SCHOOL OF HISTORICAL, POLITICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

The Making of the Modern World

Module HEC 1010 (15 credits)
Prof. Roger Burt
First Semester 2000/2001
Lecture 6
The United States of America
During the third quarter of the nineteenth century, France, Germany and Belgium
made a clear jump from agricultural to self-sustaining industrial societies. Like
Britain, they had embarked on a programme of sustained and regular economic
growth that was to propel them into a New World of material wealth and prosperity.
As yet they well still in Britain’s wake but they soon began to gain on her and by the
end of the century had gained a position of near parity. Their success changed the
political map of Europe and clearly established them as the leading economic and
military powers on that continent and, indeed, in the struggle for world imperial
domination. Other once great nations, such as Russia, Austro-Hungary, Spain and
Portugal, soon realised that they were being eclipsed by this new economic system
and began, by the end of the century, to make every effort to themselves embrace
change the new directions of wealth and power. However, they were slow to make
progress and the real challenge to the supremacy of western Europe in the new
industrial world came not from the older Eastern and Southern powers, but from
across the Atlantic, in the new, upstart nation of the United States of America.

The Industrialisation of the United States of America

The economic progress of the North America during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries was absolutely unparalleled in history. There was hardly any point in those
two hundred years when it did not enjoy the highest rate of growth in the world. For
most of the first half of the period this growth was based on the exploitation of natural
resources, agricultural and mineral, but from the early nineteenth century,
industrialisation also became increasingly important. By 1850 the U.S. was firmly
established in a strong process of industrialisation and by 1900 it was not only a fully
industrialised economy but also one of the world’s top three economic powers. In the
twentieth century its power has continued to grow, both absolutely and relatively, and
for the last fifty years it has been unchallenged as easily the world’s most advanced
and largest economy.
The profile of industrialisation in America is quite similar to that of western Europe,
but for often very different reasons. Thus it is possible to talk of slow industrial
development during the eighteenth century; a marked speeding up during the period of
the European French and Napoleonic wars; post war dislocation and de-
industrialisation with the return of peace and renewed British competition; recovery
and sustained growth during the second quarter of the century - but the causes of the
changes in pace were usually externally generated rather than the result of any
inherent problem with the domestic economy or its socio-political-cultural context.
This might be illustrated by looking at the progress and changing structure of the
American economy under the same period sub-headings as used for our discussion of
France, Germany and Belgium.
1/ The Eighteenth Century
From the 16th to the late eighteenth century, the north American continent was
divided between a number of European empires - mainly the Spanish, French and
Dutch. What we now know as the continental United States evolved from the British
colonies, which had been gradually pieced together down the eastern seaboard of the
continent. Their foundation started in 1607 with the first permanent settlement in
Virginia and their period of colonial vassalage lasted until the successful War of
Independence 1775-1781. During the colonial period every aspect of their economic
development was shaped by the "British Colonial System" which was gradually
evolved in the context of mercantilist economic philosophies during the seventeenth
century. In essence the policy assumed that colonies (here or anywhere else) had only
one reason for existence - to serve the "mother country". They should do this by
providing her with goods that she could not otherwise obtain - both for consumption
and re-export - and by furnishing her with markets for her domestic industry. Thus the
American colonies were encouraged to develop as food and raw material producers
(most notably tobacco, rice, sugar, timber products) but discouraged from developing
all but a narrow range of manufactures. For regions like New England in the north,
which had little capacity to produce raw materials not already available in England,
this provided some considerable difficulty, but they found economic salvation in
developing mercantile/shipping expertise which they could use in organising and
carrying the trade of the empire. Although these constrictions generated rising
frustrations among the colonists, who with increasing wealth and generational
distance from England wanted more political freedom, they also brought many
economic benefits, eg. privileged access to the rapidly expanding British market;
access to the trading opportunities of the growing British Empire; and, perhaps most
important of all, development in the context of a set of British cultural, social, and
political institutions which were proving more conducive to private enterprise and
capitalist expansion than any other system in the world at that time.(it is in this latter
area that explanations are usually found for the wide differences in the economic
performance of North and South America since the eighteenth century).
With successful revolution, the British were thrown out, the constrictions of the old
colonial system removed, and American businessmen "unleashed" for independent
development. However, at first things did not go well. The world was a hard place.
The Europeans had divided it into self-contained trading empires and escaping from
one did not mean automatic access to the others. The newly independent nation was
suddenly awakened to the advantages that they previously had enjoyed. Without the
protective defensive hand of the British, their very continued independence could be
cast into doubt. At that point, however, things fortuitously took a sudden change for
the better with the outbreak of general warfare in Europe.
2/ The French and Napoleonic Wars 1794 to 1815
War in Europe meant sea warfare, as the British, and the French and their allies,
fought for control of the sea-lanes to their colonies and other long-distance markets.
The British won and cut off the other European powers from their empires. The only
way that trade and other links could be maintained was by means of neutral shipping.
The Americans were more than pleased to accept this role, and American ports,
particularly in New England, experienced a return to unparalleled commercial
prosperity. Markets for American primary products, particularly the large tobacco
crop, also picked up. All available capital was channelled into planting, shipping and
commerce - the supply of manufactured products was conveniently left to old British
manufacturers, who had been keen to re-establish good relations after previous
difficulties had been forgotten.
All went well until economic warfare in Europe replaced major military activities
after 1806. First Napoleon and then Britain attempted to inflict injury with their
respective Continental System and Orders in Council. While these had arguably
beneficial effects on the process of "continental" industrialisation, they made life
harder and harder for the neutrals that tried to sustain Europe’s external trade.
America retaliated in 1807 with her own Embargo act, but which trade to her own
domestic was sharply reduced. Relations with Britain gradually deteriorated until a
second outbreak of war in 1812. While economic and military warfare had disastrous
consequences for American primary producers and mercantile and shipping interests,
it created the first real opportunity for the development of large-scale domestic
industry. As in continental Europe, the protective conditions fostered an explosion of
industrial activity’ led by textiles and metal manufacturing. To a large degree this took
the form of stimulating traditional, small-scale units of production, but Americans,
unlike their continental counterparts, found it easier to learn from their English
cousins. Between 1805 and 1815, for example, 94 new cotton mills were built in New
England, most of them, like Lowell’s famous Mill at Waltham, near Boston,
employing the latest British spinning and weaving machinery. However, even these
new enterprises had still relatively high costs and they found it hard to survive the
return of peace and normal trading relations.
3/ The Post-War Period 1815 to the Early 1820s
In the immediate post-war period, a British import invasion, underpinned by their
superior technology but and with prices cut to the bone deliberately to wipe out future
competitors, dealt a near lethal blow to the momentum of industrialisation. Many
manufacturing companies were forced to close and those that survived had few
possibilities for further expansion. Entrepreneurs turned away from industry and back
towards primary production and commercial activity. It was, however, a very different
world from that seen by the newly independent nation before the war. The population
was increasing rapidly; the frontier had spilled across the Appellation mountain range
and was racing across the mid-west; the nation was increasingly able to look inwards,
at the exploitation of its own domestic potential, rather than outwards to the
international economy that had dominated its earlier years. But there was one last
great international opportunity to be taken - namely the supply of raw cotton to the
insatiable appetite of the British and developing European textile industries.
Throughout the 1810s, ‘20s, ‘30s, ‘40s, rapid economic growth in the nation as a
whole was driven by the expansion of the cotton crop and the southern "Cotton
Kingdom". Every up-and-down in the rate of progress echoed the pulse of that
Kingdom. However, the wider economy did not become totally unbalanced by the
vast earnings potential of cotton. The southern plantations’ need for additional food
supplies encouraged the expansion of commercial agriculture in the West, and the
increasing wealth of both regions created a demand for manufactured goods that the
Northeast could begin to supply alongside the British.

