business interests.
  • Boxer Rebellion (1900): multinational intervention to protect foreign business interests and missionaries; McKinley’s administration used executive power to deploy troops without prior Congressional approval, setting a precedent.
  • Guano Islands Act (1856): first Pacific territorial acquisitions; allowed Americans to claim guano-rich islands; established insular, unincorporated territories outside state/district structure; precedent for future acquisitions.
• Missionaries and economic interests in the Pacific
  • First American missionaries in Hawaiʻi (1820) and China (1830);
  • Missionaries often aligned with business interests; in Hawaiʻi, land was acquired and sugar plantations developed by a white elite (the “Big Five”).
• Latin America and U.S. investment
  • American capital invested heavily in Mexico under Porfirio Díaz; the 1910 Mexican Revolution disrupted the regime and threatened American investments;
  • US involvement intensified as violence and political upheaval endangered American interests; the Huerta regime (after 1913) prompted Wilson to intervene.
  • Tampico Affair (April 1914) led to a Congressional request for force; Wilson’s Veracruz occupation (April–Nov 1914) and later support for Carranza; Pancho Villa led raids into Columbus, NM (March 1916).
  • Pershing-led punitive expedition (1916–17) pursued Villa without success; eventual withdrawal as Europe’s war escalated.
  • Overall pattern: intervention justified by proximity, defense of economic interests, and perceived national security concerns; geography shaped imperial outcomes.
• The Middle East before World War I
  • Mark Twain’s 1867 Innocents Abroad critique of Western encroachment; later interventions framed as civilizational missions.
  • Early pre-WWI American involvement in the Middle East centered on education, science, and humanitarian aid, not military conquest; missionaries helped establish hospitals and schools; institutions such as Robert College (Istanbul, 1863), the American University of Beirut (1866), and the American University in Cairo (1919) laid Western-style university foundations.

III. 1898

• The Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (1898–1902) marked a turning point in American international engagement.
• Cuba: Spanish reconcentration policy under Weyler (reconcentration of Cubans in camps) spurred American intervention even as the McKinley administration sought non-military solutions; the Maine exploded in Havana harbor (Feb $1898$), fueling war sentiment.
• War onset and progress
  • Congress declared war on Spain (Apr $25, 1898$); Dewey’s victory at Manila Bay (May $1, 1898$); San Juan Heights secured in Cuba; Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders gained fame; Santiago de Cuba fell (Jul $17, 1898$).
  • Armistice (Aug $12, 1898$); Treaty of Paris signed (Dec $1898$).
  • Terms: U.S. gained Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines from Spain; the war was short but symbolically consequential.
• Public and elite reaction
  • Secretary of State John Hay called the conflict a “splendid little war.”
  • Senator Albert J. Beveridge argued the U.S. had a “mission to perform” and a “duty to discharge”—anticipating an American empire.
• Aftermath questions
  • Debates about whether imperial expansion aligned with founding ideals; what the relationship would be between the United States and new territories; whether colonial subjects could be incorporated as citizens; the war exposed the ideological divisions around empire.

