7. A Navy Second to None

2018 ◽  
pp. 68-79
Author(s):  
Craig L. Symonds
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Ship Design ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
World War ◽  
Theodore Roosevelt ◽  
Naval Power ◽  
Roosevelt Administration ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. Navy thrived during the Theodore Roosevelt administration with several new battleships commissioned—the Great White Fleet—and the construction of the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914 just as Europe was tumbling into war. ‘A navy second to none: the U.S. Navy in World War I (1900–1939)’ describes the battles between the Allied and German navies and dramatic changes in ship design that redefined the index of naval power, including Britain’s development of the Dreadnought. It also outlines the impacts of the 1916 Big Navy Act, the 1922 Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty, and the 1934 Vinson–Trammel Act that overturned the interwar cutbacks.

An American Tropical Laboratory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Raby
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
World War ◽  
Spanish American War ◽  
Living Things ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Colonial Science

During the lead-up to the Spanish-American War, U.S. botanists looked with envy at the progress of European scientists, who had access to tropical colonies. They pushed for the creation of their own “American tropical laboratory.” Chapter 1 traces the origins of the U.S. tropical laboratory movement; the resulting rental of the station at Cinchona, Jamaica; and the first decade of research there by members of the founding generation of U.S. ecologists. This history reveals their range of motivations for engaging in tropical research, from the 1890s through the outbreak of World War I and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. The study of tropical organisms—with their diversity of forms and adaptations so foreign to those familiar with temperate flora and fauna—seemed to offer a path to a truly general understanding of living things. At the same time, U.S. botanists saw tropical research as the key to a place on the international scientific stage. U.S. botanists did not wait for state­sponsored colonial science. Driven by a distinct set of intellectual, cultural, and professional concerns, they were ready to filibuster for science to acquire an outpost for research in the Caribbean.

International Aviation Rivalry in Latin America, 1919-1927

1965 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley Phillips Newton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
World War I ◽  
Transportation Problem ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
World War ◽  
Early Form ◽  
Pan American

In Latin America, international rivalry over aviation followed World War I. In its early form, it consisted of a commercial scramble among several Western European nations and the United States to sell airplanes and aviation products and to establish airlines in Latin America. Somewhat later, expanding European aviation activities posed an implicit threat to the Panama Canal.Before World War I, certain aerophiles had sought to advance the airplane as the panacea for the transportation problem in Latin America. The aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont of Brazil and the Aero Club of America, an influential private United States association, were in the van. In 1916, efforts by these enthusiasts led to the formation of the Pan American Aviation Federation, which they envisioned as the means of promoting and publicizing aviation throughout the Western Hemisphere.

The Unraveling

2021 ◽  
pp. 69-90
Author(s):  
David Bosco
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
World War ◽  
Labor Regulations ◽  
Naval Power ◽  
The World

The world wars of the 20th century saw the collapse of pre-war rules designed to protect merchant shipping from interference. In both wars, combatants engaged in unrestricted submarine warfare and imposed vast ocean exclusion zones, leading to unprecedented interference with ocean commerce. After World War I, the United States began to supplant Britain as the leading naval power, and it feuded with Britain over maritime rights. Other developments in the interwar period included significant state-sponsored ocean research, including activity by Germany in the Atlantic and the Soviets in the Arctic. Maritime commerce was buffeted by the shocks of the world wars. Eager to trim costs, US shipping companies experimented with “flags of convenience” to avoid new national safety and labor regulations. The question of the breadth of the territorial sea remained unresolved, as governments bickered about the appropriate outer limit of sovereign control.

The Battle for a Dry America

2021 ◽  
pp. 487-526
Author(s):  
Mark Lawrence Schrad
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Third Party ◽  
World War ◽  
Theodore Roosevelt ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
The World ◽  
To Come ◽  
One Year

Chapter 17 examines the Anti-Saloon League’s pivot to pressing for the Eighteenth (Prohibition) Amendment. In 1912 former president Theodore Roosevelt ran as a third-party Progressive against his handpicked Republican successor, William Howard Taft, as Taft had undermined Roosevelt’s signature Pure Food and Drug Act, which included purity standards on alcohol. The electoral split gave the presidency to Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who was agnostic toward prohibition. World War I and the accompanying “cult of military sobriety” strengthened prohibitionist sentiment, while the election of 1916 secured the legislative supermajorities needed for a prohibition amendment. Once passed in December 1917, the amendment was ratified with unprecedented speed by January 1919, to come into effect one year later. In the meantime, drys pushed for a “wartime prohibition” until demobilization was complete. With prohibition in America secured, activists looked abroad through the World League Against Alcoholism (WLAA) and its chief emissary, Pussyfoot Johnson.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas I. Faith
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Chemical Warfare ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Institutional History ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

This book documents the institutional history of the Chemical Warfare Service (CWS), the U.S. Army organization responsible for chemical warfare, from its origins in 1917 through Amos A. Fries's departure as CWS chief in 1929. It examines the U.S. chemical warfare program as it developed before the nation began sending soldiers to fight in France during World War I; the American Expeditionary Force's experiences with poison gas on the Western Front; the CWS's struggle to continue its chemical weapons program in a hostile political environment after the war; and CWS efforts to improve its public image as well as its reputation in the military in the first half of the 1920s. The book concludes with an assessment of the CWS's successes and failures in the second half of the 1920s. Through the story of the CWS, the book shows how the autonomy of the military-industrial complex can be limited when policymakers are confronted with pervasive, hostile public opinion.

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