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U.S. History 1877-Present Videos 173 videos

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U.S. History 1877-Present 5: American Imperialism 602 Views


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Description:

Today we'll learn about how the U.S. decided they were going to trade with other countries...or else. Oh and then we stole a bunch of the islands around us. But hey, we're still exceptional, so...there?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

The US was really feeling its oats at the turn of the 20th century [US grabs oats]

00:08

even though it was going through some growing pains during the changes of the

00:11

Progressive Era it also was starting to feel like a grown up nation no longer [US by a rollercoaster]

00:16

did America have to sit at the international kids table yeah it wanted

00:21

to be taken seriously as a world power but if it was going to do so it had to

00:25

up its geopolitical game well back in the day this usually meant do an extra [US doing sit ups]

00:30

sit-ups push-ups and dabbling in just a little imperialism well until this point

00:34

the US had really only focused its expansion on area throughout North and

00:39

South America and the Caribbean at this time though European nations were [European nation grabs cookies]

00:43

snatching new territories all over the place in a wave of expansion called new

00:48

imperialism well there were European colonies popping up on every corner of [European ships appear]

00:52

the world kind of like Starbucks - Grande pumpkin spice lattes for example

00:57

in a hungry hungry hippo asked Scramble for Africa European powers managed to

01:02

gobble up about 90% of that continent it's pretty impressive if one happens to

01:07

be impressed by awful thing this giant land grab by Europe was basically the [Europe grabs Africa]

01:12

worst thing ever for Africa and it's still trying to recover from the whole

01:15

debacle because another story point is that the u.s. saw all this expansion

01:20

happening and decided it needed to get in on the imperialism gain another major

01:25

motivator was a massive boom of American manufacturing what's the main thing mass [Building explodes]

01:30

manufacturers need the masses making tons of stuff is pretty worthless unless

01:36

one has massive numbers of consumers to go along with it so you know you can

01:40

sell it to him the big wide world was a new market that American companies were [Woman outside world market store]

01:44

itching to exploit well this led to what was called the open door policy which

01:48

paved the way for trade with China ironically around about the same time

01:52

that the China exclusion act made things tough for Chinese immigrants here it

01:57

also led to an American naval officer named Matthew Perry no relation to

02:01

Chandler Bing steaming off to Japan where he held a gun to the Shogun's head

02:06

until Japan opened itself per trade isn't it fun when US history sounds like

02:11

a Quentin Tarantino movie one well another big motivator for [Man watching theater production]

02:14

American imperialism was expanding naval power at that time a big intimidating

02:18

Navy was crucial at the country wanted to be taken seriously as a world power [Navy officers appear on stage]

02:22

well to do this America needed more ports that would allow chips to restock

02:27

supplies and get the curl needed for steam power so the u.s. started eyeing

02:31

Pacific Islands strategically like Guam and the Philippines which were sure to [US using telescope on boat]

02:36

do the trick while also helping Imperial Americans to get some sweet suntan

02:41

America's imperialistic schemes were also motivated by some deep-seated

02:44

ideology America still had the residual tastes of the mid 1800s manifest destiny

02:49

in their mouth kind of like that extra anchovy garlic and banana pepper pizza [Man burps at another man]

02:54

that lingers the morning after yeah by late 1870s the theory of social

02:59

Darwinism had also started inspecting American thought lots of Americans were [Darwin sneezes on US]

03:03

pretty convinced that America deserved to take whatever it wanted law of the

03:08

jungle right well the social Darwin has figured that if a country didn't want to

03:12

be invaded by or force the trade with America well then it ought to just

03:17

toughen up there was also a fun concept floating around called American [American exceptionalism flying]

03:21

exceptionalism folks like Josiah strong and Senator Albert Beveridge named after

03:27

the drink believed Western cultures especially American culture were better

03:31

than any of those other dumb world cultures out there American number one

03:35

mix that attitude with social Darwinism and many Americans who felt it was their [Social darwinism blended]

03:40

moral duty to bring democracy industrialization and other supposedly

03:46

superior values to the supposedly uncivilized world well all this led to

03:51

shenanigans like the spanish-american war during which America snatched [Troops dead on the floor]

03:55

control of Puerto Rico Guam the Philippines and Cuba from Spain so

03:59

plenty of Americans weren't down with all this detractors thought that

04:03

meddling and taking over other territories would just lead to war and

04:06

major financial strength others like famous activist Jane Addams argued that [Man stretching dollar bill]

04:11

this was all just downright morally wrong so yeah not all Americans rank the

04:16

imperialist kool-aid which is good because that would have [Kool-Aid jug burst through wall]

04:20

left the kool-aid man feeling pretty empty inside oh yeah

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