YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → HIST 112 US 1877- present Chapter 19 Part 1 From the Old Diplomacy to the New

HIST 112 US 1877- present Chapter 19 Part 1 From the Old Diplomacy to the New — Transcript

by History Class with Dr. W · 3,585 words · 689 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:01[Music]
0:11diplomacy 1865-1915
0:15the making of a world power
0:20in january 1893 hawaiian sugar planters
0:24launched a successful revolution against
0:26their queen
0:27lilio kalani they were backed by
0:30american marines who were stationed
0:32just off of the islands america's
0:36involvement in hawaii had been growing
0:38steadily
0:39since their initial forays as early as
0:41the 1820s
0:44by the mid 19th century the united
0:47states depended heavily upon
0:49the sugar trade with hawaii and hawaii's
0:52economy became almost
0:54exclusively tied to sugar this
0:58relationship
0:59grew mutually dependent increasingly
1:01until the eighteen
1:02nineties when congress approved
1:05a heavy tariff which crippled the
1:08hawaiian economy
1:10and strengthened america's position
1:13in relation to hawaii hawaiian planters
1:17understood
1:18that if they were to be annexed by the
1:20united states in other words if they
1:22were to become a part of the united
1:24states
1:25they would no longer have to pay the
1:26tariff and their economy
1:28would be restored this was at the root
1:31of the uprising in january
1:33of 1893.
1:36for several years debate raged in the
1:39united states what the status of hawaii
1:41should be
1:42the president grover cleveland supported
1:45restoring the crown to queen leo kalani
1:47and allowing hawaii to maintain its
1:49independence
1:51but the momentum was already building
1:54towards
1:54imperialism and taking colonies many
1:57americans
1:58observed other nations uh such as
2:01england france
2:02germany and others taking colonies in
2:05africa
2:05and asia and other parts of the world
2:08and felt the united states was being
2:10left behind
2:11as the greater powers around the world
2:14grew
2:17by 1898 with the outbreak
2:20of the spanish-american war the
2:22annexation of hawaii grew
2:24inevitable it was president william
2:26mckinley who ultimately made the
2:28decision
2:29to annex the islands which proved to be
2:32an invaluable
2:33way station and naval station between
2:36the united states
2:38and the philippines and the rest of asia
2:43the annexation of hawaii marks a turning
2:45point in
2:46american diplomatic history prior to
2:49this event
2:50the united states was a marginal world
2:53power and i'll share a few statistics in
2:56just a moment but
2:57few nations around the world looked with
3:00much respect
3:01upon the united states after the
3:03annexation of hawaii the united states
3:06is now beginning to climb the ladder so
3:08to speak
3:09among the international powers they are
3:13an imperial nation they are taking
3:15colonies and as we will see the momentum
3:18uh only increases throughout the rest of
3:21the 1890s
3:23and so this chapter is in essence a
3:25study of the creation
3:27of what would become the world's only
3:31power the transition from a
3:34marginal world power at best to
3:37the most powerful nation in the world
3:43it may be difficult for us to imagine
3:45today
3:46a time when the united states was not
3:49a significant world power but that was
3:52in fact exactly the case
3:54prior to the 1890s the united states in
3:58the years following the civil war
4:00didn't crack the top 10 in the world
4:03powers as far as the strength of their
4:06army and navy
4:07we look at some of the statistics on the
4:10screen
4:11in 1890 the united states army ranked
4:13only as the 13th
4:15largest in the world only about 28 000
4:18troops noticed that by 1900
4:22and this following the spanish-american
4:24war which we will discuss
4:26shortly the army had grown
4:29to a hundred thousand or more
4:32in 1884 the united states navy was only
4:34the 12th
4:36largest in the world and many of the
4:38ships that they had
4:40were civil war vintage or older
4:44run-down shoddy puck-filled
4:47and inferior
4:50the general diplomatic policy or plan of
4:54the united states prior to 1890
4:57also bears little resemblance to what we
4:59would see
5:00in the 20th century it hinged upon
5:04a handful of policies that only
5:07loosely connected with each other
5:10among the cornerstones of american
5:12policy was the idea
5:13of isolation the united states divided
5:17from the rest of the world
5:19by two huge oceans which in that era
5:22were a far more formidable barrier than
5:25they are
5:26even today it took a tremendous amount
5:28of effort for
5:29anyone from europe to reach the united
