U.S. History-Honors
Unit 6: The United States on the Brink of Change
(1890-1920)
Chapters 17-19
Imperialism
• Led by European nations in the 1800s
 Britain, France, Germany, Russia
• Why?
 Economics: need natural resources and new
markets
 Nationalism: competition with other nations to
control more
 Military: advances in navies required bases around
the world for fuel/supplies
 Humanitarian: duty to spread Western civilization
including medicine, law, and Christianity
American Imperialism
Seward’s Icebox
• 1867 – US purchases
Alaska from Russia for
$7.2 million
 Derided as “Seward’s Folly”
Secretary of State
William H. Seward
Spanish-American War (1898)
• Why?
 Cuba and Puerto Rico are the last two Spanish colonies in the
Americas
 Similarities among Cuban rebels and American Revolution
 Media Influence – William Randolph Hearst and yellow
journalism
 Cuban guerillas began destroying US sugar plantations forcing
business owners to put pressure on the gov
 The de Lôme Letter – Spanish ambassador ridicules Pres.
McKinley
 Philippines also rebelling against the Spanish. Viewed as a key
base to protect US-Asian trade
 The Maine Incident
 US ship in Havana harbor explodes
“Remember the Maine!”
Theodore Roosevelt
Admiral George Dewey
Directions: Complete the graphic organizer below explaining
the effects of US foreign policies on other nations after the
Spanish-American War. (pgs. 593-596)
Effects of United States Foreign Policies
Nation
Policy and Effects
Philippines
Annexed by the US and US soldiers remain there
fighting Filipinos. US occupation ends in 1946.
Cuba
Puerto Rico
Hawaii
China
Panama Canal (1904-1914)
• Why?
 Make global shipping faster
and cheaper
 Allow US Navy to move
quickly in time of war
• First attempted by France
• US supports a Panamanian
revolution against
Colombia and recognizes
its sovereignty
• Panama gives US 10-mile
land grant along the Canal
Zone for $10 million
• Panama regains control of
the canal as of 12/31/99
“Speak softly and carry a big stick”
• Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
 US has a right to intervene in foreign nations (primarily Latin
America) to prevent intervention from other powers
Foreign Policy under Taft & Wilson
• Dollar Diplomacy
 Pres. Taft’s policy of encouraging American investment
in foreign s a right to intervene in foreign nations
(primarily Latin America) to prevent intervention from
other powers
 Increased hatred of US
 Mixed success
• Mexican Revolution
 1911 – dictator Porfirio Diaz is overthrown. His
replacement is Francisco Madero who is overthrown
and murdered in 1913 by Gen. Victoriano Huerta
 Pres. Woodrow Wilson refuses to recognize Huerta as
the legitimate president of Mexico ending Taft’s dollar
diplomacy
 Wilson supports Venustania Carranza and he takes
power in 1914
 Carranza and military leader Pancho Villa split. US
back Carranza, thus Villa raids US border towns.
William H. Taft
Pancho Villa
Directions: Complete the graphic organizer below listing all of
the arguments for and against imperialism. (pgs. 604-607)
Pro-Imperialism
Anti-Imperialism
•
Progressive Era
Goals
1) Gov should be more accountable to its citizens
2) Gov should curb the power and influence of wealthy interests
3) Gov should be given expanded powers so that it could become more active in improving
the lives of its citizens
4) Gov should become more efficient and less corrupt so that they could competently
handle an expanded role
1912 Election Results
Wilson wins with 42% of the popular vote.
1912 Bull Moose Party is the most successful third
party in US presidential election history.
The 1912 election marked the apogee of the Socialist
movement in America.
Women’s Suffrage at Last
• Susan B. Anthony
 Most famous suffragist
 Founded the American Equal Rights Association &
National Woman Suffrage Association
• Strategies
 Seek constitutional amendment, first attempted in
1868
 Get individual states to let women vote
 More successful
Susan B. Anthony
• National American Woman Suffrage Association
(NAWSA)
 Formed in 1890 joining old and new suffragists
 Splits in 1914 with NAWSA led by Carrie Chapman
Catt and the Congressional Union (CU) led by Alice
Paul.
 CU was more militant
Alice Paul
Woman Suffrage Before 1920
• World War I
Women fill many male jobs, thus separate
spheres is forgotten. Countries around the
world pass women’s suffrage laws.
19th Amendment passes in 1920
Causes:
 Nationalism
World War I
 Imperialism
 Militarism
 Alliances
• The spark was on June 28, 1914 with the assassination of Austrian
Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria by a Bosnian nationalist
named Gravilo Princip
What is geographically significant about this map?
Schlieffen
Plan
Trench
Warfare
German strategy to conquer the west quickly
(Belgium & France) then devote all attention
to the eastern front
No-Man’s-Land – strip of land in between
trenches covered with land mines and barbed
wire
July - November 1916 – Battle of Somme
 July 1, 1916 - 57,470 British casualties in a
single day (19,240 dead)
 Over 1 million casualties total
World War I
• Central Powers vs. Allies
 Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire
 Allies: Britain, France, Serbia, Russia, Australia, Italy
• America proclaims its neutrality
• America declares war on the Central Powers on April 6, 1917
 Why?
 Pro-allied bias of news reporting
 May 7, 1915 – German U-boats attack the Lusitania luxury liner. 128
Americans died.
 March 24, 1916 – Germany attacks French ship Sussex, killing two
Americans. America threatens to cut ties with Germany, so Germany
announces the Sussex Pledge promising that U-boats would warn before
attacking.
 Jan. 31, 1917 – Germany repeals the Sussex Pledge.
 March 1, 1917 – Zimmerman Note is published. In it, Germany
encourages Mexico to declare war on US.
