Episode 8: William McKinley

A full transcript for this episode can be found here.

Show Notes

Overview:

Today’s episode is all about William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States, the president who brought the country into the twentieth century and whose death left the nation in the hands of one of the all-time-great leaders, and characters, in American history, Theodore Roosevelt. Historians typically view McKinley’s time in office as a moment of visible transformation, as the country entered the new century more industrialized, urban, and globally powerful than ever before. And even more so by the time he left office. One example: as we’ve discussed in depth so far this season, American historians typically divide our past, and more important our survey courses, with reconstruction at 1877. Foreign policy historians typically use 1898 instead. On this episode we’ll learn why this moment was so pivotal, but also why the politics and economics of the McKinley age in many ways starkly resemble our own.

Here’s a quick refresher on McKinley. Born in Ohio in 1843 and devoutly religious, at the age of 18 he enlisted in the Ohio Regiment when the Civil War broke out, and served under none other than the subject of one of our earlier episodes, Rutherford B. Hayes. The youngest Civil War veteran to become president, he was also the nation’s last.

After the war ended, he trained as a lawyer, before his election to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he was instrumental in securing passage of the….wait for it….McKinley Tariff of 1890, which imposed a 50% tariff on imports to protect domestic industries. The tariff’s unpopularly led to his defeat in 1890, but proving that timing is everything, he used his time outside of Washington first to win the Governor’s mansion in Ohio, but more significantly, to avoid any hint of responsibility for the terrible economic crisis, a depression really, that began in 1893. Three years later, he was President of the United States.

His election has grown in importance over time as the start of some significant patterns in American history, including rapid economic growth, a further division between urban and rural political agendas, and what would prove a Republican lock on the Electoral College until 1932, with the important exception of 1912 and 16, which we’ll get to in a few weeks. He also led the nation to an overwhelming victory over Spain in the Spanish-American war, what John Hay, his Secretary of State—and a man who’d once been Abraham Lincoln’s secretary—famously dubbed “a splendid little war.” By its end the U.S. had widely expanded its global footprint, and taken control of former Spanish colonies such as Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and simultaneously annexed the Republic of Hawaii.

On his watch, Americans became something they’d long feared: an empire, of the kind they’d fought against in the Revolutionary War, criticized the Spanish, French, and British for their imperial practices, and issued proclamations denouncing the role of empires in the western hemisphere. Already this season we’ve seen the difficulty the constitution often faced when pushed into new territories; now, for the first time in a real way, it was pushed overseas.

With a booming economy and victorious war record, McKinley won an easy re-election in 1900, but his second term was cut short on September 6, 1901, when he was shot by an anarchist assassin. He died eight days later.

Today we will learn from two experts today why McKinley’s administration marked such a turning point in American history. Together, these conversations highlighted three critical themes:

First, the relationship, and frankly the ingrained tension, between democracy and empire.
Second, why we can’t understand this relationship between the presidency and foreign policy without integrating the critical issue of race, and frankly without confronting some unpleasant truths about white supremacy’s role in American foreign policy during this period.
Third, the amazing parallels between the end of the nineteenth century and today, especially the debates over immigration, statehood, and citizenship.

Guest 1: Dr. Daniel Immerwahr

Dr. Daniel Immerwahr received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University, where he studied history and philosophy. He returned to the United States to get a doctoral degree in history at the University of California, Berkeley, studying under the intellectual historian David Hollinger. His dissertation won the Allan Nevins Prize in American Economic History from the Economic History Association, and it received honorable mention for the Betty M. Unterberger Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

In fall 2012, Dr. Immerwahr joined Northwestern University's history department. His first book, Thinking Small (Harvard, 2015), offers a critical account of the United States' pursuit of grassroots development at home and abroad in the middle of the twentieth century. It won the Merle Curti Prize in Intellectual History from the Organization of American Historians and was the co-winner of the Annual Book Prize from the Society for U.S. Intellectual History. Also, in 2015 he received the Stuart L. Bernath Lecture Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, given every year to a younger scholar for "excellence in teaching and research in the field of foreign relations."

His second book, How to Hide an Empire (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019) is about the United States' territorial empire: colonies, occupation zones, and military bases. It was a national bestseller, one of the New York Times critic's top books of the year, and the finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize. He received two year-long fellowships to complete it. One, from the National Endowment for the Humanities, funded a year of research at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Another, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, funded the completion of the book.

He is now researching urban environmental catastrophes of the nineteenth century.

His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The New Republic, The Guardian, The Nation, Slate, Diplomatic History, Modern Intellectual History, the Journal of the History of Ideas, the Journal of African Cultural Studies, Modern American History, Jacobin, n+1, and Dissent, among other venues.

Follow Dr. Immerwahr on Twitter.

Guest 2: Dr. Richard Maass

Dr. Maass is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Evansville (UE) specializing in International Relations (IR), including international security, U.S. foreign policy, terrorism, and diplomatic history. He teaches a range of IR courses to the students at UE, and is constantly thinking about new ways to engage student learning in these fascinating subjects. His first book, which explores how democracy and xenophobia limited U.S. territorial expansion, was published by Cornell University Press on May 15, 2020.

The Picky Eagle: How Democracy and Xenophobia Limited U.S. Territorial Expansion

His second book, an edited volume under contract with the University of Michigan Press, explores variations in the U.S. relationship with international law and will be published in 2021. Dr. Maass earned his Ph.D. in 2013 from the University of Notre Dame. He has published research in journals such as Diplomatic History, International Security, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Historical Methods, and regularly present research on panels at the annual conferences of the American Political Science Association and the International Studies Association, as well as other conferences. He has also taught and presented research overseas, including at Harlaxton College in the United Kingdom and at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs in the Republic of Georgia.

Follow Dr. Maass on Twitter.

Call to Action:

If you’ve enjoyed the podcast, don’t forget to leave a review on your favorite podcast app and share with friends, family, and colleagues!

Show Notes

Overview:

Guest 1: Dr. Daniel Immerwahr

Guest 2: Dr. Richard Maass

Call to Action:

Further Readings

Episode 9: Theodore Roosevelt

Episode 7: Grover Cleveland and Benjamin Harrison