5:32states or anyone from
5:33asia to reach the united states and so
5:36it was thought our best policy was
5:38simply to remain
5:40isolated and not engage with the rest of
5:42the world
5:45in a similar vein the united states
5:46policy depended largely
5:48on what had come to be known as the
5:50monroe doctrine
5:52issued by president james monroe back in
5:54the 1820s
5:56the idea of the monroe doctrine
5:59supported this thought of isolation it
6:01was essentially a message
6:02to europe to stay out of the affairs
6:06in the americas this is our hemisphere
6:09we will
6:10oversee uh relations in this part of the
6:14world
6:14and we will not interfere in europe you
6:17can oversee
6:18matters over there a final thought and
6:22one that was
6:23increasing in prominence uh approaching
6:26the
6:27end of the 19th century was known as the
6:30open
6:30door this was an idea that had been
6:34circulating for decades and it related
6:37to asia
6:38and specifically china and the argument
6:41was that
6:42there should be an open door to china
6:45for
6:45all foreign nations that is we're not
6:48going to
6:49carve up china in the way that had been
6:52done
6:52in africa and south america and other
6:55parts of the world where
6:57distinct european nations claimed as
7:00their own
7:01chunks of territory in these other
7:03places in
7:04china and asia let us preserve
7:08an open door let each nation have equal
7:11access
7:12and obviously this was a policy to our
7:14advantage as a nation that was not
7:16actively engaged in the rest of the
7:18world
7:19in a sense this was our only hope of
7:22maintaining access to
7:24china because we were not interested in
7:26seizing power for ourselves
7:30finally we might say that the diplomatic
7:32core
7:33for the united states prior to the 1890s
7:37showed a distinct lack of
7:39professionalism
7:41diplomatic posts were frequently viewed
7:44as plums of
7:48appointment the president or other
7:50officials in charge of making these
7:52appointments would select
7:54a family friend someone they had worked
7:56with
7:57a family member and appoint them to
8:00these posts around the world where they
8:02uh were stationed in some exotic
8:05location and there were all kinds of
8:07opportunities
8:08for making money in these foreign
8:11countries
8:12on the whole our diplomats frequently
8:15didn't speak the language
8:17of the country that they were stationed
8:18to they had no training
8:20in the history and culture of the
8:23nations
8:24more embarrassingly still oftentimes
8:26these officials
8:28were steeped in racism and
8:31lack of understanding and treated the
8:33people of the foreign countries
8:35as inferiors to be kicked around and so
8:38there are any number
8:40of embarrassing incidents in which
8:42american diplomats these are
8:43representatives of
8:45the united states um karine through the
8:48streets
8:48firing guns into the air or give
8:51drunken racist speeches
8:54or even worse rape
8:58the women in their country or commit
9:00crimes
9:02and all of these sorts of things so all
9:04of these policies are going to
9:06evolve in the 1890s and certainly this
9:08idea of professionalism and
9:10training in the diplomatic corps will
9:14become
9:14a much higher priority in the 1890s and
9:20beyond
9:22the 1890s were a tumultuous decade
9:26in which the united states diplomacy was
9:29forced to change in what was
9:33indeed a rapidly changing and evolving
9:36world
9:37we've already seen on the home front a
9:39number of these developments and changes
9:42that led many people to begin changing
9:45their thinking about america's role
9:47in the world first of all on the home
9:50front the
9:511890s were largely a decade
9:54characterized by malays and
9:57anxiety that is the the country sank
10:01into something of a depression
10:03in this decade and the reasons for it
10:06are many of the things we've discussed
10:08over the last
10:09chapter or two many americans were
10:11becoming concerned and indeed obsessed
10:14with what we might describe as the
10:16decline of american stock
10:19the incredible influx of immigrants into
10:22the country
10:23led those of the sort of traditional
10:26white european background to become
10:29concerned that that american stock so to
10:33speak was
10:35being smeared by all of the immigrants
10:37coming into the country there's a sort
10:39of
10:40racist belief underpinning this
10:43thought we've talked in previous
10:46chapters about the rise of the cities
10:48the rise of big
10:49business uh labor clashes and all of
10:52these sorts of things
10:53and while there are certainly some
10:55things to be celebrated about those
10:57developments as we discussed
10:59previously there were also many
