Nurse Practitioner Core Competencies Content A delineati.docx

Nurse Practitioner Core Competencies Content
A delineation of suggested content specific to the NP core
competencies
2014
Updated May 2017*
NP Core Competencies Content Work Group
Anne Thomas (Chair), PhD, ANP-BC, GNP, FAANP
M. Katherine Crabtree, DNSc, APN-BC, FAAN
Kathleen Delaney, PhD, PMH-NP, FAAN
Mary Anne Dumas, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, GNP-BC, FAANP,
FAAN
Ruth Kleinpell, PhD, RN, FAAN, FCCM
Julie Marfell, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, FAANP
Donna Nativio, PhD, CRNP, FAAN, FAANP
Kimberly Udlis, PhD, FNP-BC, APNP
Andrea Wolf, DNP, CRNP
Acknowledgments: NONPF also wishes to recognize members
of the Curricular Leadership Committee who provided review
and comment on

the draft document. The comments from the following people
shaped the final document: Susan Buchholz, Holly Dileo, Kathy
Dontje, Judith
Haber, Ann Marie Hart, Kathleen Reeve, Susan Ruppert, Susan
Schaffer, and Courtney Young.
* The updates made to the 2014 Nurse Practitioner Core
Competencies Content publication updates the competencies to
align with the 2016
Adult-Gerontology Acute Care And Primary Care NP
Competencies.
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Nurse Practitioner Core Competencies
with Suggested Curriculum Content
In the development of the nurse practitioner (NP) population-
focused competencies, a task force had extensive discussions of
competencies vs.
content. The task force concluded that it would be beneficial
to programs if some content could be included as exemplars of
how to support
curriculum development for addressing a competency. Within
the 2013 edition of the NP population-focused competencies,
the final column in

each population’s competency table presents the respective
competency work group’s ideas of relevant content.
In 2014, NONPF convened a work group to identify the
suggested curriculum content for the NP Core Competencies.
This work group consisted
of members of the task force that prepared the 2011 edition of
the NP Core Competencies, as well as additional representation
from the NONPF
Board and Curricular Leadership Committee. A sub-group of
the NONPF Curricular Leadership Committee completed a
review of the draft
content, and the work group incorporated the review feedback
into the final document presented herein. Please see the cover
page for a list of
work group members and an acknowledgment of the reviewers.
In 2016 the Adult-Gerontology Acute Care And Primary Care
NP Competencies document was completed. This document was
updated in May
2017 to align with the 2016 Adult-Gerontology Acute Care And
Primary Care NP Competencies.
The table that follows includes the NP Core Competencies and a
list of suggested curriculum content. NONPF does not intend
for the requirement
of all of this content, nor is the content list comprehensive for
all that a program would cover with population-focused
competencies. The content

column reflects only suggestions for content relative to the core
competencies. This document should be used in combination
with the population-
focused competencies.
Competency
Area
NP Core Competencies
Curriculum Content to Support Competencies
Neither required nor comprehensive, this list reflects
only suggested content specific to the core
competencies
Scientific
Foundation
Competencies
1. Critically analyzes data and evidence for improving
advanced nursing practice.
2. Integrates knowledge from the humanities and sciences
within the context of nursing science.
Comparison of patient data sets with evidence-based standards
to

improve care
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Competency
Area
competencies
3. Translates research and other forms of knowledge to
improve practice processes and outcomes.
4. Develops new practice approaches based on the integration
of research, theory, and practice knowledge.
Scientific foundations to practice, including, but not limited to,
knowledge of advanced pathophysiology, pharmacology,
physiology,
genetics, and communication skills

Science from other disciplines relevant to health care
Theories/conceptual frameworks/principles for practice:
• Translational research that guides practice
• Critical evaluation of research findings
• Mid-range nursing theories and concepts to guide nursing
practice
• Evidence-based care
• Physiologic
• Communication
• Developmental
• Genetic
• Behavior change
• Population health
Critical thinking development:
• Evidence appraisal
• Formulating a practice problem
• Use of science-based theories and concepts to assess,
enhance, and ameliorate health care delivery phenomena

