Unit 6
 Callon’s
definition…
 Empire: One group exerting
political, economic, or
military control over
another
 Two reasons for an empire:
• Barbarian hordes who have
nothing better to do
• To make money
 Trade
takes something that is less
valuable and turns it into something more
valuable
 Hence, generation of wealth
 Provides an alternative to LAND =
MONEY = POWER, but only slightly at
first
 Empires
are all about trade
 What makes for a successful empire?
• Colonies
 Provide resources
 Provide a market for goods
• Strong Navy
 Whoever has the strongest navy has the strongest
empire
 By
the 1800’s ALL the major world powers
were empires
 Britain was the most successful
 The U.S. is outpacing Britain in industrial
capacity and wants to become a major
world power
 This means becoming an empire
 Wrote
the influential book “The Influence
of Sea Power upon History”
 Inspired Teddy Roosevelt
(Undersecretary of the Navy)
 The U.S. began to modernize their navy
 Built dozens of new steel battleships and
cruisers
 Seward’s
Folly in 1867
 William Henry Seward was Sec. of State
 Purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2
million
 Scoffed at at the time, but extended U.S.
influence in the Pacific
 Hawaii
annexed in 1898
 Annexation opposed by
Queen Liliuokalani and
native Hawaiians
 Queen forced to abdicate
after coup by American
planters in 1893
 By
1897 the once mighty Spanish Empire
was down to the lone island of Cuba
 Cubans revolted, started guerilla war
 Spanish cracked down, forcing Cubans
into concentration camps
 American newspapers reported…
 Newspapers
competed for circulation
 Especially notorious
• William Randolph Hearst – New York Journal
• Joseph Pulitzer – New York World
 Began
to exaggerate and fabricate
stories
Hearst vs Pulitzer
 U.S. angry
over Spanish treatment of
Cubans
 Sent the U.S.S. Maine to Havana to protect
Americans in Cuba
 Maine mysteriously exploded
 Spanish assumed guilty
 Americans demand war
 We now know it was an accident
 Oops…
 Teddy
Roosevelt anticipated war with
Spain
 Readied the U.S. Pacific fleet
 As soon as war declared Commodore
George Dewey attacked the Spanish
Philippines
 Stunning victory for the Americans
 Army
forced to land
in Cuba
 Target was Santiago
 After city taken,
Spanish fleet forced to
retreat
 Destroyed by
American navy
 Spain
forced to surrender
 U.S. paid $20 million in exchange for the
Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam
 Cuba becomes a U.S. protectorate
 Cuba forced to cede land for a naval
base, Guantanamo
 U.S. now has an established presence
across the Pacific and Caribbean
 Filipinos
were rebelling against the
Spanish
 Switched to the U.S. when U.S. didn’t
leave
 Long, bloody, expensive war for the U.S.
 Filipinos used guerilla tactics
 Ironically, the U.S. tried to force them into
concentration camps
 Both
sides used torture
 Eventually rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo
was captured in 1902
 Thousands dead on both sides
 By
the late 1800’s China was dominated
by Europe
 Regions of China divided into spheres of
influence
 Prevented others from trading in their
territory
 The U.S. wanted to get involved, but no
areas available to trade in
 U.S. proposed
an “Open Door” policy to
allow free trade throughout China
 Unpopular with Europeans, but ultimately
unopposed after the Boxer Rebellion
 Helped protect Chinese sovereignty
 Allowed the U.S. trade access to China
 Teddy
Roosevelt president in 1901
 Reasserted the Monroe Doctrine
• No new European colonies in the Western
Hemisphere
 Added
the Roosevelt Corollary
• The U.S. would intervene to protect its interests
in Latin America
• Matched Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” diplomacy
 Best
example of the “Big Stick”
 The U.S. and Europe wanted to build a
canal through Central America
 Ideal location was Panama
 French company contracted to do the
construction
 The problem was Panama was a province
of Colombia, who refused the deal
 Roosevelt
outraged
 French company conspired with Panama
to overthrow the Colombian govt.
