Guadian

Joseph Guadian

Jennifer Macas

HIST-1700-508-F17

22 November 2017

US Events that Shaped America, 1900-1945

There have been many events that shape this country in many ways. The history of the

US has been one that does not just impact this great Nation, but also around the world with its

movements and policies. In this essay I would like to focus on three events that made an impact

on the US history, The Panama Canal in 1901, The Square Deal in 1904, and the Roosevelt and

Wilsons Foreign Policy. These three events have a great brunt on the US between 1900-1945.

During 1900 to 1945 at the time of the progressive era. Many changes happen that

shaped the US. In the 1900s Roosevelt was originally Vice President to William McKinley and

in 1901 Pres. McKinley assassinated and that cause for Roosevelt to be president. During his

presidency Roosevelt wanted to take power from rich business to everyday Americans, thats

when he delivers the Square Deal. Meaning that everyone will have an equal chance to succeed

in society. There are several parts to the Square Deal. The trust-busting, labor, and regulation,

the consumer health, and last the Nature Conservation. All these changes have been a benefit to

the US even in our days. For that reason, we have national forest and labor regulation to help the

everyday American.

The event at this time is the Panama Canal of 1903. The US provided military on the

border of Panama and Colombia to help Panama to succeed from Colombia. The US took the

project and begin the work to build the Panama Canal because this project was abandoned by the

French. According to Ramsey Clark in an interview he said that Pres. Roosevelt did not ask for
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the 3-mile stretch canal he took it. During this project, the US imported cheap labor from the

Caribbean, Asia, and India. This change the racial makeup of the country. The cause of the

diversity the segregation between the natives and the blacks.

The last event that I want to talk about is the Woodrows Wilson Foreign Policy in 1913.

The Foreign Policy is the way one country deals with other governments. One change that

Roosevelt added to the foreign policy is that the US now had the right to interfere in Latin

America affairs to prevent troubles from Europe countries. However, in 1913 Wilson had a

different approach to the foreign policy. Wilsons view was that American values were superior

to those of the rest of the world. According to the textbook;

Furthering his goal of reducing overseas interventions, Wilson had promised not

to rely on the Roosevelt Corollary, Theodore Roosevelts explicit policy that the

United States could involve itself in Latin American politics whenever it felt that

the countries in the Western Hemisphere needed policing. Once president,

however, Wilson found that it was more difficult to avoid American

interventionism in practice than in rhetoric. Indeed, Wilson intervened more in

western hemisphere affairs than either Taft or Roosevelt.

This foreign policy had a disturbing impact on the people from Panama because of the

increase of military in the Panama Canal and that affected the people of Panama. Also because of

the cheap labor that was brought to the Panama Canal black had to deal with being the minority

and lower class of the citizens of Panama.

In conclusion, there are many events that change the lives of people during the 1900s to

1945. The beginning of the wars and battles that were fought by the diversity of many nations.

Women, children and separation of families nationwide. The lives of people changed for ever.
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Work cited

2014 Rice University. Textbook content produced by OpenStax College is licensed

under a Creative Commons, Attribution 4.0 International License.

YouTube video on Foreign Policy/ fcpsbsnadeau, Published on Dec 15, 2014