• Use of PICO questions to initiate research and quality
improvement projects
Qualitative and quantitative research and quality improvement
methods
Ethical and legal protection of human subjects
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Competency
Area
competencies
Inquiry processes and practices related to health literacy,
vulnerable
populations, and culture
Monitoring of health outcomes
Leadership
Competencies

1. Assumes complex and advanced leadership roles to initiate
and guide change.
2. Provides leadership to foster collaboration with multiple
stakeholders (e.g. patients, community, integrated health
care teams, and policy makers) to improve health care.
3. Demonstrates leadership that uses critical and reflective
thinking.
4. Advocates for improved access, quality and cost effective
health care.
5. Advances practice through the development and
implementation of innovations incorporating principles of
change.
6. Communicates practice knowledge effectively, both orally
and in writing.
7. Participates in professional organizations and activities that

influence advanced practice nursing and/or health
outcomes of a population focus.
Content related to:
• Crisis management and leadership
• Stress management (for staff and patient/family)
• Teams and teamwork, including team leadership, building
effective teams, and nurturing team
Leadership, change, and management theories with application
to
practice
Political processes, political decision making processes, and
health
care advocacy
Problem solving:
• Influencing and negotiation
• Conflict management
• Strategic thinking
• Managing change
Business development:
• High reliability organization principles

• Building and maintaining effective teams
• Project management concepts
• Principles of effective decision making
• Principles of change management
• Civility
• Principles of innovation
Communications:
• Scholarly writing, manuscript, and abstract preparation
• Structuring and presenting persuasive arguments
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Competency
Area

competencies
Peer review:
• Publications
• Presentations
• Research
• Practice.
Leadership development:
• Skills to influence decision-making bodies at the system,
state, or national level
• Interprofessional leadership
• Assuming leadership positions in professional, political, or
regulatory organizations
• Structure and functions of editorial/board roles
• Ethical and critical decision making, effective working
relationships, and a systems-perspective
Concepts of strategic planning process
Leadership styles
How to lead change in practice, manage practice changes
• Monitoring implementation and fidelity

• Adaptation of change to patients, providers and
organizational needs and resources
• Interim feedback on achievements and efficiencies
• Interpretation of data and articulating evidence
Self-reflection of leadership style e.g., personal leadership
strengths
and weaknesses; working with diverse skills sets and diverse
teams
Quality
Competencies
1. Uses best available evidence to continuously improve
quality of clinical practice.
Quality Safety Education in Nursing (QSEN) principles and
content
Evaluation of outcomes of care such as quality improvement
projects
with an evaluation component
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Competency

Area
competencies
2. Evaluates the relationships among access, cost, quality, and
safety and their influence on health care.
3. Evaluates how organizational structure, care processes,
financing, marketing, and policy decisions impact the
quality of health care.
4. Applies skills in peer review to promote a culture of
excellence.
5. Anticipates variations in practice and is proactive in
implementing interventions to ensure quality
Reflective practice
Culture of safety

Quality improvement processes and practices
Knowledge of quality improvement methods such as:
• Plan-Do-Study Act
• Six Sigma
Cost benefit analysis
Peer review process
• Reviewer
• Reviewee
Collaborative team processes and practices
Leadership skills for leading change for quality clinical practice
Methods and measures of quality assurance during transitions of
care
Laws and rules to enhance quality such as
• Meaningful use
• Federal, state, and local quality data sources and indicators
Practice Inquiry
Competencies
1. Provides leadership in the translation of new knowledge

into practice.
2. Generates knowledge from clinical practice to improve
practice and patient outcomes.
3. Applies clinical investigative skills to improve health
outcomes.
4. Leads practice inquiry, individually or in partnership with
Leadership for role in practice improvement
Clinical investigation strategies:
• Identifying clinical practice problems
• Appraising evidence for application to practice (e.g., design,
methods, tools, analysis)
• Literature search methods, including, but not limited to, the
PICO Model to define a clinical questions and search for the
best clinical evidence
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Competency
Area

competencies
others.
5. Disseminates evidence from inquiry to diverse audiences
using multiple modalities.
6. Analyzes clinical guidelines for individualized application
into
practice
Use of electronic databases, such as electronic health records:
• Assessing clinical practice
• Reviewing patient technology
• Exploring behaviors and risk factors
• Using data to support evidence based changes in clinical
management