4/ Revived Industrialisation 1820s - 1850s

Just as war had provided the protective market conditions to start a rush into
manufacturing between 1812 and 1814, the introduction of a protective tariff in 1816
did much first to arrest the decline, then to initiate recovery, and finally to sponsor
sustained industrial progress. Introduced as a flat rate duty, the "protective effect" of
the tariff was progressively increased during following decades by a gradual reduction
in manufactured goods prices - a process that was accelerated by a series of increases
in the size of the duty itself. This meant that British manufacturers gradually
abandoned the market for basic, low quality, utility goods - where profit margins were
small - to American manufacturers and concentrated instead on the upper end of the
market. Together with various other stimuli, like resource abundance and high labour
costs, this market structure was to initiate experiments with entirely new forms of
mass production technology which were to lead to a new and
characteristically American form of manufacture. Just as important to fostering growth
was the constant westward shift in the functional centre of the U.S. economy and the
progressive improvement of domestic transport facilities. This greatly expanded the
market faced by American producers while still providing a protective effect, in the
form of relatively high transport costs, against the British. For example, to undercut
the manufacturing companies producing agricultural machinery and frontier
implements for local markets in the new western towns, such as Pittsburgh and
Cincinnati, British manufacturers had to not only jump over high tariff barriers but
also to meet expensive sea and land transport costs - particularly in the critical early
years of the pre-railway era (1820s and ‘30s). Under these conditions and with cotton
production and earnings driving the economy forward, the west constantly taking in
new resources, and the population booming with both high natural increase and
immigration, it was difficult for manufacturers to fail. By 1860, the cotton textile
industry, based mainly in Northeast, had been almost entirely mechanised and was in
no way inferior in its technology to that commonly used in England. Progress in
woollen production was slower, with a large part of the market still being taken up by
domestic manufacture and the west and by British imports, but even here full
mechanisation was rapid after 1840. In the iron industry, the adoption of the latest
new British coal fuelled techniques in smelting and refining was retarded by the ready
availability of traditional wood fuel, but again great progress had been made by the
mid-century. America also began to produce it own new technologies, demonstrating
the different market forces found there compared with Europe. The sewing machine,
for example, developed by Howe, Singer and Wilson from the late 1840s, greatly
facilitated the work of women in remote western farmsteads as well as revolutionising
the shoe and garment trades in the production of utility products for working men.
During this long period of growth and change there were inevitably times of doubt
and crisis, distortions brought by civil war and internal conflict, but America was the
"land of the free", where the entrepreneurial could flourish and the market was left to
promote unrestrained social Darwinism. There’s was a roller-coaster of success.
For further material on American industrialisation and economic development during
the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see my lecture notes for the module
HEC3220, at http://www.people.ex.ac.uk/RBurt. Click on 'His Teaching'.

U.S. Industrialization
The United States. The first industrialization outside Europe occurred in the British
colonies that became the United States. The colonies had a wide range of industries.
The most successful was shipbuilding. By the time the colonies declared their
independence in 1776, about a third of Britain's ships were being built in America.
Iron manufacturing was also a major industry, and a few American companies
exported iron to Great Britain.

By the early 1800's, the small arms industry in the United States had developed
machines and machine tools that could produce standard parts that were required for
mass production. Industrial production, especially of textiles and light metals, began
to increase sharply in the United States in the 1820's. The greatest increases in
manufacturing took place in New England. Industrialization also benefited from
improvements made in rivers and canals. These improvements reduced the cost of
transporting goods to and from the interior of the country.
Beginning in the 1830's, industrialization increased rapidly throughout the Eastern
United States. The iron industry in Pennsylvania made especially great advances as
iron was adapted for agricultural tools, railroad track, and a variety of structural uses.
By the 1850's, the quality and price of American iron enabled U.S. ironmakers to
compete with Great Britain's ironmakers in the international market.

During the mid-1800's, the agricultural, construction, and mining industries expanded
as the population spread westward. Manufacturing accounted for less than a fifth of all
U.S. production in 1840. By 1860, it accounted for a third. However, agricultural
products made up more than two-thirds of the value of all U.S. exports in 1860, and
the country still imported more manufactured goods than it exported. But by the late
1800's, the United States had become the largest and most competitive industrial
nation in the world.

By 1870, the main trends of the Industrial Revolution were clearly marked in all
industrialized countries. Industry had advanced faster than agriculture. Goods were
being made by power-driven machinery and assembled in factories, where
management planned operations and the workers did little more than tend the
machines. Capital controlled industrial production, but labor was being allowed to
organize to fight for higher wages, shorter hours, and better working conditions. The
railroad, the improved sailing ship, the steamship, and the telegraph had reduced the
cost and time of transportation and communication. Living standards of the workers in
industrial countries were higher than they had ever been. Populations grew rapidly,
and more people lived in cities than ever before.

Wherever the Industrial Revolution spread, it destroyed a traditional way of life. But
as the revolution progressed in each country, more and more workers came to accept
the routines and disciplines of industrialization.
Industrialization and reform (1870-1916)

The industrial growth that began in the United States in the early 1800's continued
steadily up to and through the Civil War. Still, by the end of the war, the typical
American industry was small. Hand labor remained widespread, limiting the
production capacity of industry. Most businesses served a small market and lacked the
capital needed for business expansion.

After the Civil War, however, American industry changed dramatically. Machines
replaced hand labor as the main means of manufacturing, increasing the production
capacity of industry tremendously. A new nationwide network of railroads distributed
goods far and wide. Inventors developed new products the public wanted, and
businesses made the products in large quantities. Investors and bankers supplied the
huge amounts of money that business leaders needed to expand their operations.
Many big businesses grew up as a result of these and other developments. They
included coal mining, petroleum, and railroad companies; and manufacturers and
sellers of such products as steel, industrial machinery, automobiles, and clothing.

The industrial growth had major effects on American life. The new business activity
centered in cities. As a result, people moved to cities in record numbers, and the cities
grew by leaps and bounds. Many Americans amassed huge fortunes from the business
boom, but others lived in extreme poverty. The sharp contrast between the rich and
the poor and other features of American life stirred widespread discontent. The
discontent triggered new reform movements, which--among other things--led to
measures to aid the poor and control the size and power of big business.

The industrial growth centered chiefly in the North. The war-torn South lagged behind
the rest of the country economically. In the West, frontier life was ending.

America's role in foreign affairs also changed during the late 1800's and early 1900's.
The country built up its military strength and became a world power.

The rise of big business

The value of goods produced by American industry increased almost tenfold between
1870 and 1916. Many interrelated developments contributed to this growth.

Improved production methods. The use of machines in manufacturing spread

throughout American industry after the Civil War. With machines, workers could
produce goods many times faster than they could by hand. The new large
manufacturing firms hired hundreds, or even thousands, of workers. Each worker was
assigned a specific job in the production process. This system of organizing laborers,
called the division of labor, also sped up production. The increased production speed
had a tremendous impact on the economy. It enabled businesses to charge lower
prices for products. Lower prices, in turn, meant more people could afford the
products, and so sales soared.

