Year 2: Unit 5 – The American Empire: Imperialism and World War I (1890 – 1920): Introduction

As the United States expanded across the continent and became an industrialized nation, American leaders began to look beyond U.S. soil for new opportunities. Industrial leaders, eager to find raw materials to fuel their industries and new markets for their goods, often led the charge, eager to further grow their industries. With the election of President William McKinley in 1896, the nation began pursuing imperialist policies. The United States annexed Hawaii and established territories in Alaska and Puerto Rico, eager to expand the nation’s continental borders. But imperialism meant more than just expansion; many leaders wanted to establish American influence abroad, to protect American economic interests, to establish the United States as a world power, and to fulfill the United States’ “moral” duty to “civilize” the non-white world. This impulse led to wars in Cuba and the Philippines, and eventually, the United States’ entry into World War I. By 1918, the United States had become a global power.

Whether the United States became an “empire” during this time period became a contentious issue and remains a topic of debate among present-day historians. And if the United States was an “empire,” was this something that could be reconciled with its official values as a republic? Many Americans argued no, forming the Anti-Imperialist League to protest the government’s intervention in the Philippines and beyond. To this day, Americans still debate about what the role of the United States should be in the world and in its interactions with other nations.

Essential Question

If you are successful in this unit, your scholars will be able to answer the Unit 5 Essential Question: To what extent did American foreign policy at the turn of the 20th century promote American interests and ideals?

Big Ideas

The Big Ideas, outlined below, help answer the Unit 5 Essential Question and reflect the key ideas scholars must master by the end of this unit. As you teach Unit 5, connect every lesson back to the Big Idea(s) that the lesson helps illustrate. The Unit 5 Big Ideas were adapted from the UCLA National History Standards United States History Era 7.

• Big Idea 1: In the early 20th century, U.S. interventionist foreign policy transformed the nation into a global and imperial power.
  • The development of an American industrial economy during the Gilded Age led to American interest in intervention abroad to support the growing economy as well as to establish the nation as a world power.
  • American imperialism was also inspired by American ideals to spread democracy, liberty, and freedom around the world, thus “civilizing” non-white peoples around the world.
  • Spanish aggression in Cuba, as well as American imperial interests, sparked the U.S. invasion of Cuba and the subsequent Spanish-American War.
    ◦Presidents McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson pursued American imperialist policies, although each president prioritized different means to do so. While McKinley pursued war and annexation to gain territory, Roosevelt used strong-armed diplomacy; Taft prioritized American investments and commercial interests abroad, and Wilson hoped to use imperialism to promote a moral, rather than self-interested, foreign policy agenda.
• Big Idea 2: As the United States became an imperial power, many people at home and abroad criticized these new interventionist policies and fought back against American imperialism.
  • Many Americans opposed American imperialism, arguing that it threatened, rather than promoted, American ideals of liberty and self-government.
  • Abroad, protests and backlash erupted in response to American imperialism and the violence it often caused in sites such as the Philippines, Hawaii, and Cuba.
• Big Idea 3: European political and imperial relationships caused World War I in 1914. Despite the United States’ attempts to remain neutral, economic and imperial interests compelled the otherwise isolationist U. S. to join World War I in 1917.
  • Imperial, military, and nationalist rivalries between and within European nations, along with a series of complex alliances, led to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
  • In 1914, the United States declared neutrality, intending to stay removed from the complex crises of Europe. However, German aggression coupled with American economic interests ultimately brought the United States into the war in 1917.
  • As the war came to a close, President Wilson announced his Fourteen Points, a series of goals to promote peace and democracy following the war, including a proposed “League of Nations” to prevent the outbreak of war at such a scale again.
  • Wilson’s Fourteen Points became an essential part of the Treaty of Versailles, including the League of Nations. Many Americans, wary of the alliances that had caused such a conflict already and fearful of the implications of the treaty on American imperialism, did not support the treaty. As a result, the Senate ultimately did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles.

Key Terms

The following people, places, and events are foundational to understanding the Big Ideas of this unit. As these words are introduced in each lesson, add them to your word wall and hold scholars accountable for using them in discussion and writing throughout the unit.

• Imperialism
• Empire
• Foreign intervention
• The White Man’s Burden
• The Spanish-American War
• President William McKinley
• Annexation
• Philippine-American War
• President Theodore Roosevelt/Big Stick Policy
• President William Taft/Dollar Diplomacy
• President Woodrow Wilson/Moral Diplomacy
• Anti-imperialism
• Anti-Imperialist League
• Self-government
• Nationalism
• World War I
• Isolationism
• Policy of Neutrality
• Fourteen Points
• Treaty of Versailles

Geography

The following places are foundational to understanding the geographical context of the unit. As you teach Unit 5, continually reference maps in class not only to build scholar fluency with geography, but also to develop scholars’ geographic reasoning skills as they grapple with the Big Ideas of the unit.