• Template development
Patient management, including, but not limited to, discerning
gaps in
care and barriers to care needing resolution during patient
encounters
Project development and management:
• Synthesis and translation/extrapolation of research to
selected populations
• Frameworks to guide projects
• Quality improvement methods
• Assessment of resources needed and available for projects
• Competing priorities of patients, payers, providers, and
suppliers
• Data-based, needs assessment for project
• Processes used in conducting projects based on current
and best evidence, including evaluation of the application of
evidence or inquiry to the population of concern
• Evaluation of outcomes (for health status of patient and
population as well as system outcomes)
• Evaluation of why expected results were or were not
attained and lessons learned

• Making recommendations for further work
• Addressing issues of sustainability of project findings
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Competency
Area
competencies
Dissemination of work and findings:
• Abstract and manuscript writing to support the
dissemination of project/research outcomes
• Discussion of clinically meaningful results that may or may
not be statistically significant
• Presentation skill development with modification for different
audiences

Integration of findings:
• Results, methods, and tools, as appropriate, into care
delivery
• Identification of best practices
• Opportunities for multidisciplinary team/inter-professional
collaboration for patient care
• Development and use of clinical guidelines
• Use of clinical judgment to improve practice
• Application of evidence to validate or change policy
Evaluation of alternative care delivery models and treatments,
including costs, cost benefits, and return on investment
Institutional review board policies and processes
Interprofessional research and scholarship exemplars and
opportunities
Technology and
Information
Literacy
Competencies
1. Integrates appropriate technologies for knowledge
management to improve health care.
2. Translates technical and scientific health information

appropriate for various users’ needs.
Technology available in clinical practice:
• Electronic resources that identify current evidenced-based
care
• Electronic resources that enhance patient safety
• Technological care delivery systems
• Telehealth
• Information databases used by health care systems
• Electronic communication with other professionals and
patients
• Encrypted and unencrypted technology
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Competency
Area

competencies
2.a Assesses the patient’s and caregiver’s educational
needs to provide effective, personalized health care.
2.b Coaches the patient and caregiver for positive
behavioral change.
3. Demonstrates information literacy skills in complex decision
making.
4. Contributes to the design of clinical information systems
that promote safe, quality and cost effective care.
5. Uses technology systems that capture data on variables
for the evaluation of nursing care.
• Electronic resources to support differential diagnosis,
algorithmic thinking, and medical record review
• Templates for documentation in nursing care
• Use of electronic datasets to evaluate practice and improve
quality, cost, and efficiency of care

Technology available to support education:
• Standardized patient encounters
• Electronic/computer based learning modules based on
characteristics such as cultural literacy, educational level,
and home assessment
• Coaching/teaching resources adapted to population, health
literacy, and age of patient learning styles,
• Age-appropriate concepts and development of educational
tools
• Use of applications for references at point of care
Using telehealth to provide care for the adult population,
considering
benefits, methods, differences, and regulatory issues.
IT resources such as:
• Informatics competencies from Technology Informatics
Guiding Education Reform (TIGER) initiative
• American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)
Use of electronic communication methods, including social
media,
with healthcare professionals, patients, families, and caregivers
Compliance issues related to patient privacy with use of
technology

Population-appropriate clinical indicators for incorporation into
information systems, such as electronic health records
Use of technologies to monitor and evaluate clinical problems,
e.g.
• Blood pressure
• Vital signs
• Glucose
• Weight
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Competency
Area
competencies
Policy
Competencies