11:02negatives and many reasons for concern
11:05we've talked about
11:07crime and pollution and
11:10the idea of social darwinism the
11:12incredible difficult
11:14working conditions of that era
11:17and so again many people in the country
11:20were
11:20suffering during this period and so the
11:221890s are
11:24something of a decade of chaos again we
11:27talked about
11:28some of the clashes like homestead and
11:31pullman and
11:32different things going on on the home
11:34front
11:36there were lots of sort of unpredictable
11:39and difficult and
11:40challenging events
11:43contributing to this was an argument
11:46presented in 1893
11:48by a young historian named frederick
11:51jackson turner
11:52now we as historians generally don't
11:54aspire to fame and very few of us ever
11:57become
11:58household names so to speak but
12:00frederick jackson turner is certainly
12:02one of those historians who has
12:05achieved a level of celebrity certainly
12:09a well-known
12:10figure and in the 1890s and early 20th
12:13century he would
12:14probably have been a household name in
12:16fact almost everyone knew
12:18what turner was writing about
12:21in his argument in 1893 has come to be
12:24known as the frontier
12:26thesis the frontier thesis and turner
12:31was using as his source the census of
12:341890 so he's looking back on this
12:37information from a couple of years
12:38earlier and what he determined
12:41from looking at that census was that the
12:44american frontier
12:46was now closed and to you and me in the
12:49modern setting that might not sound like
12:51a
12:53hugely novel idea or even something all
12:55that important
12:56but in the 1890s this
13:00really struck a tremendous amount of
13:02concern and even
13:03fear into the hearts of many americans
13:06because what turner was describing
13:08was a nation the united states that had
13:11always
13:12had a frontier out to the west that is
13:15an
13:15expanse of open land into which people
13:18could move and into which the nation
13:20itself
13:21could grow and expand now
13:24turner is postulating that frontier is
13:28closed there isn't any wide open space
13:31anymore out in the west in this country
13:33he looked at the census and determined
13:35that
13:35in fact the west was uh had become
13:38filled up and there wasn't anywhere else
13:40for this country to go
13:44now the fears based on this thesis
13:47ranged wildly there were people
13:49predicting uh economic chaos a collapse
13:52of the
13:53economy all these sorts of things that
13:55never really came to fruition
13:57but another thought that raised concern
13:59was simply
14:00where are people going to go now that
14:03the frontier has filled up we've always
14:04had this sort of outlet to the west
14:07and this contributes to a thought a
14:10growing thought of many
14:12that in fact we need to keep on looking
14:15further to the west we need to look
14:17out across the pacific
14:20and even to asia and perhaps beyond and
14:24we'll get to some of those thoughts
14:25a little bit later contributing further
14:30to this atmosphere of malaise and
14:32anxiety was a
14:33severe depression that struck the nation
14:36in 1893 and again i mentioned this
14:38in a previous lecture when we talked
14:40about the pullman strike which was
14:42tied to this same economic depression
14:46the country struggled with this over the
14:48the next several years and kind of
14:50sank again in 1897
14:53so anytime this sort of economic
14:56struggle
14:57sets in everything becomes
15:01more tense for the country and some of
15:04you may
15:05recall similar experiences in our own
15:08recent history over the last six or
15:10seven or eight
15:11years things thankfully have improved
15:14for the time being
15:15but it wasn't that long ago that 12 to
15:1815 percent of the country was unemployed
15:21and people were
15:22wondering where their next paycheck was
15:24coming from and they were looking at
15:25their retirement
15:26funds uh sort of being vaporized and
15:29you may remember some of the anxiety
15:31that that sort of thing
15:33creates another development of this
15:37period was that americans were observing
15:41as other european powers other powers
15:44around the world
15:45began sort of staking their claim to
15:48unclaimed territory around the world
15:51africa was carved up by the european
15:55nations in the 1880s
15:56by the 1890s european nations are
16:00beginning to claim parts of territory in
16:03asia and
16:03china and i talked briefly about the
16:06open door on a previous slide and so
16:08there's a growing sense
16:09that the united states needs to get
16:11moving on these things the united states
16:13needs to engage