 Within hours Roosevelt recognized
Panama’s independence and supported it
with the U.S. Navy
 Triumph
of modern engineering
 Took roughly 10 years to build
 After
Roosevelt came Taft
 Taft disagreed with “Big Stick” diplomacy
 Tried to reform the relationship with Latin
America
 Offered trade deals to bolster the
economy
 After Taft
came Wilson
 Wilson wanted to spread democracy into
Latin America
 Refused to make agreements with nondemocratic governments
 Led to trouble with Mexico
 What
is Progressivism?
 Progressivism = Reform
 Specifically, Progressivism means reform
through government intervention
 Meant to solve the problems of the
Gilded Age
 Reversal of Laissez-Faire
 Not restricted to one political party
 Applied
to numerous areas from 1901-
1920
• Social Reform
• Political Reform
• Economic Reform
• Environmental Reform
• Labor Reform
• And more…
 Investigative
journalists
who exposed social
problems
 Thomas Nast helped
expose Boss Tweed
 Jacob Riis exposed
poverty in cities
 One
of the most famous
muckrakers was Upton
Sinclair
 Wrote “The Jungle”
depicting horrid
conditions in meat
packing plants in
Chicago

“It was too dark in these storage places to see well, but
a man could run his hand over these piles of meat and
sweep off handfuls of the dried dung of rats. These rats
were nuisances, and the packers would put poisoned
bread out for them, they would die, and then rats,
bread, and meat would go into the hoppers together.”
 Almost
turned Teddy Roosevelt into a
vegetarian
 Doing
more with less
 Business owners began to look for ways
to operate more efficiently
 Soon spread to government
 Wasteful agencies soon removed or
consolidated
 Would eventually lead to Henry Ford and
the assembly line
 Roosevelt
began
attacking trusts
 Reasoned they were
bad for the public good
 Only went after the
worst offenders, many
trusts left intact if they
cooperated
 In
1902 Coal workers went on strike
 Wanted higher wages and shorter hours
 Roosevelt tried to intervene
 Invited owners and workers to talk
 Workers refused to negotiate
 Roosevelt infuriated and threatened to
have the military take over the mine
 Workers relented with only minor gains
 Progressives
also sought social justice
 Charities increased
 Cities cleaned up
 Sewers installed
 Child labor curtailed
 Temperance advocated
 One of the biggest influences was the
WCTU, Women’s Christian Temperance
Union
 Progressivism
stalled in the South
 “Jim Crow” laws segregated blacks and
kept them from voting
 Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 legalized
segregation and established “separate
but equal”
 Doctrine was implicitly denied by the
Gentleman’s Agreement with Japan in
1907
 Booker T. Washington
• Emphasized education
• Founded numerous schools for
blacks
• Argued that over time blacks
could prove themselves the
equals of whites
 W.E.B
DuBois
• First black to earn a PhD from
Harvard
• Argued blacks should
demand and immediate end
to segregation
• Eventually lost faith,
supported Black Power, and
moved to Africa
 Roosevelt
one of the first presidents
concerned with the environment
 Wanted long term resource management
and wildlife protection for future
Americans
 Founded 2 million acre Yellowstone Natl.