1. Demonstrates an understanding of the interdependence of
policy and practice.
2. Advocates for ethical policies that promote access, equity,
quality, and cost.
3. Analyzes ethical, legal, and social factors influencing policy
development.
4. Contributes in the development of health policy.
5. Analyzes the implications of health policy across disciplines.
6. Evaluates the impact of globalization on health care policy
development.
7. Advocates for policies for safe and healthy practice
environments.
Policy analysis process:
• Political environment
• Political feasibility

• Economic feasibility
• Implementation strategy and planning
• Outcomes evaluation at local, state, national, and
international levels
• Specific NP role for influencing health care agenda and
patient advocacy
Health policy and health care reform:
• Federal budget
• National health priorities
• Methods for appropriation of funding
• Vulnerable populations and needs
• The relationship between the USPSTF guidelines and
Affordable Care Act implementation
Legislative and regulatory processes:
• Origin of laws
• Regulatory process
• How to influence/impact passage of laws and their
translation into regulation
• Health care financing and third party reimbursement

Population health model and its impact on policy planning
Introduction of global issues:
• Infections
• Travel
• Immigration
• Disasters/terrorism
• Access to health care
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Competency
Area
competencies
Ethical issues in health care planning:

• Fairness
• Equity and health disparities
• Access and resource allocation
• Health behavior
• Social determinants of health
Comparative health systems
Proactive and responsive use of media
Barriers to NP practice
Legislative process and resources, e.g., Congress.gov
Policy theories
Examples of policy making at multiple levels and individual and
collective contributions to shape policy
Health Delivery
System
Competencies
1. Applies knowledge of organizational practices and
complex systems to improve health care delivery.
2. Effects health care change using broad based skills

including negotiating, consensus-building, and partnering.
3. Minimizes risk to patients and providers at the individual
and systems level.
4. Facilitates the development of health care systems that
address the needs of culturally diverse populations,
providers, and other stakeholders.
5. Evaluates the impact of health care delivery on patients,
Organizational practices:
• Organizational structure, tables of organization
• Organizational decision making
• Organizational theory
• Principles of management
Interprofessional collaborative partnerships
Informatics/information systems:
• Interpreting variations in outcomes
• Use of data to improve practice
• Use of collateral information

• Organizational delivery subsystems, (e.g. electronic
prescription writing-pharmacy software)
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Competency
Area
competencies
providers, other stakeholders, and the environment.
6. Analyzes organizational structure, functions and resources
to improve the delivery of care.
7. Collaborates in planning for transitions across the
continuum of care.

Needs assessment of populations served:
• Socioeconomic and cultural factors
• Unique population needs
• System resources to meet population needs (e.g. use
interpreters to facilitate communication)
• Community resources/system outreach to community
• Diversity among providers
Financial issues:
• Financial business principles
• Health care system financing
• Reimbursement systems
• Resource management
• Billing and coding principles
Interprofessional/team competencies:
• Communication (theory)
• Collaboration

• Conflict resolution
• Consultations/referrals
• Team building
• Values and ethics
• Roles and responsibilities
Safety and quality:
• Cost-effective care
• Legal/ethical issues
• Research and quality improvement
• Continuous quality improvement
• Quality and Safety Education in Nursing
Transitional care:
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Competency
Area

competencies
• Navigating transitions across health care settings
• Coordination of services
Planning, delivering and/or evaluating models of care:
• Models of planned change
• Process and evaluation design implementation
• Evaluation models
• Process of proposing changes in practice
Legislative and regulatory issues:
• Relevant and current issues (e.g., Accountable Care Act
implementation)
• Process of health care legislation
• Scope and standards of practice
• Cultural competence
• Theories of vulnerability

• Social determinants of health
Policy and advocacy:
• Reducing environmental health risks
• Implications of health policy
• Variations in policy
Ethics
Competencies
1. Integrates ethical principles in decision making.
2. Evaluates the ethical consequences of decisions.
3. Applies ethically sound solutions to complex issues
related to individuals, populations and systems of
care.
Ethics in decision making:
• Ethical considerations in decision making in clinical practice
• Applications of ethical principles in policy making and in
care delivery
• Sources of information to facilitate ethical decision making

- theories of ethical decision making
- ethics committee
- genetic counseling
- clinical research
- legal statutes
- cultural sensitivity
- scope of practice
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Competency
Area
competencies
Evaluation of ethical decisions:
• Methods of evaluating outcomes (long-term and short-term)
• Debriefing and assessment of outcomes
• Ethical frameworks.