16:14in this sort of process or we will be
16:16left behind
16:18as the rest of the world moves forward
16:21all of these things
16:23come to a head in the episode i
16:25described
16:26in the uh first slide
16:29the annexation of hawaii in 1893 the
16:32united states
16:34beginning to break out of what i
16:36described on the last slide as this old
16:38diplomacy isolation lack of
16:41professionalism
16:42lack of engagement with the world and
16:45now they are beginning to forge ahead
16:47towards a
16:47new diplomacy and the events in hawaii
16:50form sort of a bridge
16:52between that old way of doing things and
16:55this new way of doing things in the
16:581890s
17:03there are other factors changing in the
17:051890s as well
17:07the united states is simply growing as a
17:10nation we are becoming
17:12among the most populated countries in
17:16the world
17:17certainly a city like new york city is
17:19becoming
17:20uh one of the uh the centers of
17:24global commerce and technology
17:28and all kinds of innovation and so it
17:31becomes harder and harder
17:33to remain isolated and uninvolved with
17:36the rest of the world
17:37there's a sense of curiosity from the
17:39rest of the world if nothing else
17:41you know what is going on in this rising
17:43nation
17:44the united states i mentioned technology
17:47is
17:47coming along during this period
17:49electricity
17:50the telephone uh telegraph lines
17:54communication is becoming much more
17:57rapid even immediate during this time
17:59and so
18:00where once uh it took months
18:04to get word back and forth between
18:06europe and the united states
18:08now messages can be sent instantly and
18:11again it's
18:12becoming more and more difficult for the
18:14united states to simply stay out of
18:17things
18:18in military terms the pace of conflict
18:21uh has risen dramatically more and more
18:25nations
18:26maintaining standing armies uh
18:28transportation
18:29is improving the railroads have made
18:32things much easier
18:33to get around uh while we're not there
18:35yet we're not too
18:37far off from things like the automobile
18:40and the airplane and so where uh once
18:43wars took years and years to evolve and
18:46things played out very slowly
18:49in this era wars took place over simply
18:52a matter of
18:53weeks or months and as we will see that
18:56pace only quickens and so there's more
18:58and more
18:58pressure to be ready and to have a
19:01standing army and to have
19:03a capable navy and these sorts of things
19:06at the ready these ideas are
19:10further promoted by a new generation in
19:14american leadership the old civil war
19:16generation that had done things
19:18their way um cavalry and horseback and
19:23cannons and these sorts of things are
19:25now being replaced
19:27by a new younger generation that is much
19:29more in tune
19:30with the development of their day
19:34and we certainly see these things play
19:36out in our own society
19:38nowadays and in particular with
19:40technology i'm sure you all know
19:42you know sort of those of your
19:43grandparents generation
19:45who believe it or not didn't grow up
19:48with computers or cell phones or any of
19:50these things at their disposal
19:52and so they're perhaps slow to grab the
19:55opportunities that might be presented
19:57by contrast the younger generation those
20:00of your generation
20:02have grown up with computers in the home
20:05and with cell phones and all these
20:07technologies in hand
20:08and so you're much more ready and quick
20:10to adapt
20:11similar things were happening in the
20:131890s
20:15there's also a growing sense of
20:16patriotism mentioned on the previous
20:19slide these concerns about american
20:21stock well this leads many people
20:23to become sort of hyper patriotic uh
20:26proud flag waving americans and this
20:29kind of thought begins to penetrate
20:31america's diplomacy there comes to be a
20:34sense that we should literally be the
20:36flag bearers and the standard bearers
20:39carrying the stars and stripes and all
20:41of its greatness
20:42abroad i think we can carry this over
20:46into the growing acceptance of
20:48imperialist thought the idea that the
20:51united states
20:52should in fact become an imperial power
20:55should take colonies
20:58should lead the way into other parts of
21:01the world
21:03among the figures promoting this idea is
21:06the man
21:06pictured here whose name was alfred
21:09thayer mahan
21:10and mahan was another very prominent
21:13name at that time
21:15he had written what would become a very
21:16famous book
21:18about the prominence of the navy
21:21in world history and his argument was
21:24essentially that uh every great nation
21:28has a great and powerful navy and the
