Transcript The Pressure to Expand

The Pressure to Expand
The Age of Imperialism in the
United States
Do Now
• On a lined piece of paper list examples of
expansion that existed in the United States
from as early as the 1820s. Use your
textbook to help – pg. 497.
WHAT IS IMPERIALISM?
Imperialism According to
Darth Vader
What Is Imperialism?
• Stronger nations attempt to create empires
by dominating weaker nations.
America in the Late 1800s
Key Concept #1
• Overproduction led to a pressing need for
foreign markets.
– Why?
• Harmful cycles of economic panic and depression
swept through the U.S. as a result of
overproduction.
Key Concept #2
• Economic expansion in the United States
coincided with European scramble for new
territories.
Key Concept # 3
• Americans who favored expansion used
economic, moral, and social Darwinist
arguments to justify their position.
Economic Argument
Economic Argument
• Minor C. Keith – United Fruit Co.
– Invested directly in the economies
of other countries.
– Won long-term leases for land and
railroad lines by providing financial
services to the government of Costa
Rica, Guatemala, and Honduras.
– Banana Republics
Improve the Navy
• Alfred T. Mahan
– If we are going to open
these new foreign
markets we must be
able to protect them.
– By 1900 the U.S. had
one of the most
powerful navies in the
world.
Moral Argument
Key Concept # 4
• Economic expansion involved the risk of
foreign entanglements.
Pressure to Expand
• Key Concept #1 - Overproduction led to a
pressing need for foreign markets.
• Key Concept #2 - Economic expansion in the
United States coincided with European scramble
for new territories.
• Key Concept #3 - Americans who favored
expansion used economic, moral, and social
Darwinist arguments to justify their position.
• Key Concept #4 - Economic expansion involved
the risk of foreign entanglements.