• The states of the United States as of 1914
• Major sites of American intervention or conflict: Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, Panama, Spain, China, Japan, Haiti, Mexico, and Puerto Rico
• The Allied Powers: United States, Russia, Great Britain, and France
• The Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire

Class Materials

Once you have internalized the Big Ideas of the unit, to be successful, you must study and internalize all scholar documents and materials before you teach the first lesson:

• All documents in the Unit 5 Sourcebook
• All scholar and teacher materials in the Unit 5 Workbook

Additional Resources

The resources below provide additional historical background for the content covered in Unit 5:

• Because of some explicit racism in the imperialism materials in this unit, read “Ten Tips for Facilitating Classroom Discussions on Sensitive Topics” by Alicia Moore and Molly Deshaies on the PBS website.
• Browse Khan Academy’s “Rise to World Power” course (focusing on the Age of Empire and WWI).
• Read the essays “Empire Building,” “The United States and the Caribbean,” and “World War I” on the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History* website.
• Watch the video “Crash Course History: Imperialism” on YouTube.

*To access these readings and more free American History content and resources, create an account on the Gilder Lehrman Institute website.

Essential Question: To what extent did American foreign policy at the turn of the 20th century promote American interests and ideals?

The first five lessons develop scholars’ understanding of American imperialism at the turn of the 20th century and how imperialism transformed the United States into a global power. Lesson 1 introduces scholars to the meaning of imperialism and how U.S. economic growth during the Gilded Age sparked the adoption of interventionist policies to support the growing economy and help turn the United States into a global power. In Lessons 2 through 4, scholars will dive more deeply into one of the first major examples of American interventionist foreign policy: the Spanish-American War. In this DBQ, scholars will be able to explain the conflicting motivations in the war: that of national self-interest, and that of protecting vulnerable nations to promote democracy. In Lesson 5, scholars will explore more broadly the foreign policies of presidents McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson to understand how each president had different means, methods, and motivations in promoting American imperialism. By the end of these lessons, scholars must be able to explain the complex and often contradictory reasons why the United States became an imperial power, and how the United States promoted its imperial interests abroad.

Lesson 1: The Birth of Imperial America (Source Analysis)

• Central Question: Why did the United States adopt imperial policies in the late 19th century?

Lessons 2–4: The Spanish-American War (DBQ Writing)

• Central Question: Why did the United States invade Cuba in 1898?

Lesson 5: Presidential Imperial Policy (Jigsaw)

• Central Question: How did presidents McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson promote American imperialism?

Lesson 6 examines the backlash to imperialism, both at home and abroad. While American leaders pursued imperial policies both for moral and self-interested reasons, the impact of these policies was almost exclusively harmful to the native peoples subjected to American intervention. Thus, many people in Hawaii, the Philippines, Cuba, and around the world passionately fought to end U.S. foreign intervention, often with minimal success. At home, many Americans challenged imperialists’ claims that imperialism promoted American ideals, arguing instead that imperialism defied and threatened democracy and liberty. By the end of this lesson, scholars must be able to articulate why a backlash emerged in response to American imperialism, and how this backlash challenged the notion that imperialism promoted American ideals.

Lesson 6: Anti-Imperialism (Source Analysis)

• Central Question: Why did people at home and abroad oppose American imperialism?

In Lessons 7 through 10, scholars will be introduced to the largest global conflict of the era: World War I. In order to understand the United States’ role in World War I, scholars must understand the global context of imperialism and alliances that gave rise to it. Therefore, scholars will simulate the immediate events leading to the outbreak of World War I globally and the complex system of alliances and imperial rivalries that fueled the conflict. In Lessons 8 through 10, scholars will examine the role of the United States in World War I, and how economic interests coupled with German aggression ultimately brought the decidedly neutral United States into the global conflict. By the end of these lessons, scholars will understand why World War I was a turning point for the United States, affirming its role as a global nation and leader in international affairs. Scholars will also be prepared to consider American responses to the Treaty of Versailles and to compare American imperial and isolationist perspectives.

Lesson 7: World War I (Simulation)

• Central Question: Why did World War I become a global conflict?

Lessons 8–10: The United States and World War I (DBQ Writing)

• Central Question: Why did the United States join World War I?

The final lesson of the unit expresses the national divide over American foreign policy: Following the destruction of World War I, what role should the United States take on the global stage? As scholars debate the Treaty of Versailles, they must understand how American imperialist and anti- imperialist arguments influenced both the globalist perspective of President Wilson as well as the isolationist perspective of many critics of the treaty. While in previous lessons, imperialists argued that foreign intervention was in service of American interests, isolationists argued that intervention actually threatened it. Thus, by the end of this lesson, scholars must be able to articulate the many conflicting viewpoints of the national debate over American foreign intervention and the extent to which intervention promoted American interests and ideals at the turn of the 20th century.

Lesson 11: The Treaty of Versailles (Debate)

• Central Question: Should the United States have signed the Treaty of Versailles?