The rise of Progressivism during this era also influenced domestic policy. The threat of Big Business loomed large and Big Government was perceived to be a perfect solution to keep business interests in check (Johnson 634, 636-637).
Industrialization created an enormous working class in the United States, generally impoverished and localized in urban centers. Urban Progressives influenced domestic policy and helped enact new laws and regulations designed to protect the working poor and ensure their well-being. In the short-term, these new policies did have the effect of improving the lot of many in the working class. Over the long-term, these policies helped centralize more power in the hands of the federal government, power which would ultimately be employed in ways contrary to the original Progressive intent.
Foreign policy was no less affected than domestic policy by the social and economic changes that were occurring in the United States at the end of the 19th century. Industrialization granted the nation a newfound economic power that could be wielded abroad. Imperialism fostered the belief that it was an American destiny to expand its influence. And the same attitude that made Progressives believe that the government could improve the lives of the working class informed the sense that American ideals...
Combined this resulted in a new foreign policies that increased American action on the foreign stage in pursuit of its own interests. National isolation began to fade into the past as Americans came to realize they had the power to affect global change. The
Spanish American War (1898) over Spain's continued influence in Cuba was fought on these premises (Johnson 611-612). The U.S.' ultimate involvement in World War I ultimately began when the
war began disrupting North Atlantic trade routes. The sinking of Luisitania and other U.S. ships by German subs represented the proverbial straws that morally permitted entrance into the fray (Johnson 643-645). Nonetheless, American involvement in the war, reluctant at first, was a product of its own self-interests and the recognition that it had the power and presumed moral
authority to act.
Profound economic and social changes during the late 19th century had numerous effects on American domestic and foreign policy. Industrialization, the rise of Progressivism, and demographic changes influenced policy and produced a nation by 1928 quite different from the one it was in 1890. Most notably, the changes facilitated the concentration of new domestic and foreign policies within the federal government along with the popular will to utilize this power in the perceived interests of the American people. Foreign and domestic policy by the end of this era could be characterized as increasingly statist and expansionist.
Works Cited
Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997.