 March 1917 – Czar Nicholas II is overthrown and Russia establishes a
republic
 March 16 & 18 – Germany sinks two more US ships
Recruiting
Recruiting
George M. Cohan
“Over There”
Johnnie, get your gun,
Get your gun, get your gun,
Take it on the run,
On the run, on the run.
Hear them calling, you and me,
Every son of liberty.
Hurry right away,
No delay, go today,
Make your daddy glad
To have had such a lad.
Tell your sweetheart not to pine,
To be proud her boy's in line.
(chorus sung twice)
Johnnie, get your gun,
Get your gun, get your gun,
Johnnie show the Hun
Who's a son of a gun.
Hoist the flag and let her fly,
Yankee Doodle do or die.
Pack your little kit,
Show your grit, do your bit.
Yankee to the ranks,
From the towns and the tanks.
Make your mother proud of you,
And the old Red, White and Blue.
(chorus sung twice)
Chorus
Over there, over there,
Send the word, send the word
over there That the Yanks are coming,
The Yanks are coming,
The drums rum-tumming
Ev'rywhere.
So prepare, say a pray'r,
Send the word, send the word to
beware.
We'll be over, we're coming over,
And we won't come back till it's
over over there.
“The War to End All Wars”
• Pres. Wilson appoints Gen. John J. Pershing to lead US forces.
 Appointed “General of the Armies” – highest rank ever attained by an
army officer
• May 1917 – Congress passes the Selective Service Act
 3 million draftees serve, along with volunteers and National
Guardsmen. Called American Expeditionary Force (AEF)
nicknamed “doughboys”
 300,000 African-Americans
• Allies begin employing the convoy system
• Once in Europe, US kept its forces independent
from other European countries
• October 1917 – Bolsheviks (communists) led by
Vladimir Lenin overthrow the Russian republican
government and pull Russia out of the war.
 Germany can now fight a single-front war
Gen. John J. Pershing
Armistice
• US troops turn the tide of the war saving Paris from the advancing
German troops in May 1918
• July 1918 – Allies win the Second Battle of Marne
• Bulgaria & Ottoman Empire negotiate separate peaces in the fall.
• Austria-Hungary falls apart in October
• November 11, 1918 – Germany agrees to an armistice with guns falling
silent at 11:00am
 November 11 becomes a holiday known as
Armistice Day, which is changed to Veterans Day
in 1954.
 Nearly 50,000 Americans died in battle, and
the same died from disease.
• Meanwhile in 1918 a flu epidemic swept
around the world.
 30 million people die worldwide
• Results of the War
 20 million people die, civilian and military deaths
 Armenian genocide committed by Ottomans
 Great Migration – 500,000 blacks move to the north to work in factories
Liberty Bonds Propaganda Posters
• Gov sold $20 billion in Liberty Bonds to help fund the war
Managing the Economy
• New Agencies
 War Industries Board headed by Bernard Baruch oversaw war-related
production
 War Trade Board licensed foreign trade and punished those suspected
of trading with the enemy
• August 1917 – Congress passes the Lever Food and Fuel
Control Act
 President could manage the production
and distribution of foods and fuels vital
to the war effort
 Food Administration headed by Herbert
Hoover could impose price controls and
ration food
 Fuel Administration institutes daylight
savings time to create more time for
work and less fuel consumption
Herbert Hoover & Bernard Baruch
Food & Fuel Propaganda Posters
Female Propaganda Posters
Enforcing Loyalty
• Committee on Public Information
 Controlled all war-related information and what the public was allowed
to know, as well as produced propaganda films and posters
 Headed by George Creel
• Congress passes the Sedition and Espionage Acts in 1917 &
1918
 Violates the 1st Amendment
 1,000 Americans arrested including former Socialist presidential
candidate Eugene V. Debs who received a ten-year sentence
• Fear of foreigners
• Increased racism towards Germans





Hamburgers are renamed Salisbury steak
German shepherds are renamed police dogs
German education, books and music disappeared
Called “Huns”
Some German-Americans were lynched
George Creel
Treaty of Versailles
• Wilson develops his Fourteen Points focusing on selfdetermination, an end to entangling alliances, and an
international peacekeeping organization called League of Nations
 Wilson is forced to compromise most notably on the Allies splitting
Germany’s colonies
 Wilson successfully gets his League of Nations
 Germany is forced to pay $33 billion in reparations
 Territories of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia are split into nine
different countries.
 Agreed on June 28, 1919
 Opponents in the Senate, most
notably Henry Cabot Lodge killed
the treaty
The Big Four
(Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando,
George Clemenceau, Woodrow Wilson)
T.E. Lawrence
Iraq
• Sykes-Picot Agreement – Britain
and France divide Ottoman Empire’s
possessions in the Middle East
• Allied hero of battles in the Middle
East was T.E. Lawrence aka
“Lawrence of Arabia.”
• 1920 – Britain receives a mandate
from the League of Nations to form
the state of Iraq among what was
the three separate states of Mosul,
Baghdad, and Al Basrah
• The boundaries were drawn
arbitrarily not taking into account
that three very different ethnic
groups now inhabited the country
 Shi’a
 Sunni
 Kurds
First Female President?
• September 25, 1919 - Woodrow Wilson
collapses
• October 2, he suffered a stroke
paralyzing half of his body
• His second wife, Edith, shielded Wilson
from all visitors without her approval
• She reviewed official papers before
showing them to Wilson and relayed his
messages to gov officials
• To what extent she made decisions is
unclear, but she always denied it
• Nonetheless, she controlled the flow of
all information to her husband
• Wilson’s term ends on March 4, 1921
Edith Galt Wilson