An American Empire, 1865–1916 - Virginia's Diplomats

At the end of the Civil War, the United States could concentrate on subduing Native Americans, settling the West, and exploiting its natural resources to fuel the industrial revolution.

By 1885, the United States had pulled ahead of Great Britain as the world's greatest industrial power. It resisted the temptation to turn its power into global influence and remained focused on its newly acquired territories and other domestic priorities.

Those interests changed in 1898, however, when the battleship USS Maine exploded in Havana harbor and the U.S. press blamed Spain for the deaths of more than 266 American sailors. Popular pressure pushed the Congress to declare war. By the end of the Spanish-American War, Cuba became independent of Spain and the United States acquired Puerto Rico and the Philippines.

Many Americans claimed the war had been fought for human rights against a repressive Spanish colonial regime and that American imperial control of Puerto Rico and the Philippines was only temporary and intended to prepare both for eventual independence. Other Americans, including Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie, deplored that America, born of a colonial struggle against an imperial power had itself become an empire.

John Mercer Langston (1829–1897)

Photograph of John Mercer Langston
(Virginia Historical Society)

Desk owned by Thomas Nelson Page (1853–1922)

Desk or bureau à Mazarin, Italy, twentieth-century reproduction of a seventeenth-century original inlaid with ivory, bone, and mother-of-pearl. Formerly owned by Thomas Nelson Page.
(Virginia Historical Society, Gift of Miss Elizabeth Medinger)

Valise owned by John Singleton Mosby (1833–1916)

Valise used by Mosby while traveling in Asia.
(Courtesy of Colonel Ralph M. Mitchell)

Silver cup owned by John Singleton Mosby (1833–1916)

Silver cup given to John Singleton Mosby by U.S. merchants in Hong Kong.
(Courtesy of Colonel Ralph M. Mitchell)

To the right of the cup is John Singleton Mosby's carte de visite.
(Virginia Historical Society, Gift of Admiral Beverly Mosby Coleman)

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