Development of new products. Inventors created, and business leaders produced and
sold, a variety of new products. The products included the typewriter (1867), barbed
wire (1874), the telephone (1876), the phonograph (1877), the electric light (1879),
and the gasoline automobile (1885). Of these, the automobile had the greatest impact
on the nation's economy. In the early 1900's, Ransom Eli Olds and Henry Ford began
turning out cars by mass production. Automobile prices dropped, and sales soared.
The number of automobiles owned by Americans jumped from 8,000 in 1900 to
almost 3,500,000 in 1916.

Natural resources. America's rich and varied natural resources played a key role in the
rise of big business. The nation's abundant water supply helped power the industrial
machines. Forests provided lumber for construction and wooden products. Miners
took large quantities of coal and iron ore from the ground. Andrew Carnegie and other
business leaders made steel from these minerals. Steel played a vital role in the
industrialization process. It was used to build machines, railroad tracks, bridges,
automobiles, and skyscrapers. Other industrially valuable minerals included copper,
silver, and petroleum. Petroleum--the source of gasoline--became especially important
after the automobile came into widespread use in the early 1900's.

A growing population. More than 25 million immigrants entered the United States
between 1870 and 1916. Immigration plus natural growth caused the U.S. population
to more than double during the same period, rising from about 40 million to about 100
million. Population growth helped the economic boom in two ways. It increased the
number of consumers, and thus enlarged the market for products. It also provided the
additional workers needed for the jobs created by the new business activity.

Distribution, sales, and communication. In the late 1800's, the American railroad
system became a nationwide transportation network. The distance of all railroad lines
in operation in the United States soared from about 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) in
1850 to almost 200,000 miles (320,000 kilometers) in 1900. A high point in railroad
development came in 1869, when workers laid tracks that joined the Central Pacific
and Union Pacific railroads near Ogden, Utah. This event marked the completion of
the world's first transcontinental railroad system. The system linked the United States
by rail from coast to coast.

The new railroads spurred economic growth. Mining companies used them to ship
raw materials to factories over long distances quickly. Manufacturers distributed their
finished products by rail to points throughout the country. The railroads became
highly profitable businesses for their owners, including Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay
Gould.

Improved sales methods also aided economic growth. Owners of big businesses sent
salespeople to all parts of the country to promote their products. Enterprising
merchants opened huge department stores in the growing cities. They included
Marshall Field of Chicago, R. H. Macy of New York, and John Wanamaker of
Philadelphia. The stores offered a wide variety of products at reasonable prices. Other
merchants--including Montgomery Ward and Richard Sears--began mail-order
companies, chiefly to serve people who lived far from stores. The companies
published catalogs that showed their products. Buyers used the catalogs to order
goods by mail.

Advances in communication provided a boost for the economy. Railroads replaced

such mail-delivery systems as the stagecoach. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell
invented the telephone. These developments, along with the telegraph, provided the
quick communication that is vital to the smooth operation of big business.

Investment and banking. The business boom triggered a sharp increase in investments
in the stocks and bonds of corporations. As businesses prospered, persons eager to
share in the profits invested heavily. Their investments provided capital that
companies needed to expand their operations.

New banks sprang up throughout the country. Banks helped finance the nation's
economic growth by making loans to businesses. Some bankers of the era, especially
J. P. Morgan, assumed key positions in the American economy because of their ability
to provide huge sums of capital.

Monopolies. The government did little to regulate business during the 1800's.
Unrestricted, business executives in the United States struggled to wipe out
competition and gain complete control of their industries. They formed monopolies,
which--for the most part--are illegal today. Some business owners in the same
industry merged (united to form a single company) in order to reduce or eliminate
competition. Other business leaders formed trusts. A trust was a monopoly in which a
group of managers controlled rival businesses without formal ownership of the
businesses.

The monopolies had some favorable effects on the economy. They helped make
possible the giant, efficient corporations that contributed so much to economic
growth. The monopolies also enabled businesses to avoid sharp fluctuations in price
and output, and thus keep sales steady. On the other hand, monopolies gave some
business leaders so much power that they could take unfair advantage of others. A
business executive with little or no competition could demand goods from suppliers at
low cost, while charging high prices for the finished product. The executive could also
save money by reducing a product's quality.

Contributor: Eric Edwin Lampard, Ph.D., Prof. of History, State Univ. of New York at
Stony Brook; Former Prof. of History, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison.
The wealthy class is becoming more wealthy; but the poorer class is becoming more dependent. The
gulf between the employed and the employer is growing wider; social contrasts are becoming
sharper; as livered

carriages appear; so do barefoot children” -Henry George 1879

Industrialization in America was a surprisingly quick process given the slow crawl in Europe toward
the growth of manufacturing and industry. In 1860, America was fourth in the world in
manufacturing but by the turn of the 20th century was the biggest industrial nation in the world by
far. Profiteering during and after the Civil War as well as the favorable, pro-business presidencies of
Ulysses Grant along with the hands-off presidencies of the Gilded Age led to an upsurge in wealth
accumulation. This excessive accumulation in the hands of a few business leaders was then invested
into expensive manufacturing operations, which was used to extract massive amounts of natural
resources and import cheap labor from southern and eastern Europe. As well, this tangent of great
wealth was fortunate to run into the creation of Bell’s telephone in 1876 and Edison’s light bulb in
1879 to create the first massive infiltration by businesses into the household. Prosperity and the want
of prosperity were the signs that industrialization’s effects had reached communities across the
United States. hree major business figures emerged at the end of the 19th century. These “robber
barons” were Andrew Carnegie in the steel industry, J.P. Morgan in the banking industry, and John
Rockefeller in the oil

industry. Morgan became the most important figure of the three major barons because his banking
empire was able to tie together all of the other magnates to control a good portion of the American
economy. This included consolidating businesses wounded by competition in order to run out
competing businesses and forcing the hand of weak presidents and Congresses over four decades.
Carnegie’s efficient steel making and marketing processes allowed America to
outproduceGermany and England combined by the end of the century and the preeminence of
Carnegie in steel meant that huge profits rolled in with little consideration to taxes. Rockefeller’s
Standard Oil controlled 95 percent of the global petroleum market in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries and the introduction of home lighting and heating, along with the need of fuel in factories
and vehicles, meant an almost endless amount of revenue sources for Standard. The cooperative
alliances between the three industries, or “trusts,” provided cheaper goods, streamlined production
and eliminated rate wars. However, it also led to poorer working conditions (leading to labor unions
during this time), the promotion of elitism, and a danger to democracy when they held up Congress
for greater profits and control over the economy.

One would be remiss in a discussion about industrialization in America without discussing the
expansion of railroads, which allowed for the rapid expansion of industry across America. Between
1865-1900, railroad mileage in America increased from 35,000 miles to 192,000 miles thanks to
congressional land grants and the end of partisan wrangling during the Civil War. Towns along the
tracks and those that developed for the purpose of supporting rail workers flourished in the western
territories and the profits of robber baron Cornelius Vanderbilt and his railroad business were made
possible by the increasing property value for rail towns and the cheap labor brought in
from Chinaand Ireland. While the railroad was profitable and beneficial to the overall growth of the
United States, it did expose the labor problems in the United States, along with the problems of non-
regulation brought by the protests of early populist groups like the Grange movement. The
industrialization of America, however, was beyond the control of politicians and the public alike as
the Gilded Age was the era of big business. This would change, however slightly, during the 1900s
and 1910s when the Progressive movement was able to take over Congress and the White House.

