1893: Fredrick
Jackson Turner
argued that the
frontier, bringer
of individualism
to American
culture, had
closed.
The “New Imperialism” of
Britain and the US contended
that economics required both
nations to build empires.
$tate department memo, 1898:
We need new market$!
• “It seems to be conceded that
every year we shall be confronted
with an increasing surplus of
manufactured goods for sale in
foreign markets if American
operatives and artisans are to be
kept employed the year around.
The enlargement of foreign
consumption of the products of
our mills and workshops has,
therefore, become a serious
problem of statesmanship as well
as of commerce.”
The average woman
must be a “good wife, a
good mother . . .” able to
bring up “health children,
sound in body, mind, and
character, and numerous
enough so that the race
shall increase and not
decrease.”
Theodore Roosevelt,
1906
“Take up the White Man’s Burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives need
To wait, on heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught sullen people,
Half devil and half child.
- Rudyard Kipling”
.
Queen Lydia Liliuokalani, last
of the Hawaiian monarchs:
overturned by Anglo planters
after she opposed an
undemocratic constitution in
1893, a “Big Five” consortium
of planters took over the
Islands.
President William McKinley, 1898:
the most popular president since
Lincoln, McKinley set up the first
modern cabinet, with administrators,
not politicians.
Joseph Pulitzer’s New York
World
William Randolph Hearst
The
Maine
1898: The Teller Amendment,
passed by Congress,
disassociated the United
States from any “intention to
exercise, sovereignty,
jurisdiction or control over”
Cuba, and “to leave the
government and control of the
Island to its people.”
Theodore
Roosevelt,
above, in his
Brooks Brothers
colonel outfit;
left: the Rough
Riders
“As for the flag of the
Philippine province, it
is easily managed. We
can have a special
one. We can just have
our usual flag, with the
white stripes painted
black and the stars
replaced by the skull
and cross bones.”
Mark Twain
The Platt Amendment (1901)
• The U.S. had the right to
intervene in Cuba to
“protect” its
independence
• Cuba’s debt would be
monitored by the U.S.
• a fiscal cleanup plan to
make Cuba more attractive
to U.S. investors
• a 99 year lease on
Guantanamo Bay base
Emiliano Aguinaldo,
leader of the
Filipino revolt;
(below) a portrayal
of US troops
torturing Filipino
rebels.
1899: John Hay’s
“open door” policy
called for all nations to
have equal trading
rights in China
African American soldiers in the
Spanish American war
William McKinley
shot by Leon
Czolgocz,
September 14,
1901
Roosevelt at his Elk Horn ranch in 1886
Police Commissioner
Theodore Roosevelt and his
enemy (left) Republican
operative John Wanamaker
The Panama Canal
1903: TR backs uprising that creates
Panama
1906: U.S. approves Panama Canal as
a lock canal; TR visits the site
1914: Panama Canal opens for
business
Roosevelt’s Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (1904) held
that the US could exert “international police power” in the
Western Hemisphere
• 1904: 1,300 trusts in the United States
• Aggregate capitalization of 724 billion dollars
• Between 1897 and 1904, about a third of all
previously existing companies disappeared
• 1909: 5 percent of manufacturers employed
62 percent of all manufacturing workers
The mediation of the Anthracite coal strike
of 1902 was regarded as a major
breakthrough in labor relations; clockwise:
labor and capital negotiating; big coal’s
George Baer; the UAW’s John Mitchell;
striking workers
The Roosevelt
Administration’s breakup of
the Northern Securities
railroad company put teeth
into the previously weakly
enforced Sherman AntiTrust Act of 1890
1906: Congress passes
Hepburn Act, which gives
government power to
regulate railroad rates
• T. Roosevelt used his
executive authority to triple
land set aside for national
forests, to 150 million acres.
• Doubled number of national
parks
• Established 16 “national
monuments” such as Muir
woods
• Established 51 wildlife
refuges
• 1908: Socialist Eugene
Debs (left) wins
400,000 votes in his
presidential bid
• Almost 120,000
Socialist Party
members in 1912
• 1,150 socialists hold
office in 36 states and
325 towns and cities
• Eugene Debs runs for
president in 1912 and
1920, winning a million
votes in the 1912
election
• The Jungle published in
1906, led to passage of
the Meat Inspection and
Pure Food and Drug Acts
(of that year); below:
Upton Sinclair
William Howard Taft took the
White House back from the
Roosevelt legacy, polarizing
the Republican Party and
clearing an opening for
Woodrow Wilson (below).
