Historians use different analytical methods to make sense of the past. Some focus on social and economic issues, such as class conflict or who profits from a particular policy choice

Secondary Source 1 

Nell Irvin Painter, “The White Man’s Burden” (1989) 

The foreign markets explanation sought the cause of depressions not in currency, distribution of wealth, or monopoly. The culprit, it seemed, was agricultural and industrial overproduction. Americans produced too much, it was said; it seemed to matter little that during the recent hard times thousands had run out of the very foodstuffs and manufactured goods reputedly overproduced. What was needed were new markets, especially in Asia, especially in the most populous country in the world, China. . . .

While foreign markets had beckoned American businessmen for decades, this more urgent quest included the novel expectation that the government of the United States should play an active part in fostering exports. The Philippine Islands—like Hawaii—represented the perfect stepping-stones to China, stops along the way where coal burning ships bound for Asia could refuel. Expansionists saw the islands as the opportunity of the century. Manila might become an American version of Hong Kong, the British market city that tapped the markets and produce of South China. . . .

For many Americans, expansion was the inevitable result of the machine age that had already filled up the continental United States and now seemed to demand the raw materials and foreign markets that overseas colonies promised. The vision of factories fuming nonstop and workers employed without interruption made this economic argument for annexation straightforward and persuasive.

Source: Painter, Nell Irvin. Standing at Armageddon: The United States, 1877–1919. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989. 146–147.

Secondary Source 2 

Kristin L. Hoganson, “The National Manhood Metaphor” (1998) 

Whether they imagined the Filipinos as savages, children, or feminine figures, imperialists regarded them as a means for American men to develop their ability to govern. One adherent of imperialism summed up this belief when he averred that “the necessities involved in the unexpected annexation of strange dependencies will call forth the governing faculty.” The savage, childlike, and feminine stereotypes appealed to imperialists because they not only suggested the Filipinos’ incapacity for self-government, but also enabled imperialists to cast themselves as civilizers and authoritative heads of household—that is, as men who wielded power.

Heedful of British imperialists’ claims that empire made men and interpreting colonial endeavors as unparalleled challenges, imperialists looked to the Philippines to turn white, middle- and upper-class American men into what they considered to be ideal citizens—physically powerful men who would govern unmanly subordinates with a firm hand, men accustomed to wielding authority, men who had overcome the threat of degeneracy. . . . In response to the accusations that their Philippine policies violated the nation’s deepest convictions, imperialists brandished a national manhood metaphor.

The youthful republic had become an adult, they declared, and should assume the responsibilities of a mature man. Rather than dwelling on its childish past, the nation should manfully shoulder its new obligations. . . . . Imperialists implied that failing to assume responsibility for dependents would reveal an unwillingness to advance from childlike dependency to paternalistic power. In short, it would reveal a lack of manhood in the nation.

Source: Hoganson, Kristin L. Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine- American Wars. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. 155, 157.

Part 2: Using Primary Sources to Evaluate Secondary Sources 

When historians are faced with competing interpretations of the past, they often look at primary source material to help evaluate the different arguments. Four speeches follow, each by an American politician who supported U.S. annexation and rule over the Philippines. The first is from President William McKinley’s State of the Union speech following U.S. annexation of the Philippines and the start of the Philippine-American War.

The second is from Henry Cabot Lodge, a Republican senator from Massachusetts who was a leading supporter of American imperialism. The third speech is from Albert Beveridge, senator from Indiana, who supported Lodge’s imperialist policies. And the last speech, from Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, was delivered twelve days prior to assuming the presidency following McKinley&