Industrialization of American Society

By Patricia Ryaby Backer
Mechanization, as seen in Western society, is the result of a rationalistic view of the
world. After the development of factories during the Industrial Revolution, the
nineteenth-century factory remained essentially a job shop, with various machines
placed randomly about in corners and on different floors, their individual motions
controlled by a large wheel, often placed in the basement. Steam power, available
since the invention of the steam engine by James Watt, was "transmitted vertically
through the factory building from the basement to the top floor: primary belting
transferred motion to secondary shafts, which in turn transmitted power via pulleys to
individual machines" (Hirchhorn, 1984, p. 10). In the latter half of the nineteenth
century, with the widening of the railroad network, the accelerated growth of
metropolitan areas, and, in America, the mechanizing of many complicated crafts, the
influence of mechanization was already reaching deeper into life (Giedion, 1948).
The Industrial Revolution spanned the industrialization of society with its three major
aspects: the division of labor, specialization, and mechanization. Each of these three
factors helped to create the modern industrial society with the vision of mass
production and the assembly line. The Industrial Revolution transplanted from
England to the Untied States caused what was, by the 1850s, known as the "American
system of manufacturing" (Woodbury, 1972).
In the United States, the first factory system appeared in Waltham and Lowell in the
1810s and 1820s in the textile industry. The factory system then spread to the
chemical and metallurgical industries in the 1840s and to all market-oriented
industries by the 1860s and 1870s (Nelson, 1980). This American model of
manufacturing, which included mass manufacture by power-driven machinery and
interchangeable parts, was dominated by machine processes. Machine processes
dictated the nature and organization of production, although there was no uniformity
in production layout or methods between different industries. For example, in the
textile industry, machines almost immediately created a sequential manufacturing
process that was characteristic of that industry. In iron manufacturing, however, a
standard factory layout, because of the new machines, took a long time to develop and
there was little uniformity in factory organization until the end of the 19th century.
The mechanization movement, which began in the Industrial Revolution, had a
significant impact on how people worked. The next great change in the organization
of work occurred as a result of the development of scientific management and the
assembly line.
The development of the Assembly Line and mass production
The assembly line illustrates the fundamental principles of mechanization:
standardization, continuity, constraint, and the reduction of work to simple labor.
Taken together, these principles form the core of industrial culture in the mid 20th
century in the United States. Also, these fundamental principles form the basis of the
"American production system," which until recently, was the undisputed leader in
global manufacturing.
The concept of assembly line production is so familiar today that we sometimes forget
that, until the early 20th century, it was relatively unknown. In an assembly line,
workers attach the same parts day after day along a conveyor belt knowing that all of
the parts taken together will complete the entire product. There is a disassociation
between the worker's job and the final product for the workers no longer make the
entire product--instead, they work repeatedly on one tiny portion of the manufacturing
process. There were two key developments that led to the possibility of the assembly
line: standardized parts and the factory system of work. Both of these developments
occurred in Europe but the merging of these two was done to the greatest success in
the United States.
Standardization of Parts. According to Giedion (1948), the development of
precision machining was critical to mechanization. Precise machining guaranteed that
the parts of an assembled product would fit together. Also, the precise standards
allowed the production of interchangeable parts--this development is fundamental to
the modern industrial system of manufacturing. Mass marketing to the consumer
depends on interchangeability. Once parts are standardized, they can be used in the
assembly stage of production.
The theory of using interchangeable parts began in France but was not used there
because of the disinterest of manufacturers. Honoré le Blanc was a French inventor
who proposed replicability of manufacturing gun locks using jigs, dies, and molds. le
Blanc had worked out a system for making gun parts to a standardized pattern, so if a
part broke, it could be replaced immediately by another part that would fit the gun
exactly. French workmen who were primarily craftsmen, however, were unwilling to
adopt new manufacturing methods that would reduce their status or employment
(Burke, 1978). Thomas Jefferson, who was then the ambassador from the United
States to France, knew about le Blanc's work. Jefferson, realizing the possibilities of
interachangeability for arms manufacture, quickly forwarded this discovery to the
armories in the United States (Hounshell, 1984). In this way, the principles of
interchangeable parts began to be used in manufacturing guns in the United States.
The national armory at Springfield, Massachusetts played the largest role in the
development of interchangeable parts and mass production. At this armory, from 1794
to 1815, weapons making was transformed from a craft-based system into a factory
product. The most significant innovations at Springfield were in the use of machinery
that could produce duplicate parts which were developed by Thomas Blanchard.
Blanchard's lathe could reproduce the irregular shape of a gunstock (or any other
irregularly shaped object such as an ax handle) (Hounshell, 1984).
The assembly line. The first use of an assembly line was in the shipbuilding industry
in England in 1807. Marc Brunel designed and Henry Maudsley built a series of
machines to saw, drill, mortise, recess, turn, and shape wood to make wooden blocks
(pulleys) for ships. In all, they used forty-five machines to produce three different
ranges of blocks. The Portsmouth block-making operation demonstrated the
possibility of using a number of machines to build a product, each designed to carry
out a single operation and arranged sequentially to complete all the necessary
operations to build a product.
The assembly line was not accepted by the workers in England. England, at that time,
was dominated by craftsmen who were very resistant to the prospect of non-craft
production. In addition, the worker population was very steady in England and
workers tended to stay in the same occupation for life. These factors impeded the
spread of this system to other production facilities.
The assembly line next appeared at The Springfield Armory where Blanchard used
Brunel's concepts to develop the principles of sequentially arranged, single-purpose
machinery. Blanchard rediscovered Brunel's methods and applied them to the
manufacture of metal parts. Blanchard developed fourteen machines to build his guns,
and, by the end of 1826, he had eliminated the use of skilled labor in making gun
stocks (Smith, M.R., 1981). However, this assembly line was not the well-oiled
machine that we think of today; yet, it represented a major step in the start of the
American dominance of manufacturing methods. By the 1850s, the system of
interchangeable parts combined with specialized machines was being referred to as
the "American system" of manufacturing.
"The gun-maker's tools were carried to the sewing machine manufactory,
but as the demand grew for a better quality of work these tools were
improved until we find the sewing machine now in possession of the
improved milling machine, the perfected screw machine, the turrent
lathe, a complete system of 'jig' working, and a system of measuring by
decimals...Gauge work is an outgrowth from a rude system that
originated in the armories, but has been perfected and systematized in
the sewing machine manufactory" (Spalding, 1890).
The spread of the assembly line. The new manufacturing technology spread first to
the production of the sewing machine, then to the bicycle industry, then to the
automobile industry. The sewing machine industry at the time was filled by three
manufacturers: Wheeler and Wilson, Brown and Sharpe, and Singer. Wheeler and
Wilson completely adopted the armory method of manufacturing and Brown and
Sharpe focused on designing and constructing special tools and machines for the
sewing machine. Although Wheeler and Wilson first outsold Singer and Brown and
Sharpe, by 1867, the largest company in the sewing machine industry was Singer. By
1867, Singer dominated the industry and used predominately a European (craft-based)
approach to manufacture. However, as Singer continued to grow and demand for its
machines outstripped the availability of skilled workers, Singer began to use special-
purpose machinery.
The importance of Henry Ford. According to many industrial historians, Henry
Ford’s innovation of the Model T, the moving belt assembly line, and the five-dollar,
eight hour day have had more important consequences than Lenin’s socialist
revolution (Flink, 1981).
The automobile was enthusiastically received by Americans from its introduction into
society even before the introduction of the Model T by Ford. The climate in the
United States towards the desirability of individual transportation was formed by the
widespread popularity of the bicycle that was seen in the 1890s. According to Flink
(1981), farmers and city consumers alike began to perceive cheaper highway
transportation as an alternative to the monopolistic power of the railroads. Because of
the vast size of the United States, large areas remained inaccessible even after
railroads were common and most Americans still lived on isolated farms or in poorly
connected villages. In the city, the automobile was viewed as a clean alternative to the
health and traffic problems caused by horses.
"And, perhaps more important, the motorcar offered our individualistic,
migrant population the promise of greatly expanded personal mobility
and freedom of choice in residence, business location, and the pursuit of
leisure-time activities" (Flink, 1981, p. 166).
Henry Ford was the most successful of the early car manufacturers in the United
States. He was born on a Michigan farm in 1863; and, because of this background, he
had a life-long aversion to the drudgery of farm labor. Ford was a tinkerer and, while
an engineer at Detroit’s’ Edison Illuminating Company in 1896, he built his first
automobile. After two unsuccessful attempts to produce an automobile commercially,
Ford gained his success with the foundation of the Ford Motor Company, begun in
1903. Ford was committed to producing low cost cars--in this regard, he was different
from his competitors who focused on building higher priced cars for the more limited
luxury market. The Model T, his most famous car, was introduced in 1908 for under
$900. His advertising for the car was correct and showcased its popularity--"No car
under $2,000 offers more, and no car over $2,000 offers more except the trimmings."
Because of his use of mass production techniques to build the Model T, Ford was able
to reduce the price of it to $345 for the runabout and $360 for the touring car in 1916.
Henry Ford produced the first modern car. By this conception, a modern car is one
that is produced by mass production methods and is affordable to all middle class
people in the society. And, that is what made the Model T so popular. Ford boasted
that he made a car that the workers (workers in his assembly line) could afford to buy.
Ford is also known for his payment of his workers. In 1914, Ford started the five
dollar, eight hour day, which more than doubled wages for a shorter work day. By this
move, Ford was paying more money for semi-skilled workers to work for him than
were other manufacturers who employed craftsmen.
During the 1920s, Henry Ford as widely admired as the premier among American
capitalists. Worldwide, his accomplishments were acclaimed and, during his lifetime,
he had more written about him than any figure in American history (Flink, 1981).
However, his reputation has been tarnished by his activities that were not as well-
published during this time. He was blamed for the deterioration of working conditions
in his plant as well as for writing anti-Semitic articles published in the Dearborn
Independent. Also, as he became more powerful in the car industry, Ford tended
toward autocratic rule and arbitrary management of his company.] end of bio on
Henry Ford
Henry Ford and the assembly line. Henry Ford was not the first to use the assembly
line--that credit belong to England, Brunel, and its shipbuilding industry--however,
Henry Ford took the idea of the assembly line and transformed it so that it became a
major component of the American industrial system. Ford's use of the assembly line
to produce the Model T was revolutionary because "it brought the principles of
conveyance and controlled movement to a metal-based industry where the problems
of standardized parts and steady power had first to be solved" (Hirschhorn, 1984, p.
10).
Two developments, electricity and scientific management (the latter became known as
industrial management after World War I), established the technical basis for the
principle of continuity. The continuity of this assembly line, as we have seen, emerged
from the interplay of technical and managerial development in both the Ford Motor
Company and in other industries. Giedion (1948) has placed the work of Henry Ford
on the assembly line at the end of a long process of technological developments
including the production of interchangeable parts, the idea of continuous flow, the
efficiency movement, and the disassembly lines of the Chicago slaughterhouses.
Ford, when he started, redesigned the factory layout in order to allow for the volume
production of cars. He put a great emphasis on designing machine tools that would
increase output. By 1914, about 15,000 new machines had been installed in the
Highland Park plant. Ford engineers used time-and-motion studies to install
continuous conveyor belts to bring materials to the assembly lines. By the summer of
1913, three subassemblies (magnetos, motors, and transmissions) were assembled on
moving lines. Because these moving lines produced subassemblies faster than the
main production line could take them, a moving chassis line was added--this reduced
the chassis assembly time from 12 1/2 hours in October to 2 hours, 40 minutes in
December, 1913 (Flink, 1981).
"Every piece of work in the shop moves. It may move on hooks or
overhead chains going to assembly in the exact order in which the parts
are required; it may travel on a moving platform; or it may go by gravity,
but the point is that there is no lifting or trucking of anything than
materials" (Henry Ford, cited in Flink, 1981, p. 170).

