American foreign policy change in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

¶ … American foreign policy change in the late 19th and early 20th centuries? The world was changing rapidly during those years, and American leaders felt the country had to change to make the adjustments it felt were necessary to keep their power in the world. Before the events of the late 1890s and 1900, Americans were not demanding that their country become aggressive around the world, or become imperialistic. Most Americans were at work, the Industrial Revolution was in near-full swing, and families took center stage in the domestic world of America.

Then, in 1895, there was a revolution 90 miles from our shores (Florida) in Cuba; the Cubans rose up against their colonial Spanish controllers. Initially, American president Grover Cleveland declared America's neutrality but by 1898, when the U.S.S. Maine blew up in Havana Harbor, and a military report asserted that the ship was blown up by a mine (presumably Spanish) war was about to begin between the U.S. And Spain in the Philippines, which was a Spanish territory.

Part of the reason that by 1898 America was about to be at war in the Philippines was that newspapers has so much power, they could persuade citizens one way or another. The New York Journal published one million copies of a pro-war edition in April. The newspaper called for the U.S. To declare war on the Spanish, and people reading the paper believed the "yellow journalism" (which was newspapers use of sensationalism) and urged their representatives to go to war with Spain. The U.S. defeated Spain and it was this victory that really began to make Americans feel they had the right to take over other nations; they took over Guam, Wake Island, and the Philippines. There were many "anti-imperialists" (Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Gompers) speaking out against the imperialism, but pro-war President McKinley was re-elected anyway. And as the 20th Century arrived, America was now a foreign power to be feared and to be reckoned with, whether anti-imperialists at home or nations away from home liked it.

Essay #2: What were the effects of world war I on American society? The first major thing that changed for women, as men marched off to war, was their going to work in factories to produce the weapons men needed. Harriot Stanton Blatch in 1918 got out and publicly rallied women to "mobilize" for WWI. "Every muscle, every brain, must be mobilized if the national aim is to be achieved," Blatch urged. She was endorsed by President Teddy Roosevelt. Many women also worked for the U.S. Navy as clerical workers. The Army hired women to work as phone operators and nurses in the European theater, but playing the role as civilians.

But women also worked on a no-pay basis; more than 25,000 U.S. woman served the war cause by helping nurse some of the wounded as volunteers, helped provide food and other things the military needed. The "Hello Girls" were female volunteer phone operators, and helped entertain the troops. The "doughboys" (soldiers) treated American women entertainers with respect, but the doughboys didn't treat French women with the same respect.

Things during the fighting changed for young men of course, as a draft went into effect in 1917, which called for all men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register for military service; later those ages were change to 18 and 45. Second, a lot of money was raised by taxing people and by selling bonds to support the war effort. There were "Liberty Loans" and "Victory Loans" (bonds) for people to buy, which raised over $21 billion. Income taxes were raised, and taxes on tobacco and liquor were raised very high.

It was a time of great sacrifice in America. Everything cost more, and the government was constantly raising money at the expense of the average person. Postage for letters went up, and there was a "nuisance tax" on things like movie tickets, theater tickets, and telegraph messages, club dues. There was even an "excess profits tax" of between 20 to 60% on businesses.