Park
 Also
founded
dozens of wildlife
preserves, parks,
and national
monuments,
including the
Grand Canyon
Roosevelt at Yosemite, 1903
 Roosevelt’s
Secretary
of War
 Groomed for the
Presidency
 Elected in 1908 as a
Republican
 Never comfortable as
President
 Unpopular
as President
 Reversed many of
Roosevelt’s
appointments
 Much more aggressive
in anti-trust legislation
 Prompted Roosevelt to
challenge Taft in 1912
 Democrat
elected
President in 1912
 Wanted to continue
Progressive reform
 Worked to lower tariffs
to damage trusts
 Passed legislation to
further dissolve trusts
 Created
the Federal Reserve (The Fed) in
1913
 12 Regional Federal Reserve banks
 Intended to centralize and control the
money supply
 Also passed next to the 16th Amendment,
allowing for a federal income tax
 Most
important event in modern history
 Completely changed the course of world
history
 Affects Western politics, economics,
religion, and society on profound levels
 Catastrophic in terms of damage
Total Mobilized
Forces
ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED POWERS
Russia
12,000,000
British Empire
8,904,467
France
8,410,000
Italy
5,615,000
United States
4,355,000
Japan
800,000
Romania
750,000
Serbia
707,343
Belgium
267,000
Greece
230,000
Portugal
100,000
Montenegro
50,000
TOTAL
42,188,810
ALLIED AND ASSOCIATED POWERS
Germany
11,000,000
Austria7,800,000
Hungary
Turkey
2,850,000
Bulgaria
1,200,000
TOTAL
22,850,000
GRAND
65,038,810
TOTAL
Country
Killed
Wounded
Prisoners and
Missing
Total
Casualties
Casualties as
% of Forces
1,700,000
908,371
1,357,800
650,000
116,516
300
335,706
45,000
13,716
5,000
7,222
3,000
5,142,631
4,950,000
2,090,212
4,266,000
947,000
204,002
907
120,000
133,148
44,686
21,000
13,751
10,000
12,800,706
2,500,000
191,652
537,000
600,000
4,500
3
80,000
152,958
34,659
1,000
12,318
7,000
4,121,090
9,150,000
3,190,235
6,160,800
2,197,000
323,018
1,210
535,706
331,106
93,061
27,000
33,291
20,000
22,062,427
76.3
35.8
73.3
39.1
7.1
0.2
71.4
46.8
34.9
11.7
33.3
40.0
52.3
1,773,700
4,216,058
1,152,800
7,142,558
64.9
1,200,000
3,620,000
2,200,000
7,020,000
90.0
325,000
87,500
3,386,200
400,000
152,390
8,388,448
250,000
27,029
3,629,829
975,000
266,919
15,404,477
34.2
22.2
67.4
8,528,831
21,189,154
7,750,919
37,466,904
57.5
 What
does all this have to do with the
U.S.?
 Not much
 Most people in the U.S. wanted to remain
neutral
 Even if the U.S. joined it wasn’t clear
which side they should be on
 U.S. selling
supplies to France and Britain
 Would have sold to Germany, but British
were blockading the coast
 Germany becoming increasingly
desperate as supplies choked off
 Retaliated with U-boats in the Atlantic
 Germans
eventually
began attacking all ships
off the coast of Great
Britain
 U.S. merchants and
passengers advised
against travel
 128
Americans killed in July 1915
 Wilson
demanded that Germany cease
unrestricted submarine warfare
 Germany wanted to avoid U.S.
involvement and agreed, despite its
success
 The U.S. was happy to avoid the war
 Wilson re-elected in 1916 because:
“He Kept Us Out of War”
 By
1917 Germany was increasingly
desperate
 Decided to resume unrestricted
submarine warfare
 In order to keep the U.S. out of the war
Germany tried a scheme with Mexico
 Germany’s
foreign secretary, Arthur
Zimmerman, sent a telegram to the
ambassador in Mexico
 Offered a deal that if Mexico would
attack the U.S. then Germany would help
them regain territory
 British intelligence intercepted the
telegram and handed it off to the U.S.
 Resumption
of unrestricted submarine
warfare
 Germany conspired to attack the U.S.
 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia
 French
Army on the verge of collapse
 Germany about to get major
reinforcements at Russia drops out
 For the U.S. it was now or never
 The U.S. declared war on April 6, 1917
 Still, the U.S. had virtually no standing
army and would not deploy until 1918
 Germany
made two final pushes in
1918
 Made it again to the gates of Paris
 The last push ultimately failed
 A faction in Germany revolted and
forced the Kaiser to abdicate
 Germany asked for a cease-fire
 Went into effect Nov. 11 at 11am
 Germany
bewildered and starving
 The British kept the blockade until the
treaty was finally signed, 7 months later
 Wilson wanted to show mercy to
Germany with easy terms to try and
prevent another war
 France and Britain wanted payback
 Wilson’s
peace plan to prevent another war
 Advocated:
• No secret alliances
• Free trade / oceans
• Arms reductions
• Self-determination for colonies and ethnic groups
• A “League of Nations”
 Only
the League of Nations was adopted,
but U.S. failed to join
 Germany
lost significant territory
 Germany prevented from keeping any
significant army
 Territory on the Rhine occupied by Allies
 Germany forced to admit “war guilt” and
pay enormous reparations
 Austria-Hungary dissolved and
forbidden to join Germany
 Numerous new nations created