The beginning of Flexible Mass Production. The assembly line typifies the move of
reductionism in the factory--this is a reduction of work to simple labor, robbed of all
inherent interest or value. "The worker, making a few turns of the wrist or sweeps of
the arm, becomes a specialized machine, doomed to repeat these simple mechanical
movements eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year. Nothing seems
more brutalizing, not because of felt pain or discomfort--for many studies show that
workers do adjust to the rhythms of movement imposed by the line and may derive
pleasure from the experience of continuity--but rather because experiences and
potentials are lost forever as intelligent people are robbed of their ability to think,
puzzle out, and discover" (Hirschhorn, 1984, p.13).
According to Nuwer (1988), the introduction of mass production techniques into the
workplace was often related to the large amount of machine-tending jobs.
Technological changes in manufacturing practices, such as mass production and the
assembly line, increased the scale of production of goods by standardizing productive
operations. This created a large class of machine operators in American factories who,
overall, had lower skills than the craft production workers that were displaced.
The start of mass production, originally called "Fordism" led to the use of mass
production in other automobile companies with manufacturers of consumer durable
goods soon following. Mass production was viewed by industrialists as industry on a
scientific basis while social critics decried its dehumanizing effects on the workforce.
Edward Filene argued that mass production represented the "second" Industrial
Revolution. Ford’s system of mass production was so successful because his product,
the Model T, did not vary. However, variety and options became the hallmark of the
new consumer society which developed. So, Ford’s pure assembly line was modified
widely to become more of a flexible line which allowed variations in assembly.
The assembly line, and its derivatives, are still a significant force in the
manufacturing world of today. Now called traditional manufacturing, the system
of melding worker to the machine is used to build almost all durable goods. And,
the development of hierarchy and planning, which are maximized by this system,
are still common in American production. Manifest Destiny
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An Introduction

No nation ever existed without some sense of national destiny or purpose.

Manifest Destiny – a phrase used by leaders and politicians in the 1840s to explain continental expansion by the
United States – revitalized a sense of "mission" or national destiny for Americans.

The people of the United States felt it was their mission to extend the "boundaries of freedom" to others by imparting
their idealism and belief in democratic institutions to those who were capable of self-government. It excluded those
people who were perceived as being incapable of self-government, such as Native American people and those of
non-European origin.

But there were other forces and political agendas at work as well. As the population of the original 13 Colonies grew
and the U.S. economy developed, the desire and attempts to expand into new land increased. For many colonists,
land represented potential income, wealth, self-sufficiency and freedom. Expansion into the western frontiers offered
opportunities for self-advancement.

