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Gerald F. Linderman in The Mirror of War, (1974), wrote that the "Splendid Little War" served as a watershed in American history. To understand the war, according to Linderman, the public must focus on the social consensus in the 1890s that made the war possible. It was McKinley's predicament that the nation, abetted by the popular press, clamored for war, whereas the president, if left alone, would have avoided a clash at all costs. McKinley had sought to heal the nation's wounds still evident from the American Civil War, but "the last of the Civil War's soldiers to sit in the White House could preserve that work only at the price of another war." John Offner in An Unwanted War: The Diplomacy of the United States and Spain Over Cuba, 1895-1898, (1992) showed that the United States, Spain, and Cuba did not want war. Washington's and Madrid's courses of action were limited by domestic considerations. Few of those involved fully understood the consequences of those policies. As a result, a war ensued that no one wanted but one that was the only conceivable remedy to the diplomatic impasse in April 1898. Paul Kennedy in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, (1987) argued that the U.S. was propelled by a momentum of forces that started with its industrial revolution and grew stronger with expansion and foreign trade. By 1900, the U.S. had 30% of the world's industrial production making it the number one industrial power, with a growth rate of 5% per year. Emily Rosenberg in Spreading the American Dream, (1982) described the creation of a "promotional state" in which the federal government asisted "functionals" such as missionaries, big navalists, steamship entrepreneurs, industrial capitalists, bankers and upper class "cosmopolitans" to promote imperialism.
Hugh Thomas in Cuba: or, the Pursuit of Freedom, (1971), a classic account of Cuba's quest for national liberation, puts the long Cuban revolutionary tradition in historical context from the birth of the independence movement to the rise of Fidel Castro. Two modern revolutionaries emerged from that milieu, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, who was Castro's ideologue and the embodiment of Latin American revolution. Robert Quirk's Fidel Castro, (1993) remains the best single-volume examination of Castro to date, and Jon Anderson's Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, (1997) offers readers rare glimpses into the modern Cuban revolution.
The popular zeal for the Spanish-American War offered the opportunity to rally around the flag both literally and symbolically. According to historian John Bodnar in Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century, (1992) , "As American society simultaneously became more integrated economically and more diverse culturally, an attempt was made to fashion patriotic symbols that would appeal to the broadest possible segment of the nation." Certainly the vivid illustrations and headlines of the new mass media provided something of this sort. So did a revived "cult of the flag" that emerged in the late nineteenth century and raised veneration for the Stars and Stripes as a national emblem to a new level. The march music of John Philip Sousa matched the rise of patriotism and nationalism. The song "Hot Time In the Old Town" became the anthem of Roosevelt's Rough Riders and one of the most popular songs of the war era.
National identity also infiltrated everyday life in less overt but more pervasive ways through the objects of daily existence, including clothing. Consumers for the most part accepted the mix of consumption and patriotism, buying red, white, and blue ribbons, neckwear, fans, hatbands, parasols, vest chains, walking canes--even garters and petticoats. They purchased suspenders with portraits of Admiral Dewey or images of the battleship Maine woven into the design; they wore belt buckles ornamented with eagles, swords, and flags. They bought veils with "all styles of red, white and blue chenille dots and borders"; tri-color shirtwaists and straw hats; handkerchiefs in red, white, and blue; and handkerchiefs with Dewey's portrait or depictions of the American and Cuban flags. They wore badges and emblems shaped like military decorations; they favored faux military buttons on belts, cufflinks, studs, and hat pins; they used lace pins topped with tiny knapsacks and flags--in short, war motifs appeared on nearly every type of personal clothing or object. Fashion cut and detail were also affected, as garments began to appear trimmed a la militaire. An advertisement in the Ladies' Home Journal declared that military-style capes were "a necessary article in the wardrobe of patriotic American women," and fashion columnists recommended adding a military collar decorated with fiat gold braid and brass stars to bring the previous year's outerwear and dresses up to date. Cavalry caps were popular as casual headwear for both women and children. Bunting, the worsted material used to make flags, gained favor as dress material. Popular colors included army gray, army blue, and army red, as well as navy blue, artillery red, cadet gray, battle gray, and later "Sampson blue" and "rough rider brown," after Admiral William Sampson and Theodore Roosevelt's famous volunteer regiment, respectively. The war was in general good for American business, helping sustain the post-depression recovery that had begun in 1897, and even the 3% telephone tax imposed to pay for the war did not stop the rapid growth of the Bell network.
Eric Hobsbawm in The Age of Empire 1875-1914, (1987) cites uncertainty and the rapid growth of urban centers in both Europe and the United States as fundamental to the expansionist impulse. As a consequence of the breakdown of the worldwide liberal order, politicians encouraged imperialism as a means to subsidize the reforms that the public in Britain, France, and Germany expected to resolve domestic social questions. Imperialism gave the elites a new legitimacy. For the United States, according to Hobsbawm, "American imperialism mobilized guns successfully against Spain in 1898 . . . and the gun-toting cowboy became the symbol of true Americanism, freedom, and native white tradition against the invading immigrants and the uncontrollable big city." Although some women participated in the military and African American soldiers fought under John J. Pershing, the long-term effect of the war was to keep women and blacks out of the military.
Thomas Schlereth in Victorian America: Transformations in Everyday Life, (1991) offers a vivid picture of home life for Americans during that transitional period in American history. As cities and the middle class expanded, commercial institutions emerged to provide the services people wanted. Schlereth examines consumer patterns and the evolution of the department store as symbolic of the new America. Motion picture films and magic lanterns provided new commercial entertainment. As Americans in general sought improvements in their everyday existence, many men turned their attention to spectator sports, either as participants or observers. The strenous life was elevated to a national standard by Theodore Roosevelt. Boxing became a major preoccupation for American men, and John L. Sullivan was portrayed by the National Police Gazette as America's first national sports hero. Randy Roberts in Papa Jack: Jack Johnson and the Era of White Hopes, (1983) contrasts Sullivan's popularity with the challenge of Jack Johnson; because of the racial stereotypes of Victorian America, his skill as an athlete never was appreciated by the public. In time, baseball overtook boxing as the major spectator sport. Organized sports, such as American football and baseball, not only separated the privileged from the workers but also served as means for American men to demonstrate their manhood.
As a consequence of the Splendid Little War, the pan-americanism pioneered by James G. Blaine declined. U.S. administrations believed that they had carte blanche to intervene in the Caribbean. Lester Langley in The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean 1898-1934, (1985) and Ivan Musicant in The Banana Wars: A History of United States Military Intervention in Latin America from the Spanish-American War to the Invasion of Panama, (1990) recount the record of American intervention as the United States sought to maintain the Monroe Doctrine. With the dawn of the Cold War, American intervention took on additional meaning, as national security became of paramount concern for American administrations. The era of the good neighbor policy was over, and the ugly specter of gunboat diplomacy had returned. The Reagan Doctrine during the 1980s justified intervention in Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra scandal. The PBS documentary Frontline in 1985 produced a 4-part series on the history of American interventions, starting with the first episode on "The Yankee Years." Only in the 1990s did NAFTA and Clinton begin a return to pan-americanism.