406 Chapter 18 | isoLAteD no More | Period seven 1890 –1945

T

he role played by the United States in world affairs shifted substantially

in the first half of the twentieth century. The era began with the so-called

closing of the American frontier west of the Mississippi and ended as

the United States stood as one of two superpowers able to exert global

power. Between these two events, Americans debated the place of their

overseas military ventures within the context of traditional American ideals.

For President William McKinley’s administration, Spain’s attempt to suppress

an independence movement in Cuba represented a threat to republican liberties

throughout the Western Hemisphere. Ironically, by the end of the Spanish-American

War (1898), the United States itself controlled the colonies of Guam, Puerto Rico, and

the Philippines and battled Filipino rebels who demanded independence. Through-

out this era, many Americans questioned the compatibility of republicanism and

imperialism, culminating in the Anti-Imperialist League and the popular neutrality

of Americans during the First World War and again in the 1930s. Conversely,

presidents like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the rhetoric of

republicanism to offer compelling justification for American involvement in foreign

wars in the name of democracy.

The tensions between Americans who held isolationist and those who held

internationalist sentiments continued throughout the twentieth century, and

both sides used the rights-based rhetoric of the American Revolution to justify

their positions. This created a dynamic and high-stakes argument around Amer-

ican conceptions of liberty and equality.

Seeking the Main Point

As you read the documents that follow, keep these broad questions in mind.

These questions will help you understand the relationship between the doc-

uments in this chapter and the historical changes that they represent. As you

reflect on these questions, determine which themes and which documents best

address them.

•   

How did America’s legacy of individualism manifest itself at home and

abroad during the first half of the twentieth century?

•   

To what extent did war both assist and hinder American progress on social,

economic, and political levels?

•   

To what extent did isolationism shape American identity from 1915 to 1945?

Analyze the political, social, and economic factors that helped shape the

American identity in this period.

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