To understand Manifest Destiny, it's important to understand the United States' need and desire to expand. The
following points illustrate some of the economic, social and political pressures promoting U.S. expansion:

○ The United States was experiencing a periodic high birth rate and increases in population due to
immigration. And because agriculture provided the primary economic structure, large families to work the
farms were considered an asset. The U.S. population grew from more than five millon in 1800 to more than
23 million by mid-century. Thus, there was a need to expand into new territories to accommodate this rapid
growth. It's estimated that nearly 4,000,000 Americans moved to western territories between 1820 and
1850.

○ The United States suffered two economic depressions — one in 1818 and a second in 1839. These crises
drove some people to seek their living in frontier areas.

○ Frontier land was inexpensive or, in some cases, free.

○ Expansion into frontier areas opened opportunities for new commerce and individual self-advancement.

○ Land ownership was associated with wealth and tied to self-sufficiency, political power and independent
"self-rule."

○ Maritime merchants saw an opportunity to expand and promote new commerce by building West Coast
ports leading to increased trade with countries in the Pacific.

Mexico's Dream of New Spain

While the United States put into motion a quest for its Manifest Destiny, Mexico
faced quite different circumstances as a newly independent country. Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in
1821, but the country suffered terribly from the struggle. The war caused severe economic burdens and recovery was
difficult. The fledgling nation's first attempts at creating a new government included placing the country under the rule
of an emperor. In 1824, the monarchy was overthrown and a constitutional republic was formed. But internal
struggles between the various political factions, such as the Centralist, Federalist, Monarchist and Republican parties,
drained even more of the country's energy and resources. These political factions were not united and new struggles
broke out by the different sides as each tried to secure dominant rule.

Mexico won vast northern territories with its independence from Spain. These borderlands were underpopulated, so
amid its internal political struggles and economic deficits, Mexico was also challenged to colonize these territories
and guard its borders. Protecting and colonizing Mexico's northern territories proved to be nearly impossible for the
staggering country:

○ Due to Mexico's economic system, there were fewer opportunities for individual self-advancement in the
frontier regions and people were less motivated to relocate. Colonization was pushed primarily as part of the
government's political agenda.

○ Constant warfare with Native Americans discouraged people from settling into the areas.

○ The national military system was unable to provide support to guard the countries vast borders.

○ Both the Catholic Church and Mexico's military, the main guardians of the nation's traditions, were unable to
exercise authority in the border areas. Frontier communities were poor, for the most part, and these poverty-
stricken areas could not support the complex institutions that the central government tried to put in place.
The communications necessary to unify the regions were slow and unreliable.

○ Frontier society was more informal, democratic, self-reliant and egalitarian than the core of Mexico's society.
Thus, frontier communities were often at odds with the central government, which imposed restrictions that
affected the economy of these societies.

○ The last decades of the 19th century were a period of imperial expansion for the
United States, as it extended its influence, and at times its domain, over widely
scattered areas in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and into Central America.
The United States took a different course than its European rivals, however,
because of its own history of struggle against European empires and its unique
democratic development.
○ The sources of American expansionism in the late 19th century were varied.
Internationally, it was a period of imperialist frenzy, as European powers raced
to carve up Africa and competed for influence and trade in Asia -- along with a
new rival, Japan. Many Americans, including such influential figures as
Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge and Elihu Root, felt that to safeguard
its own interests, the United States had to stake out spheres of economic
influence as well. That view was seconded by a powerful naval lobby, which
called for an expanded fleet and network of overseas ports as essential to the
economic and political security of the nation. More generally, the doctrine of
"manifest destiny," first used to justify America's continental expansion, was
now revived to assert that the United States had a right and duty to extend its
influence and civilization in the Western Hemisphere and the Caribbean, as
well as across the Pacific.
○ At the same time, the voices of anti-imperialism from diverse coalitions of
Northern Democrats and reform-minded Republicans remained loud and
constant. As a result, the acquisition of an American empire was piecemeal and
ambivalent, and colonial administrations were often more concerned with trade
and economic issues than political control.
○ America's first venture beyond her continental borders was the purchase of
Alaska -- sparsely populated by Inuit and other native peoples -- from Russia in
1867. Most Americans were either indifferent to or indignant at this action by
Secretary of State William Seward, and Alaska was widely referred to as
"Seward's Folly" and "Seward's Icebox." But 30 years later, when gold was
discovered on Alaska's Klondike River, thousands of Americans headed north,
and many of them settled in Alaska permanently. When Alaska became the
49th state in 1959, it replaced Texas as the largest state in the Union.
○ The Spanish-American War, which was fought in 1898, marked a turning point
in American history. Within a few years after the war ended, the United States
was exercising control or influence over islands in the Caribbean Sea, the mid-
Pacific and close to the Asian mainland.
○ By the 1890s, Cuba and Puerto Rico were the only remnants of Spain's once
vast empire in the New World, while the Philippine Islands comprised the core
of Spanish power in the Pacific. The outbreak of war had three principal
sources: popular hostility to autocratic Spanish rule; American sympathy with
demands for independence; and a new spirit of national assertiveness in the
United States, stimulated in part by a "jingoistic" or nationalistic and
sensationalist press.
○ In 1895 Cuba's growing wrath against the tyranny of the mother country burst
into a war of independence. The United States watched the course of the
uprising with mounting concern. Most Americans were sympathetic with the
Cubans, but President Cleveland was determined to preserve neutrality. Three
years later, however, during the McKinley administration, the U.S.
warship Maine was destroyed while lying at anchor in Havana harbor, under
circumstances that are still unclear. More than 250 men were killed, and an
outburst of indignation, intensified by sensationalized press coverage, swept
across the country. Although for a time McKinley tried to preserve the peace,
within a few months, believing delay futile, he recommended armed
intervention.
○ The war with Spain was swift and decisive. During the four months it lasted,
not a single American reverse of any importance occurred. A week after the
declaration of war, Commodore George Dewey, then at Hong Kong, proceeded
with his squadron of six vessels to the Philippines. His orders were to prevent
the Spanish fleet based there from operating in American waters. He caught the
entire Spanish fleet at anchor and destroyed it without losing an American life.
○ Meanwhile, in Cuba, troops landed near Santiago, where, after winning a rapid
series of engagements, they fired on the port. Four armored Spanish cruisers
steamed out of Santiago Bay and a few hours later were reduced to ruined
hulks.
○ From Boston to San Francisco, whistles blew and flags waved when word came
that Santiago had fallen. Newspapers dispatched correspondents to Cuba and
the Philippines, who trumpeted the renown of the nation's new heroes. Chief
among them were George Dewey of Manila fame and Theodore Roosevelt,
who resigned as assistant secretary of the navy to lead the "Rough Riders," a
volunteer regiment he recruited for service in Cuba. Spain soon sued for peace,
and in the treaty signed on December 10, 1898, transferred Cuba to the United
States for temporary occupation preliminary to the island's independence. In
addition, Spain ceded Puerto Rico and Guam in lieu of war indemnity, and the
Philippines on payment of $20 million.
○ Having overseas possessions was a new experience for the United States.
Consequently, the new territories were encouraged to move toward democratic
self-government, a political system with which none of them had any previous
experience.
○ Nevertheless, the United States found itself in a familiar colonial role when it
suppressed an armed independence movement in the Philippines in the first
decade of its occupation. The Philippines gained the right to elect both houses
of its legislature in 1916, and in 1936 a largely autonomous Philippine
Commonwealth was established. In 1946, after World War II, the islands
attained full independence.
○ American involvement in the Pacific area was not limited to the Philippines,
however. The year of the Spanish-American War also saw the beginning of a
new relationship with the Hawaiian Islands. Earlier contact with Hawaii had
been mainly through missionaries and casual traders. After 1865, however,
Americans began to develop the islands' resources -- chiefly sugar cane and
pineapples. When the royal government announced its intention to end foreign
influence in 1893, American businessmen joined with influential Hawaiians to
install a new government, which then asked to be annexed to the United States.
○ Widespread protests in the United States against the use of American soldiers
and the idea of colonial rule persuaded President Grover Cleveland and
Congress to reject annexation at first. But, responding to the surge of
nationalism generated by the Spanish-American War, Congress voted
overwhelmingly in July 1898 to annex the islands, thus also acquiring an
important naval base at Pearl Harbor. In 1959 Hawaii became the 50th state in
the Union.
 ○ Cuba acquired nominal independence when American troops departed in 1902.
But the United States retained the right to intervene to preserve civil order,
which it did on three occasions before renouncing that right in 1934. Even with
full Cuban independence, however, American economic and political influence
remained strong until 1959, when Fidel Castro overthrew the government in
power, establishing a Marxist regime with close ties to the Soviet Union.
○ Puerto Rico, the island lying east of Cuba, followed an apprenticeship similar
to that of Cuba and the Philippines. In 1917 the U.S. Congress granted Puerto
Ricans the right to elect all of their legislators. But the same law created a
different path for the island, making it officially a U.S. territory and, more
importantly, giving its people American citizenship. In 1950 Congress granted
Puerto Rico complete freedom to decide its future. In the referendum of 1952,
the citizens voted to reject either statehood or total independence, and chose
instead a commonwealth status. Large numbers of Puerto Ricans have settled
on the mainland, to which they have free access and where they acquire all the
political and civil rights of any other citizen of the United States.

