Gender and Empire

Gender anxieties provided additional motivation for U.S. imperialism. In the late nineteenth century, with the Civil War long over, many in the United States worried that the rising generation of U.S. men lacked opportunities to test and strengthen their manhood. For example, in 1897 Mississippi congressman John Sharp Williams lamented the waning of “the dominant spirit which controlled in this Republic [from 1776 to 1865] . . . one of honor, glory, chivalry, and patriotism.” Such gender anxieties were not limited to elites. The depression of the 1890s hit working-class men hard, causing them to question their self-worth as they lost the ability to support their families. By embracing the imperialist project, they would regain their manly honor.

The growing presence of women as political activists in campaigns for suffrage and moral, humanitarian, and governmental reforms was particularly troubling to male identity. Some men warned that dire consequences would result if women succeeded in feminizing politics. Alfred Thayer Mahan believed that women’s suffrage would undermine the nation’s military security because women lacked the will to use physical force. He asserted that giving the vote to women would destroy the “constant practice of the past ages by which to men are assigned the outdoor rough action of life and to women that indoor sphere which we call the family.” For Mahan and others, calling U.S. men to action was often paired with a call for U.S. women to leave the public arena and return to the home.

Explore

See Document 20.1 for part of Kipling’s poem in support of white men’s imperial ambitions in the Philippines.

Males in the United States could reassert their manhood by adopting a militant spirit. Known as jingoists, war enthusiasts such as Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan saw war as necessary to the development of a generation of men who could meet the challenges of the modern age. “No greater danger could befall civilization than the disappearance of the warlike spirit (I dare say war) among civilized men,” Mahan asserted. “There are too many barbarians still in the world.” Mahan and Roosevelt promoted naval power, and by 1900, the U.S. fleet contained seventeen battleships and six armored cruisers, making it the third most powerful navy in the world, up from twelfth place in 1880. Having built a powerful navy, the United States would soon find opportunities to use it.

REVIEW & RELATE

What role did economic developments play in prompting calls for a U.S. empire? What role did social and cultural developments play?

Why did the United States embark on building an empire in the 1890s and not decades earlier?