Emergence of the Americas in global affairs (1880–1945)

A foreign policy of extending a country's power, territory, or influence beyond its own borders.

A weaker state that is officially independent but is controlled and defended by a stronger power.

Political factors, economic factors, social factors, and the role of ideology (e.g. Social Darwinism, Manifest Destiny).

The explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbour (Feb 1898); yellow press blamed Spain; USA declared war in April 1898 partly to support the Cuban independence struggle.

Control of the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam; Cuba became formally independent but under heavy US influence (Platt Amendment, 1901).

Theodore Roosevelt's addition to the Monroe Doctrine: the USA claimed the right to intervene in Latin American states to preempt European intervention over unpaid debts.

Roosevelt's approach of backing negotiation with the credible threat of US military force — 'speak softly and carry a big stick'.

William Taft's policy (1909-13) of using US financial investment and loans, rather than military force, to expand US influence in Latin America and Asia.

Woodrow Wilson's policy (from 1913) of supporting only governments that were democratic and that served the moral interests of their people — though in practice he intervened militarily anyway (e.g. Mexico, Haiti).

US industry was overproducing; expansionists argued new overseas markets and raw materials (like Cuban sugar) were needed to keep growing.

His book on sea power argued a strong navy needed overseas coaling stations and colonies — this shaped the buildup of the US fleet and the push for bases like Hawaii and the Philippines.

Roosevelt Corollary = threat/use of military force to justify intervention; Dollar Diplomacy = economic investment and loans used to gain influence without (in theory) needing troops.

Unrestricted German U-boat attacks on shipping plus the Zimmermann Telegram (Germany's offer of an alliance to Mexico against the USA) ended US neutrality.

A 1918 proposal for a fair peace: self-determination, open diplomacy, freedom of the seas, and a League of Nations to prevent future wars.

Senators (led by Henry Cabot Lodge) objected to Article 10's collective-security obligation, fearing it would drag the USA into future wars automatically.

FDR's 1933 pledge that the USA would not intervene militarily in Latin America; formalized at the Montevideo Conference and backed by troop withdrawals from Haiti and Nicaragua.

It negotiated compensation instead of intervening militarily — cited as proof the Good Neighbor Policy was a genuine, tested shift in approach.

Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941; the USA declared war the next day, and Germany and Italy declared war on the USA days later.

The secret US wartime program that developed the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Whether it was necessary to end the war quickly and avoid a costly invasion, or whether Japan was already close to defeat and the bombing was aimed partly at warning the USSR.

President Vargas traded with both the Allies and the Axis, extracting loans and the Volta Redonda steel mill from the USA before declaring war on the Axis in 1942.

German U-boats sank Brazilian merchant ships, turning public opinion firmly against the Axis and ending Vargas's neutral balancing act.

Both were pushed from neutrality to war by direct attacks on their own ships/territory (Pearl Harbor for the USA, U-boat sinkings for Brazil), not by ideology alone.

Change: US methods shifted from military intervention to diplomacy/economics. Continuity: the underlying goal of a hemisphere safe for US interests stayed the same.

US federal agency that directed factories to prioritize war production during WWI.

Wartime laws criminalizing criticism of the war or draft; over 2,000 people prosecuted, feeding the later Red Scare.

Gave American women the right to vote; wartime service strengthened the suffrage campaign's final push.

Wartime labor demand pulled hundreds of thousands of African Americans from the rural South to Northern industrial cities.

Wave of violent race riots across more than 20 US cities as returning veterans and new Black migrants competed for jobs and housing.

Agency that redirected US industry (e.g., car factories) toward tanks, planes, and war supplies; nearly doubled GDP by 1945.

Iconic image representing the roughly 6 million American women who entered the workforce, many in heavy industry, during WWII.

Authorized forced removal of about 120,000 Japanese Americans (two-thirds US citizens) into internment camps with no evidence of disloyalty.

WWII-era African American press campaign demanding victory over fascism abroad AND racism at home.

WWII guest-worker program bringing Mexican laborers into the US to fill wartime agricultural and industrial labor shortages.

Both wars pulled women into factory/clerical work in large numbers, but gains were largely reversed once veterans returned in both cases.

Both wars relied on marginalized groups' labor without granting equality; WWII's internment shows the injustice could get worse, not just stay the same.