IV. Theodore Roosevelt and American Imperialism

• Roosevelt’s ascent and vision
  • From assistant secretary of the Navy (under McKinley) to president, a key proponent of American imperial power.
  • Emphasized naval power and Latin America as a strategic focus; worked with Alfred Thayer Mahan, George Dewey, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Taft.
• Military growth and strategy
  • Oversaw construction of new battleships; pushed for a large blue-water navy to project power globally; Great White Fleet (sixteen all-white battleships) circumnavigated the globe (1907–1909).
  • Believed in the “big stick” as a symbol of U.S. power and able to back diplomacy with military force when necessary.
• Latin America and the Caribbean
  • Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (1904): asserted the U.S. right and duty to intervene in Latin America to stabilize political/economic life if a state proved unable to meet its obligations; effectively a police power in the hemisphere.
  • Gunboat diplomacy: naval forces and Marines land in capitals, temporarily seize control of governments, dictate policies favorable to U.S. business, guarantee loan repayments.
  • Interventions included Cuba (control even after independence in 1902) and the Dominican Republic (1905).
  • Panama Canal: supported Panamanian independence from Colombia (1903) to secure a U.S. canal zone.
• Dollar diplomacy and financial leverage
  • Dollar diplomacy: leverage loans to Latin American governments in exchange for control over fiscal affairs; early form of economic imperialism via bankers in London and New York, intended to stabilize and protect American interests.
  • Aimed to reduce costs and risks of direct military occupation; reflected a shift to economic tools of influence.
• Context and legacy
  • Roosevelt’s diplomacy linked to the broader ideology of civilizing mission and Anglo-Saxon civilization; framed as humanitarian and modernizing, but often justified exploitation.
  • Nobel Peace Prize (1906) for mediating the Russo-Japanese War demonstrates diplomacy as a complementary tool to hard power.
• Long-run implications
  • The era produced enduring U.S. influence in the Caribbean and Pacific, and helped establish the United States as a global power with a prominent military and economic footprint.

V. Women and Imperialism

• Role of women in expansionist discourse
  • Female figures participated as missionaries, teachers, medical professionals, and cultural ambassadors; they helped transmit notions of civilization and domestic virtue globally.
  • Margaret McLeod (1903) served as a Heinz product demonstrator in Australia, South Africa, India, and Japan; embodied middle-class American domesticity and civilization abroad.
  • The rhetoric of civilization relied on gendered stereotypes, portraying white women as moral authorities and symbols of progress.
• Domestic labor as global extension
  • Women’s consumer influence (expansion of white-collar consumer culture) linked to imperial products and “civilizing” missions.
  • The expansion of American influence extended into everyday life at home through consumer goods and through the presence of American values abroad.
• Opportunities and tensions
  • Imperialism opened roles for white, middle-class women in public and international spheres, but also sparked resistance and debate over the appropriate scope of American power.
• Anti-imperialism and women
  • Women also participated in anti-imperialist movements (e.g., Anti-Imperialist League) and in organizations like Jane Addams’s networks; Black women like Ida B. Wells linked anti-imperialism to civil rights and anti-lynching activism.
• Synthesis
  • Imperialism intersected with gender, race, religion, and humanitarian ideals; women’s work helped shape the cultural narrative of American expansion and its moral economy.

VI. Immigration

• Connections between imperialism and immigration
  • Growth of overseas markets correlated with increased demand for immigrant labor and expanding immigrant populations at home.
  • From 1870 to 1920, over $25$ million immigrants arrived in the United States; new groups included Italians, Poles, Eastern European Jews, with Irish and German numbers declining.
• Nativism and regulatory responses
  • Native-born Americans feared job competition, diluting political power, and perceived moral/racial threat from new arrivals; anti-immigrant sentiment fueled policy.
  • California anti-Chinese sentiments culminated in federal restrictions: the Page Act (1875) restricted entry of convicted criminals, involuntary laborers, and women for prostitution; Chinese Exclusion Act (May $1882$) suspended immigration of all Chinese laborers, making Chinese the first group subject to immigration restriction based on race.
  • 1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement with Japan: virtually suspended Japanese laborer immigration; informal bilateral restriction.
  • 1911 Immigration Commission report highlighted perceived incompatibility of new immigrants with American society; they were portrayed as cause of social problems (poverty, crime, prostitution, radicalism).
• Shifts in immigrant origins and policies
  • The center of gravity shifted from northern/western Europe to southern/eastern Europe and Asia; new immigrants were poorer, spoke non-English languages, often Catholic or Jewish, fueling prejudice among white Protestants.
  • The expansion of excludable categories over time: 1882 (paupers); 1885 (foreign workers on labor contracts); 1890s–1900s (wards of the state, contagious diseases, polygamists); 1903 (anarchists/socialists).
• Assimilation debates and religion
  • The Catholic Church faced internal and external pressures regarding assimilation vs ethnic parishes; debates between Americanists (favoring assimilation and ending ethnic parishes) and conservatives (protecting ethnic identity and church integrity) intensified.
  • Pope Leo XIII’s 1899 encyclical cautioned that American liberties do not permit altering church teachings; the pope did not fully align with Americanist efforts, illustrating the tension between American life and Catholic global unity.
• The “melting pot” metaphor
  • The melting pot emerged as a national story of assimilation; Israel Zangwill’s The Melting Pot (1908) popularized the idea of diverse groups becoming a unified American identity; Roosevelt reportedly praised the play.
• Catholic and immigrant tensions at the turn of the century
  • Catholics faced external anti-Catholic sentiment and internal debates about assimilation, language, and parish structure; the broader story shows how immigration intersected with religion, ethnicity, and national loyalty.
• Notable case examples and media
  • Mary Tape and Mamie Tape ( tapes about anti-Chinese prejudice and public school integration; Tape v. Hurley, 1885) illustrate legal and social battles over assimilation and civil rights in the domestic sphere.
• Synthesis
  • Immigration policy increasingly reflected racialized assumptions and anxieties about national identity; policy framed immigrants as threats or as potentially redeemable via assimilation and consumerization of American civilization.