Population-specific complex ethical issues occurring in clinical
practice
System-specific resources to implement ethical decisions (e.g.
hospice
care, palliative care)
Spiritual resources for patients and families (e.g., on site and
media
based)
Independent
Practice
Competencies
1. Functions as a licensed independent practitioner.
2. Demonstrates the highest level of accountability for
professional practice.
3. Practices independently managing previously diagnosed
and undiagnosed patients.
3.a Provides the full spectrum of health care services to
include health promotion, disease prevention, health
protection, anticipatory guidance, counseling, disease
management, palliative, and end-of-life care.
3.b Uses advanced health assessment skills to differentiate

between normal, variations of normal and abnormal
findings.
3.c Employs screening and diagnostic strategies in the
development of diagnoses.
3.d Prescribes medications within scope of practice.
3.e Manages the health/illness status of patients and
families over time.
4. Provides patient-centered care recognizing cultural
Clinical decision making based on evidence and
patient/provider
partnership
Current and emerging professional standards
Novice to expert continuum of clinical practice
Political, policy and regulatory issues regarding licensure,
national
certification, and scope of practice.
Leadership approaches for employment contract negotiation,
networking, and advancing professional standards and roles
Application of select sciences to practice:

• Pharmacology
• Physiology
• Pathophysiology
Specific areas of assessment, including but not limited to:
• Physical
• Psychosocial
• Developmental
• Family
• Psychiatric mental health
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Competency
Area
competencies

diversity and the patient or designee as a full partner in
decision-making.
4.a Works to establish a relationship with the patient
characterized by mutual respect, empathy, and
collaboration.
4.b Creates a climate of patient- centered care to include
confidentiality, privacy, comfort, emotional support,
mutual trust, and respect.
4.c Incorporates the patient’s cultural and spiritual
preferences, values, and beliefs into health care.
duplicate.
4.d Preserves the patient’s control over decision making
by negotiating a mutually acceptable plan of care.
4e. Develops strategies to prevent one’s own personal biases
from interfering with delivery of quality care.
4f. Addresses cultural, spiritual, and ethnic influences that
potentially create conflict among individuals, families, staff and
caregivers.
5. Educates professional and lay caregivers to provide culturally
and spiritually sensitive, appropriate care

6. Collaborates with both professional and other caregivers to
achieve optimal care outcomes.
7. Coordinates transitional care services in and across care
settings.
8. Participates in the development, use, and evaluation of
professional standards and evidence-based care.
• Oral health
Screenings
Diagnostics (tests, labs)
Specific procedures
Health promotion, prevention, and disease management
Pharmacology and complementary alternative therapies
Provider-patient relationship:
• Role of culture in patient-centered care
• Contracting a management plan with patient and/or family
• Culture of trust in interpersonal relationship w/patient and/or
families

Business of practice:
• Legal, business, and ethical issues
• How to set up, finance and evaluate a practice ,
• Writing a business plan
Cultural issues
Concepts of life-long learning
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Competency
Area
competencies

