Evaluate the relative importance of different causes for the expanding role of the United States in the
world in the period from 1865 to 1910
Contextualization
• The impact of the Civil War on the United States role in the world
• International competition to establish colonies and maintain empires from 1865 to 1910
• Increasing United States industrialization and saturation of the domestic market, resulting in a desire to
develop new global markets for goods
• The closing of the frontier
Coming out of the Civil War, the United State has never been so divided. The controversy of
slavery divided the northern and southern into a bloody war. However, whether either side took the
victory or defeat, it opened doors of opportunity for United States to experience the rapid economic
growth. The nation became a land of opportunity, especially for immigrants as they start settling here in
United States. The Fist Transcontinental Railroad was built between 1862 and 1869 for it to connect
California to the Union during the Civil War. It was completed in 1868 that brought economic, cultural,
and political significance to the development of the United States. The railroad opened markets for
goods for products to be manufactured from the east to be imported to the west. From the west, the
products would be sold to country like Asia. The endless cycle of raw material being transported and
imported accelerated industrial bloom after the Civil War. In 1859, Charles Darwin philosophy of Social
Darwinism fostered imperialistic expansion by proposing that some people were more fitted than others.
The Europeans believed that they, as the white race who were more dominant and superior was only
natural for them to conquer the “inferior” people. Thus, the conquest of inferior people was just, and
the wipe out of other races was obligated.
Outside Information
• The annexation of Guam at the end of the Spanish American War (1898) could be used as evidence
about the expansion of the United States beyond North America and in the Pacific.
• The overthrow and annexation of Hawaii from 1894 to 1898 could be used as evidence of United States
efforts to expand its control over other kingdoms or nations in the same period.
• Missionary work could be used as evidence beyond the documents of the efforts of Americans to
extend cultural influence and assert cultural superiority over other nations through the spread of
Christianity (“White Man’s Burden”).
• The United States efforts to bring peace through diplomacy at the end of the Russo-Japanese War
could serve as evidence of its more visible role as an international power.
• Spanish-American War
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