VII. Conclusion

• Imperialism peaked briefly in the late 19th/early 20th centuries but left enduring patterns that persisted into the modern era.
• The United States leveraged cultural, economic, and military power to influence other nations, while debates at home linked foreign policy to immigration, race, and the meaning of American democracy.
• The Philippines, Cuba, Hawaii, and Latin America exemplified the tensions between the founding ideals of freedom and sovereignty and the realities of expanding U.S. power.
• Domestic debates (anti-imperialism vs. imperialism; nativism vs. pluralism) shaped how Americans understood their place in a transnational world.

VIII. Primary Sources

1. William McKinley on American Expansionism (1903)

• Post-Spanish-American War: U.S. in possession of the Philippines; struggle to contain anti-American insurgency.

1. Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” (1899)

• A call to Americans to take up the “burden” of empire as a civilizing mission.

1. James D. Phelan, “Why the Chinese Should Be Excluded” (1901)

• San Francisco mayor argues for extending laws prohibiting Chinese immigration.

1. William James on “The Philippine Question” (1903)

• The philosopher articulates opposition to imperial actions in light of historical precedent.

1. Mark Twain, “The War Prayer” (ca. $1904–1905$)

• Satirical critique of wartime pieties and imperial intervention.

1. Chinese Immigrants Confront Anti-Chinese Prejudice (1885, 1903)

• Mary Tape’s protest on behalf of her daughter Mamie Tape; Lee Chew’s life as a Chinese immigrant and businessperson in the U.S.

1. African Americans Debate Enlistment (1898)

• Indianapolis Freeman report on African-American troops in Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars and home-front racism.

1. School Begins (1899)

• Cartoon depicting the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba as new students.

1. “Declined With Thanks” ($1900$)

• Cartoon showing McKinley being advised by anti-expansionists about the risks of imperialism.

IX. Reference Material

• This chapter edited by Ellen Adams and Amy Kohout; numerous contributors.
• Recommended citation: Ellen Adams et al., “American Empire,” in The American Yawp, eds. Joseph Locke and Ben Wright (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018).
• Recommended Readings (selected):
  • Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–1917.
  • Gabaccia, Donna. Foreign Relations: American Immigration in Global Perspective.
  • Greene, Julie. The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal.
  • Hoganson, Kristin L. Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish- American and Philippine-American Wars.
  • Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Barbarian Virtues: The United States Encounters Foreign People at Home and Abroad, 1876–1917.
  • Kramer, Paul A. The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines.
  • Rosenberg, Emily S. Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890–1945.
  • Wexler, Laura. Tender Violence: Domestic Visions in an Age of US Imperialism.
  • Williams, William Appleman. The Tragedy of American Diplomacy.
• Notes provide additional sources and cross-references (not reproduced here in full).