6.1Expansion and empire, 1867–1914

From Outline of U.S. History.

Provided by U.S. Department of State.

Map of "Greater America" in 1899, showing the territories and possessions of the United
States after the Spanish-American War. (From Marshall Everett, ed., Exciting
Experiences in Our Wars with Spain and the Filipinos (Chicago: Book Publishers Union,
1899), p. 395. More about the map)

The last decades of the 19th century were a period of imperial expansion for the United
States. The American story took a different course from that of its European rivals,
however, because of the U.S. history of struggle against European empires and its
unique democratic development.

By 1910, a handful of colonial powers had carved up most of the world. About the map

The sources of American expansionism in the late 19th century were varied.
Internationally, the period was one of imperialist frenzy, as European powers raced to
carve up Africa and competed, along with Japan, for influence and trade in Asia. Many
Americans, including influential figures such as Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge,
and Elihu Root, felt that to safeguard its own interests, the United States had to stake
out spheres of economic influence as well. That view was seconded by a powerful naval
lobby, which called for an expanded fleet and network of overseas ports as essential to
the economic and political security of the nation. More generally, the doctrine of
“manifestdestiny,” first used to justify America’s continental expansion, was now
revived to assert that the United States had a right and duty to extend its influence and
civilization in the Western Hemisphere and the Caribbean, as well as across the Pacific.
 At the same time, voices of anti-imperialism from diverse coalitions of Northern
Democrats and reform-minded Republicans remained loud and constant. As a result, the
acquisition of a U.S. empire was piecemeal and ambivalent. Colonial-minded
administrations were often more concerned with trade and economic issues than
political control.
The United States’ first venture beyond its continental borders was the purchase of
Alaska – sparsely populated by Inuit and other native peoples – from Russia in 1867.
Most Americans were either indifferent to or indignant at this action by Secretary of
State William Seward, whose critics called Alaska “Seward’s Folly” and “Seward’s
Icebox.” But 30 years later, when gold was discovered on Alaska’s Klondike River,
thousands of Americans headed north, and many of them settled in Alaska
permanently. When Alaska became the 49th state in 1959, it replaced Texas as
geographically the largest state in the Union.

A cartoon in the Chicago Tribune portrayed Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines as dirty and backwards children knocking
on Uncle Sam’s door. About the illustration

The Spanish-American War, fought in 1898, marked a turning point in U.S. history.
It left the United States exercising control or influence over islands in the Caribbean Sea
and the Pacific.
By the 1890s, Cuba and Puerto Rico were the only remnants of Spain’s once vast
empire in the New World, and the Philippine Islands comprised the core of Spanish
power in the Pacific. The outbreak of war had three principal sources: popular hostility
toautocratic Spanish rule in Cuba; U.S. sympathy with the Cuban fight for
independence; and a new spirit of national assertiveness, stimulated in part by a
nationalistic and sensationalist press.
By 1895 Cuba’s growing restiveness had become a guerrilla war of independence.
Most Americans were sympathetic with the Cubans, but President Cleveland was
determined to preserve neutrality. Three years later, however, during the
administration of William McKinley, the U.S. warship Maine, sent to Havana on a
“courtesy visit” designed to remind the Spanish of American concern over the rough
handling of theinsurrection, blew up in the harbor. More than 250 men were killed. The
Maine was probably destroyed by an accidental internal explosion, but most Americans
believed the Spanish were responsible. Indignation, intensified by sensationalized press
coverage, swept across the country. McKinley tried to preserve the peace, but within a
few months, believing delay futile, he recommended armed intervention.
The war with Spain was swift and decisive. During the four months it lasted, not a
single American reverse of any importance occurred. A week after the declaration of
war, Commodore George Dewey, commander of the six-warship Asiatic Squadron then
at Hong Kong, steamed to the Philippines. Catching the entire Spanish fleet at anchor in
Manila Bay, he destroyed it without losing an American life.
Meanwhile, in Cuba, troops landed near Santiago, where, after winning a rapid
series of engagements, they fired on the port. Four armored Spanish cruisers steamed
out of Santiago Bay to engage the American navy and were reduced to ruined hulks.
From Boston to San Francisco, whistles blew and flags waved when word came that
Santiago had fallen. Newspapers dispatched correspondents to Cuba and the
Philippines, who trumpeted the renown of the nation’s new heroes. Chief among them
were Commodore Dewey and Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who had resigned as
assistant secretary of the navy to lead his volunteer regiment, the “Rough Riders,” to
service in Cuba. Spain soon sued for an end to the war. The peace treaty signed on
December 10, 1898, transferred Cuba to the United States for temporary occupation
preliminary to the island’s independence. In addition, Spain ceded Puerto Rico and
Guam in lieu of warindemnity, and the Philippines for a U.S. payment of $20 million.
 Officially, U.S. policy encouraged the new territories to move toward democratic
self-government, a political system with which none of them had any previous
experience. In fact, the United States found itself in a colonial role. It maintained formal
administrative control in Puerto Rico and Guam, gave Cuba only nominal independence,
and harshly suppressed an armed independence movement in the Philippines. (The
Philippines gained the right to elect both houses of its legislature in 1916. In 1936 a
largely autonomousPhilippine Commonwealth was established. In 1946, after World War
II, the islands finally attained full independence.)
U.S. involvement in the Pacific area was not limited to the Philippines. The year of
the Spanish-American War also saw the beginning of a new relationship with the
Hawaiian Islands. Earlier contact with Hawaii had been mainly through missionaries and
traders. After 1865, however, American investors began to develop the islands’
resources – chiefly sugar cane and pineapples.
 When sugar planters and American businessmen threatened to depose her, Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii gave up her
throne to prevent bloodshed.