Types of Secondary Sources
In previous studies we examined textbooks and journals,
comparing narrative and argumentative formats. This
section engages students in a deeper understanding of the study
of scholarly arguments, and will introduce the
usefulness of source reviews and critiques.
Why are there differences in interpretation?
Historians differ in their interpretation because their personal
knowledge is informed by particular sources,
which may not be the same sources referenced by another
scholar. Historians also differ in their views because
they become invested in interpreting history through a
particular perspective. For instance, scholars with a
background in economics may interpret events primarily
through an economic lens, so they would be
considered economic historians. Historians with a background
in military may interpret events primarily through
a military perspective, although military historians also have a

strong understanding of geography and so their
interpretations may overlap with geographical, medical, or
cultural discussions. Some historians prefer to
understand events solely through the perspective of the
individuals participating in those events, which would
qualify them as hagiographers. These historians are less
concerned with the minutia and instead are
preoccupied with understanding the worldview of a particular
historical figure. Hagiographers seek to pinpoint
what motivates the figure, what inspires them, what they aspire
to achieve, how they function in the world and
how they understand their own existence.
Historians who give preference to culture are considered
ethnohistorians. Classification of historians also
includes labor historians, political historians, and gender
historians. It is not uncommon for historians to
provide multiple historical interpretations with convincing
evidence, especially on popularly studied events with
a high number of participants, e.g. World War I. Students
engaging in research should not be overwhelmed by
the high number of interpretations. Evaluate each
interpretation, identify the evidence supplied and the
credibility of that evidence, and then determine which
interpretations are most convincing. Study the following

source samples and test your ability to identify the historian’s
classification.
Source 11:
The Knoxville Journal-Tribune was the first of the two papers
to report on the influenza outbreak. A
story of national scope appeared on page five of its 9/12/1918
edition in which it was reported that
several soldiers had become ill with “flu like symptoms” at an
army training facility near Boston,
Massachusetts. The mention that the illness may be ‘war
related” was also included in this story.
1 Heinrich, Roger. “A Small Town Newspaper and a
Metropolitan Newspaper Report on a Deadly Virus: A Content
Analysis
of the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918,” Journal of
Humanities & Social Sciences, Vol. 4, Issue 1, 2011. Heinrich
is an
Associate Professor at Middle Tennessee State University.
SECONDARY SOURCES: FIELDS OF STUDY,
SCHOLARLY
REVIEWS, HISTORIOGRAPHY AND WORLD VIEWS
The New York Times’ first story ran on page 14 of its
9/15/1918 edition. The story was of regional

scope and included a quote from a government official
concerning the status of the ill soldiers near
Boston. The story also included the fact that a number of the
soldiers had died and that several were
in “grave” condition.
The scope of the stories in both newspapers was nearly
identical, with The New York Times running
five more regional stories than the Knoxville Journal-Tribune.
The fact that the Times was more
regionally distributed than the Journal Tribune may account for
this. Both papers ran a similar number
of local stories and national stories.
It was the metropolitan paper that speculated most often
about a probable cause of the influenza
outbreak. In one of its early stories (9/19/1918) mention was
made that perhaps the virus was,
“brought to these shores by German agents, intent on spreading
biological warfare.” The
metropolitan paper also suggested, in two separate stories that
only “God” knew how the illness
might have begun.
Government officials were by far the most quoted sources,

appearing a total of 38 times in the
Times and 34 times in the Journal-Tribune. These government
officials served in capacities ranging
from the surgeon general to senators and military officers. The
Journal-Tribune ran twice as many
stories as did the Times with doctors as the main source of
information. A hospital spokesperson was
quoted twice in the Journal-Tribune and only once in the Times
leading to the conclusion that doctors
were simply too busy treating the afflicted to take time out for
interviews.
Story location was widely dispersed throughout both
newspapers. The Journal-Tribune ran stories
three times on its front page; 38 times between pages 2 and 10;
and twice between pages 18 and 26.
The Times ran a total of three front page stories; 17 between
pages 2 and 10; 15 between pages 10
and 18; and 10 between pages 18-16. Stories that were first
reported about the influenza epidemic
tended to be further inside the papers in the first few days of the
epidemic reaching the United
States and moved closer to the front page as the influenza began
its spread. The fact that The Times
typically contained more pages per day than the Journal-Tribune

