Context
During the first quarter of the nineteenth century the United States grew
drastically, in power and in geographical size. The Louisiana
Purchase more than doubled the nation's size and
opened up a little known region to exploration and eventual settlement. Soon,
explorers were returning from forays into the wilderness with stories of great
stretches of beauty and fertile land. Some Americans ventured westward, but the
nation was largely consumed by its struggle to maintain its neutrality in the
face of threats from Britain and France. The War of
1812 settled this issue, leaving the United States
free to pursue North American goals. The nation turned its attention to the
issue of expansion. The founding fathers had envisioned the United States as a
bastion of freedom that would cover territory reaching all the way across the
North American continent. Their descendents had not forgotten this desire, and
encouraged expansion into western territories through laws and rhetoric.
The first wave of westward expansion accompanied the rise of manufacturing in
New England and increasing mobility throughout the nation. As settlers moved to
what is now the Midwest, the national infrastructure grew up around them,
connecting the nation's cities and towns through a system of roads, canals and
railroads. Accompanying the rise in new methods of transportation came progress
in the fields of agriculture and medicine, as new machines were invented and new
treatments for disease discovered. American culture developed in the form of
writing, acting, and painting, and American intellectuals gained worldwide
respect. Many painters and writers cited the American West as their
inspiration, and the West began to symbolize the American identity: rough and
rugged individualism willing to face new challenges.
However, expansion did not occur exclusively in an atmosphere of progress. The
age of Jacksonian Democracy saw the rise of
political strife between the ruling Democrats and the opposition Whigs. As the
two-party system matured, political tension became clearly focused around the
issue of slavery. As the West gradually developed, the existing states were
rapidly torn apart. Economic and social divisions became accentuated and both
North and South clung to their beliefs and customs.
In 1848, the Mexican
War
concluded, and the
United States gained full control of the Texas, California and New Mexico
territories. As settlers poured into these regions, it was clear that the
westward expansion was closely linked to the future of slavery. North and South
focused significant energy on pursuing their political desires in regard to
slavery in the settled territories of the West, and the famous Lincoln-Douglas
Debates had at their core the future of slavery in the West. Despite efforts at
reconciliation, most notably the Compromise of 1850, the Union was thrown
into a civil war over the issue of slavery from 1861 to 1865, and western
expansion slowed due to the conflict.
After the Civil War and period of
Reconstruction faded, expansion began again
in the late 1800s. Now western settlers were spurred onward by the development
of the transcontinental railroad, a major byproduct of the period of
industrialization that had begun in
earnest. The expansion and immigration of the late 1800s merged with this
industrialization to provoke the growth of American urban society. As the needs
of industrial workers became ever more important, the national political scene
became dominated by the discrepancy in needs between America's rural and urban
populations, as well as the needs of the new classes created by
industrialization and the abolition of slavery. By the early twentieth century,
the United States consisted of 48 contiguous states stretching clear across the
North American continent, and with its devastatinv defeat of the
Spanish in 1898 had become a legitimate
international power. US cities increasingly traded with foreign markets and the
nation became involved in international politics. The economic and political
evolution that had accompanied, and in part resulted from, westward expansion
culminated with US involvement in World War
One.
