why did the usa emerge as a world power Flashcards
what factors made the usa the major power worldwide
-continental expansion
-techniques used to the closure of the frontier
-economic growth
-imperialism
explain continental expansion
-Louisiana was purchased from France in 1803, doubling the size of the USA at the time.
-Florida was taken from the Spanish in 1819.
-Settlers moved further and further west, towards and then across the Mississippi.
-Thousands moved into what is now Texas, but what was then a largely uninhabited part of Mexico.
-Mexico was weak and unstable, and the American settlers revolted against the Mexican government, establishing the Republic of Texas as an independent state in 1836
-and becoming part of the USA in 1845.
-A boundary dispute between the USA and Britain was settled by the Treaty of Oregon in 1846, -as a result of which the USA gained control over an area of forests and good agricultural land, with access to the Pacific Ocean.
-Victory in war against Spain led to the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo (1848), by which the USA gained the present states of California, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona, providing a longer Pacific coastline. -in 1853, the USA purchased further land from Mexico in a deal known as the Gadsden Purchase.
-The purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 brought to an end the continental expansion of the USA in the 19th century.
how did the americans justified their territorial expansion
-Americans justified their territorial expansion by their belief in the concept of ‘Manifest Destiny’, which
claimed that the USA was destined to expand into, settle and rule over the whole North American continent.
The main ideas underpinning Manifest Destiny were:
-US expansion to the Pacific Ocean was logical and inevitable
-aggressive US nationalism was desirable
-the USA had the ‘divine right’ to continue expanding westwards until it had spread from the
Atlantic to the Pacific
-the USA had a duty to spread its Christian values and culture
-incorporation into the USA would bring liberty and freedom to other North American territories.
-The USA was also afraid that, if it did not acquire territories such as California, then some hostile
imperial power might.
- By the early 19th century, virtually all the Latin American possessions of the
once-great Spanish and Portuguese empires had gained independence.
-Only Cuba and Puerto Rico
remained under Spanish rule. Concerns that Spain would try to win back control of its former
possessions in South America, and that this would encourage other European powers to extend their
empires into the Americas,
-led the USA to approve the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. This stated that the
USA would not interfere in European affairs, but that any attempt by European powers to intervene in the Americas would be viewed by the USA as an act of aggression and would be dealt with accordingly.
explain how the closure of the frontier worked
-Having gained possession of much of the North American continent, the US government now needed to
encourage people to settle in areas that it termed the ‘Frontier’ – areas which were wild, remote,
dangerous and largely unexplored.
-The army was deployed to deal with the presence of Native
Americans, who resented the attempts of white settlers to occupy their land.
- The US government
regarded Native Americans as uncivilised savages, and brutal methods were used to deal with the ‘Indian problem’.
- Gradually, the Native Americans were worn down, killed or confined to reservations.
-By 1900, fewer than 350 000 Native Americans were left.
-Many of the early settlers in the Far West were miners, drawn by the prospect of finding gold.
-The government encouraged more permanent settlement of the frontier by enabling people to acquire cheap
land on which to live and earn a living.
-The Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 allowed settlers to take
ownership of up to 640 acres of land in Oregon without charge.
-This was followed by a series of
Homestead Acts, the first of which was passed in 1862, which made land available to those willing to improve and farm it. As a result, more and more settlers were encouraged to move westwards, settle on
farms and push back the frontier.
-The 1890 census, a detailed government survey of the American population, revealed that settlements
had been established across the entire USA.
-With no untamed areas left in which to settle, the
government announced that the frontier was closed. The frontier had represented adventure, freedom
and the opportunity to establish a new life. Many of the early settlers, for example, had sold their land for a profit to later arrivals and moved on in search of new and better land to cultivate. For the first time in its history, the USA had no frontier and these opportunities no longer existed.
how did the closure of frontier led to imperialism
-taming the wild and savage wilderness had shaped
American culture and character, encouraging strength, ambition, initiative, self-reliance, violence and individualism.
-The closing of the frontier in 1890 effectively ended a period of expansion that Turner
believed had been so important in shaping the character of the USA and its people.
-Americans began
to look abroad for new opportunities – a new frontier to tame, new economic opportunities to exploit
and develop.
-Many senior American politicians and clergymen began to argue that it was the USA’s duty to spread democracy and Christianity to less fortunate and ‘backward peoples’ in the world.
-If the closing of the frontier provided an incentive for the USA to expand its influence overseas, a
number of economic and political factors were simultaneously having the same effect.
explain why was there economic growth in America
-the USA had large quantities of vital raw materials, such as coal, iron ore and oil
-population growth (31.5 million in 1880, 76 million in 1900), aided by increasing immigration from Europe and Asia, provided both labour and consumers
-the introduction of new methods for the mass-production of manufactured products
-a lack of government regulation enabled employers to manage their workforce in any way they
chose
-the development of large-scale, highly profitable companies, known as corporations and trusts
-the mechanisation of farming enabled the mass-production of wheat and other crops
-the development of one of the most comprehensive railway systems in the world, facilitating the transportation of raw materials and finished products
-the availability of investment capital through banks and the stock market in New York – by 1880,
the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street had become the second largest money market in the world
-the government encouraged the growth of American industry by protecting it from foreign
competition; tariffs (taxes) were imposed on imported foreign-manufactured goods to ensure that they were more expensive than home-produced ones; these tariffs could be as high as 50% of the cost of the imported goods.
how did imperialism make the usa a world power
-because of its navy
-the success of the spanish american war
-the boxer rising in china
-us rights to build the panama canal
give evidence that there was economic growth in the usa
-coal – less than 50 million tons were produced in 1870 – by 1890, this had risen to 262 million tons (the USA’s closest rival, Britain, produced 219 million tons)
-steel – steel output rose from 380 000 tons in 1875 to 13 million tons by 1890 (the USA’s closest rival, Germany, produced 6 million tons) – by 1900, Andrew Carnegie’s US company was producing
more steel than the whole of Britain
-cotton – in 1870, the USA produced 4.25 million bales of cotton – by 1890 this had risen to 10.6 million (the USA’s closet rival, India, produced 3 million bales).
