How the United States Became a World Power

Orientation

By 1920, the United States occupied a different position in the world than it had in 1877. The project question asks you to select events that explain that transformation and decide whether change was gradual, deliberate, fortuitous, contrary to public desire—or some combination.

Five famous events are not automatically five explanatory events. Choose turning points that reveal mechanisms.

Skill: Build a causal chain

For each candidate:

Prior condition → decision or event → mechanism of change → immediate consequence → expanded capacity or altered identity → connection to the next development

Limited example: The Spanish-American War may be a turning point because it resulted in overseas possessions and a public debate over empire. But naming the war does not explain transformation. You would need to connect military capacity, commercial interests, ideology, policy choices, resistance, and consequences in places such as the Philippines and Cuba.

Evidence trail

• William McKinley on American Expansionism
• William James on “The Philippine Question”
• Mark Twain, “The War Prayer”
• Woodrow Wilson Requests War
• The Sedition Act of 1918

Strategic hints

• “Deliberate” requires decision-makers, objectives, and action.
• “Fortuitous” requires an opportunity or consequence not fully intended.
• Public desire was heterogeneous. Identify which public, which moment, and what evidence.
• An event belongs in your five only if removing it would weaken your explanation.
• Connect foreign power to domestic identity, institutions, and dissent.

Running-outline checkpoint

Choose six candidate events. For each, write the mechanism connecting it to increased American global power. Eliminate one event whose mechanism is weakest, then arrange the remaining five into a connected story rather than a list.