When the government of Queen Liliuokalani announced its intention to end foreign
influence in 1893, American businessmen joined with influential Hawaiians to depose
her. Backed by the American ambassador to Hawaii and U.S. troops stationed there, the
new government then asked to be annexed to the United States. President Cleveland,
just beginning his second term, rejected annexation, leaving Hawaii nominally
independent until the Spanish-American War, when, with the backing of President
McKinley, Congressratified an annexation treaty. In 1959 Hawaii would become the 50th
state.
To some extent, in Hawaii especially, economic interests had a role in American
expansion, but to influential policy makers such as Roosevelt, Senator Henry Cabot
Lodge, and Secretary of State John Hay, and to influential strategists such as Admiral
Alfred Thayer Mahan, the main impetus was geostrategic. For these people, the major
dividend of acquiring Hawaii was Pearl Harbor, which would become the major U.S.
naval base in the central Pacific. The Philippines and Guam complemented other Pacific
bases – Wake Island, Midway, and American Samoa. Puerto Rico was an important
foothold in a Caribbean area that was becoming increasingly important as the United
States contemplated a Central American canal.
U.S. colonial policy tended toward democratic self-government. As it had done with
the Philippines, in 1917 the U.S. Congress granted Puerto Ricans the right to elect all of
their legislators. The same law also made the island officially a U.S. territory and gave
its people American citizenship. In 1950 Congress granted Puerto Rico complete
freedom to decide its future. In 1952, the citizens voted to reject either statehood or
total independence, and chose instead a commonwealth status that has endured
despite the efforts of a vocal separatist movement. Large numbers of Puerto Ricans
have settled on the mainland, to which they have free access and where they enjoy all
the political and civil rights of any other citizen of the United States.
The canal and the Americas

The fifty-mile Panama Canal, shown here under construction in 1913, shortened travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific by
weeks and realized a centuries-old dream of convenient sea travel from Europe to Asia. It was the most expensive
construction project in U.S. history to that time, and more than 5,000 lives were lost to disease and accidents. About the
photograph

The war with Spain revived U.S. interest in building a canal across the isthmus of
Panama, uniting the two great oceans. The usefulness of such a canal for sea trade had
long been recognized by the major commercial nations of the world; the French had
begun digging one in the late 19th century but had been unable to overcome the
engineering difficulties. Having become a power in both the Caribbean Sea and the
Pacific Ocean, the United States saw a canal as both economically beneficial and a way
of providing speedier transfer of warships from one ocean to the other.
At the turn of the century, what is now Panama was the rebellious northern
province of Colombia. When the Colombian legislature in 1903 refused to ratify a treaty
giving the United States the right to build and manage a canal, a group of impatient
Panamanians, with the support of U.S. Marines, rose in rebellion and declared
Panamanian independence. The breakaway country was immediately recognized by
President Theodore Roosevelt. Under the terms of a treaty signed that November,
Panama granted the United States a perpetual lease to a 16-kilometer-wide strip of land
(the Panama Canal Zone) between the Atlantic and the Pacific, in return for $10 million
and a yearly fee of $250,000. Colombia later received $25 million as partial
compensation. Seventy-five years later, Panama and the United States negotiated a
new treaty. It provided for Panamanian sovereignty in the Canal Zone and transfer of
the canal to Panama on December 31, 1999.
 The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914, directed by Colonel George W.
Goethals, was a major triumph of engineering. The simultaneous conquest
of malaria and yellow fever made it possible and was one of the 20th century’s great
feats in preventive medicine.
Elsewhere in Latin America, the United States fell into a pattern of fitful
intervention. Between 1900 and 1920, the United States carried out sustained
interventions in six Western Hemispheric nations – most notably Haiti, the Dominican
Republic, and Nicaragua. Washington offered a variety of justifications for these
interventions: to establish political stability and democratic government, to provide a
favorable environment for U.S. investment (often called dollar diplomacy), to secure the
sea lanes leading to the Panama Canal, and even to prevent European countries from
forcibly collecting debts. The United States had pressured the French into removing
troops from Mexico in 1867. Half a century later, however, as part of an ill-starred
campaign to influence the Mexican revolution and stop raids into American territory,
President Woodrow Wilson sent 11,000 troops into the northern part of the country in a
futile effort to capture the elusive rebel and outlaw Francisco “Pancho” Villa.
Exercising its role as the most powerful – and most liberal – of Western Hemisphere
nations, the United States also worked to establish an institutional basis for cooperation
among the nations of the Americas. In 1889 Secretary of State James G. Blaine
proposed that the 21 independent nations of the Western Hemisphere join in an
organization dedicated to the peaceful settlement of disputes and to closer economic
bonds. The result was the Pan-American Union, founded in 1890 and known today as
the Organization of American States (OAS).
The later administrations of Herbert Hoover (1929-33) and Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1933-45) repudiated the right of U.S. intervention in Latin America. In particular,
Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy of the 1930s, while not ending all tensions between
the United States and Latin America, helped dissipate much of the ill-will engendered by
earlier U.S. intervention and unilateral actions.
The United States and Asia

Newly established in the Philippines and firmly entrenched in Hawaii at the turn of the
century, the United States had high hopes for a vigorous trade with China. However,
Japan and various European nations had acquired established spheres of influence there
in the form of naval bases, leased territories, monopolistic trade rights, and exclusive
concessions for investing in railway construction and mining.
Idealism in American foreign policy existed alongside the desire to compete with
Europe’s imperial powers in the Far East. The U.S. government thus insisted as a matter
of principle upon equality of commercial privileges for all nations. In September 1899,
Secretary of State John Hay advocated an “Open Door” for all nations in China – that is,
equality of trading opportunities (including equal tariffs, harbor duties, and railway
rates) in the areas Europeans controlled. Despite its idealistic component, the Open
Door, in essence, was a diplomatic maneuver that sought the advantages of colonialism
while avoiding the stigma of its frank practice. It had limited success.
With the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, the Chinese struck out against foreigners. In
June, insurgents seized Beijing and attacked the foreign legations there. Hay promptly
announced to the European powers and Japan that the United States would oppose any
disturbance of Chinese territorial or administrative rights and restated the Open Door
policy. Once the rebellion was quelled, Hay protected China from crushing indemnities.
Primarily for the sake of American good will, Great Britain, Germany, and lesser colonial
powers formally affirmed the Open Door policy and Chinese independence. In practice,
they consolidated their privileged positions in the country.
A few years later, President Theodore Roosevelt mediated the deadlocked Russo-
Japanese War of 1904-05, in many respects a struggle for power and influence in the
northern Chinese province of Manchuria. Roosevelt hoped the settlement would provide
open-door opportunities for American business, but the former enemies and other
imperial powers succeeded in shutting the Americans out. Here as elsewhere, the
United States was unwilling to deploy military force in the service of economic
imperialism. The president could at least content himself with the award of the Nobel
Peace Prize (1906). Despite gains for Japan, moreover, U.S. relations with the proud and
 newly assertive island nation would be intermittently difficult through the early decades
of the 20th century.

• Next: The Spanish-American War

Contents: North Carolina in the New South

CHAPTER 6: NORTH CAROLINA IN AN AMERICAN EMPIRE

• Next: The Spanish-American War

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