Justifying_American_Expansion

Justifying American Expansion The 1904 St. Louis Exposition brought a tangible worldly exhibit to the United States. Through the biased photographs taken of the Exposition, we can see how Americans attempted to justify the imperial power status by maintaining economic prosperity, spreading religious influence and social Darwinism. Sources 1 to 3 are photos depicting portions of the actual Exposition. The Palaces of Varied Industries, Liberal Arts, Machinery, and Electricity with a Ferris wheel are shown. When looking upon these photographs, we feel a sense of American prowess and majestic presence. These huge palaces look as if they were built for the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. There are enormous columns with rounded arches, statues, and domes that characterize the classicism of the Renaissance. Classicism is defined as the rebirth of Roman art techniques. I feel as if the Americans are trying to parallel themselves to the Romans who proved to be a very dominant and advanced empire; they took over many city-states with their “divide and conquer” method. This same overwhelming presence was seen in economic affairs. “The apparent cycle of economic depressions (1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893) made some businesspeople believe that American prosperity could americans, american, white, visayan, through, economic, cultures, united, tribes, survival, states, social, religious, photographs, palaces, one, influence, foreign, exposition, duty, darwinism, way, viewer, thought, themselves, sources, since, should, scientific, same, roman, prosperity, presence, photos, photographer