21:31united states
21:32uh needed to improve its navy if it were
21:36to become
21:37a great nation an extension of that
21:40thought
21:40according to mahan is that if we are
21:42going to have this great
21:44navy we need to have naval bases
21:47and naval stations around the world and
21:50so we need to look
21:51uh across the pacific to obtain
21:54uh islands and nations that could become
21:58naval bases we think of hawaii springing
22:01to mind but places like the philippines
22:03as well
22:03and we need to look to the caribbean to
22:06obtain
22:07places where we might station our navy
22:12a different argument but also supporting
22:16imperialism was the idea of social
22:19darwinism and we might also
22:20phrase this in terms of the white man's
22:23burden which we have
22:25talked about previously the argument
22:27again that
22:28those of white european stock
22:32are the leaders of the world they have
22:34the greatest intellect they
22:36have the right religion they understand
22:38technology they understand
22:40how the world needs to move forward and
22:43in fact it is
22:44our duty representing that group to
22:48uplift the rest of the world and to help
22:51and so we need to go
22:53to places like hawaii and the
22:54philippines and asia
22:56and latin america and bring with us all
22:59of our knowledge
23:01and the wonderful things that we can do
23:03again i've
23:04proposed to you a number of times
23:06already
23:08that this argument is rooted in racism
23:11you know who says that we do things the
23:14right way who says that these other
23:16nations
23:16aren't cultured and sophisticated and
23:19understand things but in fact we were
23:22saying that
23:23in that era i think a corollary to this
23:27is the idea of missionary zeal
23:30that there are those at the forefront of
23:32kind of carrying the american flag
23:34abroad
23:35but under the banner of christianity and
23:38converting
23:39uh the heathens in these far-flung
23:42nations around the world so it's a
23:43similar thought
23:44to social darwinism but with its own
23:47flavor
23:48so with all of these things moving us
23:51forward and urging us encouraging us to
23:54go to different places around the world
23:56and to spread our power and influence
23:58by the 1890s the united states while not
24:01a great power yet
24:03is on the brink and on the verge of
24:06becoming
24:07a noteworthy world power
24:14and so by the 1890s we might say
24:17that the old diplomacy has been pushed
24:21aside in favor
24:22of what one historian has described as
24:25the
24:25new diplomacy there are lots of things
24:28that work here but i'll just mention a
24:30couple of
24:31the highlights one phrase that this
24:33historian used
24:35to describe this new diplomacy a
24:37beautiful phrase is that
24:39system replaces spasm
24:42prior to the 1890s in terms of american
24:45diplomacy things had just sort of
24:47happened randomly the united states was
24:50always
24:50reacting to things and and any
24:53unpredictable
24:54event represented this just this sort of
24:57spasm
24:58that the country had to respond because
25:01we weren't
25:01really prepared for anything in
25:03particular by the 1890s
25:06uh there is becoming a system in place
25:10we are prepared for things and in fact
25:12the episode in hawaii
25:14in 1893 represents that the american
25:17military was there
25:18we were prepared in fact we had sort of
25:20been planning
25:21for uh an event like this in hawaii and
25:24when the moment
25:25arose we were prepared and ready to
25:28seize it
25:30related to this is the uh the grooming
25:33and creation of a new
25:34diplomatic core diplomats who were
25:38trained
25:40to be just that they were not
25:42necessarily just
25:43appointments of someone's friend or
25:46family member
25:47they are professionals in fact many of
25:50them have gone to school
25:51and have taken courses and learned
25:54languages and learned the history
25:56and culture of these nations they are
26:00instructed to behave professionally
26:03they are representatives of our nation
26:05abroad and so they can't be doing these
26:07wild unpredictable and at times awful
26:11things they need to behave responsibly
26:14professionally
26:15represent our nation well and so
26:18by the late 1890s the united states is
26:22in fact ready to forge ahead
26:25as a country of note in terms of
26:29world powers
26:40[Music]
26:54you

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of HIST 112 US 1877- present Chapter 19 Part 1 From the Old Diplomacy to the New by History Class with Dr. W, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 3,585 words across 689 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.