Inter-American Trade in the Early 1870s— A State Department Survey
1977 ◽
Vol 33
(4)
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pp. 593-612
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Keyword(s):
A hundred years ago the United States had one of the worst depressions in its history. The disastrous drop in wages, prices, and output threw the mid-1870s into deep gloom and made the Centennial celebrations of 1876 seem to many persons no more than a bad joke. In subsequent years no one found a permanent cure for depressions, but during the late 1870s and 1880s a conviction developed that the Federal government must do more to aid American foreign trade. Thereafter the State Department cooperated increasingly with American business to expand the nation’s influence abroad.