What you’ll learn to do: examine the changes in American foreign policy after the Civil War

Figure 1. “10,000 Miles from Tip to Tip.” Look at this image from the Philadelphia Press. What message does it send about American empire?

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, after the Civil War, the United States pivoted from a focus on North American territorial acquisition to an enthusiasm for overseas activity. The nation’s earlier isolationism originated from the deep scars left by the Civil War and its need to recover both economically and mentally from that event. But as the industrial revolution changed the way the country worked and the American West reached its farthest point, attitudes toward foreign expansion shifted. Businesses sought new markets to export their factory-built goods, oil, and tobacco products, as well as generous trade agreements to secure access to raw materials. Early social reformers saw opportunities to spread the Christian gospel and the benefits of an American way of life to those in developing nations. Influenced by the ideas of historian Fredrick J. Turner and the expansionist naval strategies proposed by Alfred Mahan, the country moved quickly to ready itself for the creation of an American empire.