The Lawrence
Massachusetts
strike of 1912
was led by the
Industrial
Workers of the
World.
The Industrial Workers
of the World advocated “anarchosyndicalism”: a decentralized,
stateless world run by unions
(syndicato); the IWW also
advocated sabotage, although its
members rarely actually followed
through; based in big western
industries: lumber and mining,
especially
William Haywood, “wild
eyed radical”
Progressive Party (Bull
Moose Party) 1912
• Called for Women’s Suffrage
...
• Direct election of U.S.
Senators
• Graduated income tax
• Initiative, referendum, and
the recall
TR’s “New Nationalism” vs. Wilson’s “New Freedom”
• TR supportive of expansion
of Federal government to
regulate commerce and
industry
• Supported women’s
suffrage, lower tariffs,
graduated income tax
• Supported policies that
would protect small
business, smaller cities, and
the professions
• Especially anti-trust
• Suspicious of federal power
• Sympathetic to “state’s
rights” democrats
The Presidential Election of 1912
• Democrat Woodrow Wilson
(the winner): 42 percent of
the vote
• Progressive Roosevelt: 27
percent
• Republican Taft: 23 percent
• Socialist E.V. Debs: 6
percent!
• . . . Distinctly leftward turn
for American politics
Federal Income Tax, 1913
• 1895: Supreme Court declares
Federal income tax
unconstitutional
• 1913: Congress and the states
ratify the 16th amendment,
which gave Congress the right to
levy direct taxes
• 1913: Congress puts 1 percent
tax on individual and corporate
incomes over 4,000 a year
The Federal Reserve System
created on December 23, 1913
Board of Governors appointed by the President (of
the United States)
The Chair and Vice Chair named by the President
from the board
Individual banks belong to 12 regional banks and
keep some of their money in the regional banks
The Federal Reserve lends money to banks at the
Prime Rate, determined by the Board of Governors
Federal Trade Commission, 1914
• Investigates unfair trade
practices and unfair methods
of competition
The Clayton Act, 1914
• Specifically listed trade
practices that were
unlawful (so they couldn’t
be called “manufacturing”
practices)
• Prohibited “interlocking
directorates” in
corporations
• Unions could not be
enjoined when “acting
legally.”
Jack Johnson vs.
Tommy Burns,
Sydney, Australia,
1908
Jack Johnson vs. Stanley
Ketchel, Colma,
California, 1909
Jack Johnson vs.
James Jeffries, 1910;
Johnson’s victory in
this fight was
followed by race
riots across the
United States
Ways to stop the voting
• Poll taxes, 1 or 2 dollars, paid in
advance of the election
• No assistants allowed for
illiterate voters
• Literacy tests requiring
elaborate recitation of state
constitutions
• Grandfather exemption clauses
(did your grandfather vote
before the Civil War?)
Race riot: Wilmington, North Carolina,
1898
Disenfranchisement in the South
(by percentage of adult male population eligible to vote)
1876
1900
1912
Alabama
72%
38%
22%
Georgia
63%
22%
18%
Louisiana
74%
20%
18%
Mississippi
80%
18%
17%
South
Carolina
100%
20%
17%
Booker T. Washington
• Born in Virginia
just before the
Civil War
• 1881 founded the
Tuskegee Normal
and Industrial
Institute
Race riot: Atlanta, Georgia, 1906
DuBois’ three questions for Booker T.
Washington, 1903
• How can African Americans
advance themselves economically
if they have no political power?
• How can they have pride in
themselves if they are second
class citizens?
• How can they maintain good
common schools without
teachers trained in colleges and
universities?
Journalist Ida Wells
challenged the widely
accepted notion
lynching was a result
of black male
encroachments on
southern white
women.
Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896)
• Supreme Court rules seven to one to uphold the
“Separate Car Act” as long as equal accommodations
are provided for everyone
• Harlan’s lone dissent: “The arbitrary separation of
citizens on the basis of race . . . Is a badge of
servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom
and equality before the law . . . “
The Niagara Movement
meeting of 1905 and
public concern over the
Springfield riot of 1908
resulted in the founding
of the NAACP in 1909;
left: Niagara gatherers
in 1905
Souls of Black Folk themes
• Centrality of slavery as a
cause of the Civil War
• The legitimacy of
Reconstruction
• Challenging Booker T.
Washington
• Calling for an educated
elite, a “talented tenth,” to
engage in political action
• Calling for African
Americans to become more
engaged in civic culture, not
just commercial activity