210 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPS
After Congress approved Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease
program of massive military aid to Britain in 1941,
Roosevelt and Churchill secretly met off the coast of
Newfoundland to advance their alliance and establish
a set of postwar principles that would be dubbed the
Atlantic Charter. While the charter may appear to be a
general statement of universal principles, embedded
within these principles were very specific American
goals. Echoing President Wilson’s Fourteen Points
of 1918, the charter promised that neither country
would seek territorial gains in the war, and that self-
determination would guide postwar settlements.
Equally essential were Roosevelt’s priorities of lowered
trade barriers and freedom of the seas, which sent a
message that the US was eager to access the goods
that became available as the colonial era waned.
Four months after the charter was signed, the
attack on Pearl Harbor led the US to declare war on
Germany and Japan. In 1942, Time & Tide magazine
commissioned the noted and admired commercial
artist MacDonald Gill to boost British morale with this
buoyant map promising better days ahead. Powerful
steamships busily transport passengers, mail, and
goods across the seas. In the foreground a man takes
a sledgehammer to military weapons, while horses
pull ploughshares just beyond. This is a world at
peace, and above all one defined through trade.
American entry into World War II was necessary
to destroy fascism. At the same time, the United
States was extraordinarily fortunate to emerge with
its national economy, territory, and population
largely intact relative to the European belligerents.
This structural integrity—buttressed by the 1944
authorization of the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund—directly fueled the postwar economic
boom that made the US the world’s most powerful
country. For a generation reared on depression and
war, such prosperity was both welcome and deserved.
While the war hobbled Europe and Asia, it created
sustained postwar growth for the US.
Just before the Atlantic Charter was issued, the
publisher Henry Luce urged Americans to accept their
position of international stewardship. Luce predicted
an “American Century,” where the United States—not
Britain—would use its economic and moral power to
promote democracy and freedom around the world.
This posture would profoundly shape American foreign
policy for the rest of the century.
THE WARTIME ROOTS OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY
MacDonald Gill, “The ‘Time & Tide’
Map of the Atlantic Charter,” 1942