History

UNITED STATES AND ASIA Newly established in the Philip- pines and firmly entrenched in Ha- waii at the turn of the century, the United States had high hopes for a vigorous trade with China . However, Japan and various European nations had acquired established spheres of influence there in the form of naval bases, leased […]

THE CANAL AND THE AMERICAS The war with Spain revived U .S . interest in building a canal across the isthmus of Panama, uniting the two great oceans . The usefulness of such a canal for sea trade had long been recognized by the major com- mercial nations of the world; the French had begun

AMBIVALENT EMPIRE The last decades of the 19th century were a period of imperial expansion for the United States . The American story took a different course from that of its European rivals, however, because of the U .S . history of strug- gle against European empires and its unique democratic development . The sources

THE PLIGHT OF THE NATIVE AMERICANS As in the East, expansion into the plains and mountains by miners, ranchers, and settlers led to increas- ing conflicts with the Native Amer- icans of the West . Many tribes of Native Americans — from the Utes of the Great Basin to the Nez Perces of Idaho —

THE LAST FRONTIER In 1865 the frontier line generally followed the western limits of the states bordering the Mississippi Riv- er, but bulged outward beyond the eastern sections of Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska . Then, running north and south for nearly 1,600 kilome- ters, loomed huge mountain ranges, many rich in silver, gold, and other

THE DIVIDED SOUTH After Reconstruction, Southern leaders pushed hard to attract indus- try . States offered large inducements and cheap labor to investors to de- velop the steel, lumber, tobacco, and textile industries . Yet in 1900 the re- gion’s percentage of the nation’s in- dustrial base remained about what it had been in 1860

REVOLUTION IN AGRICULTURE Despite the great gains in industry, agriculture remained the nation’s basic occupation . The revolution in agriculture — paralleling that in manufacturing after the Civil War — involved a shift from hand labor to machine farming, and from sub- sistence to commercial agriculture . Between 1860 and 1910, the number of farms

RAILROADS, REGULATIONS, AND THE TARIFF Railroads were especially impor- tant to the expanding nation, and their practices were often criticized . Rail lines extended cheaper freight rates to large shippers by rebating a portion of the charge, thus disadvan- taging small shippers . Freight rates also frequently were not proportion- ate to distance traveled; competition

CORPORATIONS AND CITIES The United States Steel Corpora- tion, which resulted from this merg- er in 1901, illustrated a process under way for 30 years: the combination of independent industrial enterprises 158 into federated or centralized compa- nies . Started during the Civil War, the trend gathered momentum after the 1870s, as businessmen began to

CARNEGIE AND THE ERA OF STEEL Andrew Carnegie was largely re- sponsible for the great advances in steel production . Carnegie, who came to America from Scotland as a child of 12, progressed from bob- bin boy in a cotton factory to a job in a telegraph office, then to one on the Pennsylvania Railroad