Reasons For American Imperial Expansion

Throughout the history of the United States, America had a desire to expand its boundaries. The United States acquired most of it's land during the nineteenth and early twentieth century with a brief break during the Civil War and Reconstruction. However, the way America went about graining new lands drastically changed from non-aggressive means in the beginning to extremely aggressive means towards the end. This essay will depict the extent to how late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century United States expansionism was a continuation

Imperialistic fervor was spreading more than ever during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The United States was eager to propel itself

During the 1890’s, the United States began building and advancing their economy, as well as focusing more independently on becoming an even more powerful nation. Not only did the Americans begin to create a stronger national military and navy, they also began to look overseas towards the Pacific Ocean for resources and territories; this is when America began to look less like a national power and more like an imperial power. There were many reasons as to why the United States began to expand between 1880-1929, two of which include the military opportunities countries abroad had to offer, such as Pearl Harbor, as well as the domestic and political objectives the U.S. felt obligated to fulfill. Although, there were many important reasons for the United States to began to expand, the most significant reason for the expansionist foreign policy was the economic resources and opportunities other foreign countries had to offer the U.S.

After the Civil War, the United States began to prosper and get stronger, ultimately because of the second Industrial Revolution. As time went on, the urge for overseas expansion became a big must and began to spread throughout many Americans of the time. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, overseas expansion played a big role, from new rules to new policies. And not all people, especially the Americans, like these new rules and policies.

Even though the United States Originally thought about the idea of expanding its economic, military, and culture beliefs on other countries during the 1840’s, known as the Manifest Destiny theory, it did not take foot until the Age of Imperialism during 1890’s. Reasons for this is because of the destructive forces from the Civil War, as well as the industrial revolution (Small Planet, n.d.). The United States was currently trying

With the late 19th century came a great change in the ideas of expansionism in the United States, but also a continuation of its ideals. The idea of imperialism, where the United States would extend its power around the globe, stood in contrast with the original Manifest Destiny ideal of the 1840s and 1850s when America was expanding west from ‘sea to shining sea.’ However, the inherent social and cultural sentiments were still present in the late 19th century expansionism, though the economic and political purposes had changed.

In the late 19th century, a new idea of expansionism had interested the nation. During the spanish American war, many people were divided over the topic of Imperialism. Ultimately, many benefits came with US territory expanding. Not only did the US get bigger, but many aspects of our nation improved significantly. American expansion abroad was justified because it helped the government and economy advance greatly.

Over the years the United States expansionism has experienced many different changes. The United States has expanded for many different reasons such as the economy, land, and even God. Expansionism is now a continuation of past United States expansionism but was more so a departure.

Empires seek various prompts to help them expand their rule to other countries and territories. Amongst these motives include, economic gain, exploratory, political, religious and ethnocentric motives.

2. In what sense was expansion overseas “not a new idea”? If it was not new, then why did it not begin until 1898?

For awhile America didn’t like the idea of territorial expansion. They didn’t want to expand America for two reasons. One reason was because the United States didn’t want to obtain people with different cultures, languages, and religions. The other reason was because the imperial rule was inconsistent with Americas republican principles. Between the years 1870 and 1900, European nation took over about 10 million miles of African and Asian territory.

Numerous motivating factors contributed to US overseas imperialism, but the fundamental underlying cause was the fact that powerful men within the US government, military and business strata craved power, expansion, wealth, and most of all, world dominance. It began subtly, as prominent businessmen like Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan began to realize that US consumership alone would not sufficiently sustain the growing industries, volume of production and produce generated within the US. In order to achieve the expansion and exponential growth of wealth they aspired to, a larger market was needed; a market capable of absorbing the abundant surplus. The solution, they believed, was expansion into foreign markets around the world.

Expansion has been a huge part of America since the very beginning. Starting with expansion West, to expansion around the globe, the United Sates had lived off Manifest Destiny. Though factors changed throughout the years such as technology and desires, the intentions of American expansion from the beginning to the nineteenth century had stayed relatively consistent. America had continuously taken over land they thought to be rightfully theirs and civilized the people in it. Along with this they always strived to make America bigger, better, and efficient. In doing so in the, 1800s and 1900s, their tactics and attitudes changed based on the circumstances. However, this

Expansionism is the belief that a country should grow larger; a policy of increasing a country’s size by expanding its territory. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, American’s believed that for the economy to continue to grow, they needed to expand the United States’ borders. Manifest Destiny was the belief that Americans had a divine right to expand across North America, and therefore they did just this. Since the U.S. had a small navy at this time they were not able to pursue territories overseas for their expansion. They then set out to conquer the territories that were closer; this included Guam, Puerto Rico, Philippines and Cuba. In order to have these countries become a staple for the United States, the U.S. would have to invest a lot of money and time into the Navy. Once this had been done and

Just as westward expansion did in the years before, imperialism gave the U.S. new sources of raw materials and new opportunities for investment (Tindall and Shi, p. 898). These new regions of the world