Expansionism

Farm Protest 459 During the post-civil war period, many farmers, black and white, began organizing. Farmers in the Midwest and near city markets adjusted to the new economic conditions. The new problems of southern and western farmers produced the first mass organization of farmers in American History. The earliest effort to organize white farmers came in 1867 when Oliver Kelley founded the Order of the Patrons of Husbandry. By 1875 800,000 had joined Kelley?s organization, known as the …

…at approximately the same rate as missionary activity. For the first time in American history, public opinion on international issues helped shape presidential politics. The psychological tensions and economic hardship of the 1890s depression jarred national self-confidence. Politics, then joined profits, patriotism, and piety in motivating the expansion of the 1890s. These four impulses interacted to produce the Spanish American War, the annexation of the Philippine Island, and the foreign policy of President Theodore Roosevelt.