1. Identify five important changes that transformed America in the nineteenth century.
A. The surplus of immigrants that was flooding in during the nineteenth century caused a rise in population in the united States. This spike in immigration caused more ethnic diversity within the United States, and also spurred urban growth. Industries sometimes depended on immigrant labor as well.
B. There was much urban growth in the nineteenth century, meaning the number of city dwellers significantly increased as well. Because of the rapid urbanization, the trade agriculture was becoming less and less prominent in society. Also, new inventions in manufacturing and the like kept popping up.
C. Because of all the immigrant laborers and urban growth, more goods were able to be produced for trade, which was looked at as essential for economic prosperity. The value of American exports and American international trade grew steadily in the nineteenth century. Advances in technology and transportation also increased the number of agricultural exports, but manufactured goods made up the majority of American exports still, and big businesses prospered because of this.
D. The 1893 Depression really shook America's economy, and the particular groups of people involved in it, such as farmers and laborers. The depression caused labor strikes and country-wide worry about the future of America, and its global economic position.
E. The comparison of social Darwinism and scientific racism to political power around the world caused for racism to be even more prominent, and ignorantly justified in America. It also supported imperialist American beliefs that America should take part in trying to gradually have political control over many foreign nations. This caused America to get involved in foreign nations, like Hawaii, and affairs, like the Brazilian revolution.
2. How did the economic depression that began in 1893 deepen the divisions in American society? Which groups suffered the most during the depression?
The economic depression that began in 1893 deepened the divisions in American Society by causing workers to realize the small amount of power they had over their own jobs, causing city dwellers to worry about insecurity, causing plant owners to worry about profits, and causing farmers to just be in a worse economical condition than before, considering farming was no longer the leading source of national wealth. The depression was also a cause for concern for the United States as a whole because now the U.S. was worried that they wouldn't be able to compete globally, economically and politically, due to the now seemingly negative effects of the influx of immigrants and the advances in urbanization and industrialization which were believed to have led to the depression. Out of the multiple groups that suffered during the depression (mentioned above), the farmers and laborers of industries seemed to have suffered the most. This is because the laborers had more strikes during the depression, because they had realized their jobs were vulnerable in an economy based on industry and manufacturing, and many of those striking workers lost their jobs due to the strikes. Farmers were already in an economical rut because of industrialization and urbanization, so the depression made their situation more dire as well.
3. What were the values many Americans attached to the frontier? Why did many Americans fear that the closing of the frontier would harm America's national character?
Americans that were descendants of the very first immigrants into America identified with the notion of the frontier, and connected their heritage to the western frontier, which symbolized values to them such as resourcefulness, bravery, pragmatism, ingenuity, individualism, egalitarianism, and patriotism. They looked at the frontier as a symbol of American's expansion, and therefore as a symbol of the American identity itself. Americans feared that the closing of the frontier would harm American's national character because it would leave those Americans with a sense of no purpose, now that these original American goals that were sought by the ancestors of these American families, involving expansion and seeking the frontier, had been reached. Also, the majority of U.S. development and growth had stemmed from expansion to the frontier, so Americans were worried that the country couldn't continue to prosper without a surplus of new land and resources for the U.S. to expand upon and explore, they were scared the country had reached it's physical limit, therefore stalling economic, political, and social growth.
4. Why did some Americans suggest greater involvement overseas?
Some Americans suggested greater involvement overseas because they believed that, in a sense, the world was America's frontier. They believed that dealing with other powers overseas, like nations in Europe, would ensure the continued economic prosperity of the U.S. that they thought was at risk. Some, like the historian Alfred Thayer Mahan, thought that controlling land in Central America would aid the United States in trade with China, and western nations in Europe. It was also believed by people called expansionists that involvement overseas would increase political power because the United States could then "catch up" with Britain, France, and other European powers, who had been involved overseas for awhile. Others thought that getting a few strategic ports and providing opportunities to foreign markets would be enough involvement, but then of course there were the radical imperialists who greatly supported the idea of American not only expanding across the continent, but even father abroad.
5. How did the theories of social Darwinism and scientific racism lend support to the cause of American imperialism?
The theories of social Darwinism and scientific racism lent support to the cause of American imperialism because Imperialists believed, using these theories as backup, that social and economic progress differed among different groups of people. Because Imperialists connected social Darwinism to the domination of western European cultures, believing that it was a natural process in the advancement of civilization to slowly take over other territories, they thought that the superiority of white male anglo-saxons (backed up by the conclusions in scientific racism) was natural selection, and that they should be the ones to carry out this domination. African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans all suffered from racism, and because of scientific racism, were now supposedly proven less intelligent and incapable of participating in these worldly affairs. So, using the conclusions of social Darwinism and scientific racism, imperialists justified their belief that the United States and some European nations were naturally selected to "dominate", or have political control over, the world. This is because they were the supposedly the most intelligent, and therefore most apt to do so, according to scientific racism.
6. Summarize why the United States became involved in Samoa, Hawaii, and several Latin American nations.
The United States became involved in Samoa, Hawaii, and several Latin American nations for multiple reasons. One main reason being that islands such as Samoa and Hawaii were in the middle of multiple trade routes, and could provide rest places for American trade ships on their way to other foreign countries. Being involved in this territories also appealed to the country's thirst for expansion at that time. The annexation of Hawaii allowed the United States to, again, become more involved in a (now, previous) foreign territory, be in the middle of trade routes, and it prevented the population of Japanese there from gaining power on the islands and therefore wanting rights and possibly preventing the U.S. from accessing the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor. The United States wanted to be involved in such foreign affairs, like a revolution in Chile, in order to maintain stability and moderate peace for American trade and commerce.
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