would account for the number of
stories appearing after page 18 in The Times.
The Times was more likely to print the names of those either
ill with the influenza or having
succumbed to it, doing so in 13 stories. The Journal-Tribune
listed names eight times.
Both newspapers began printing daily death tolls almost
from the onset of the epidemic’s
detection in the U.S. The Times reported number of deaths a
total of 27 times and the Journal-
Tribune reported number of deaths 18 times. These “death
tolls” normally took the form of numbers
of dead locally and numbers of dead nationally.
Source 22:
…However, the important point is not whether Wilson acted
wisely or foolishly; it is the way in which
his preparations for the peace conference predetermined the
shape of the battle over the treaty that
would be signed. By appealing for the election of a Democratic
Congress on the ground that a
Republican victory would imply a repudiation of his leadership

in foreign affairs, and by appointing a
peace commission composed with one unimportant exception of
Democrats, Wilson made a partisan
division on the issues of peace inevitable. In other words, he
made it certain that Republicans would
oppose and Democrats would support whatever treaty he might
help to write. Moreover, by first
ignoring the Senate in his appointment of the commissioners,
and then by going himself to Paris,
Wilson made it inevitable that the treaty fight would renew in
virulent form the old conflict between
the president and the upper house for control of foreign policy.
While Wilson was in Paris there were unmistakable signs at
home that he would encounter bitter
opposition when he returned with his peace treaty…..
….Many historians have been frankly puzzled by Wilson’s
refusal even to attempt to build support for
the peace settlement in the Senate and the Republican Party—
among the very men who would have
the power of life or death over the Treaty of Versailles. How
could an authority on the American
constitutional system have forgotten the Senate’s jealous role in
foreign affairs?”

Source 33:
In this case study, as in other, careful analysis of the specific
content of maternal representation
yields vital clues to its meaning and purpose on a political or
policy level. The construction of
motherhood in the United States during World War I was highly
dichotomized. On the one hand,
war culture valorized proper, “patriotic” motherhood, defined
by obedience to the state and the
willing sacrifice of sons to the army; but it condemned
“unpatriotic” forms of mothering, which
included feminist and pacifist activism and “selfish,” overly
emotional attachment to children.
2 Link, Arthur S. Wilson the Diplomatist: A look at His Major
Foreign Policies. (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press),
1957. Link (1920-1998) was Professor Emeritus at Princeton
University and held the position of Director for The Woodrow
Wilson Papers.
3 Zeiger, Susan. "She Didn't Raise Her Boy to Be a Slacker:
Motherhood, Conscription, and the Culture of the First World
War." Feminist Studies 22, no. 1 (1996): 7-39.
doi:10.2307/3178245. Susan Zeiger, PhD. has been a professor
at Regis
College in Massachusetts and currently works for Primary
Source, a non-profit educational organization advancing access
to
historical sources in virtual learning spaces. She earned her

doctorate at New York University.
Using these images as a starting point, this article will argue
that the mobilization of motherhood as
a national symbol during World War I was closely linked to the
implementation of the first national
military conscription in U.S. history. The passage of the
Selective Service Act in May 1917 was
highly controversial, and it left the Wilson administration
anxious to win public approval for its
experiment in military recruitment. Policymakers and
administration officials were particularly
concerned that women, especially those in the prewar women’s
peace movement, might constitute
a subversive element in the nation, detrimental to wartime unity
and the smooth functioning of
selective service.
Wartime policymakers made it a priority to monitor and
undermine the activities and influence of
prominent female opponents of the war—most notably Emma
Goldman, Jane Addams, Lillian
Wald, and Crystal Eastman. This article, then will also explore
the relationship of the peace

movement to foreign and domestic policy in wartime. The
leaders of the war mobilization chose to
take seriously the peace movement’s rhetoric that women were
inherently more peaceful than
men and would oppose war out of love for their children. The
government seized upon these ideas
and turned them against women activists, warning that women
were potentially traitorous and
subversive because of their personal aversion to war and their
“excessive” attachment to sons.
One particularly significant medium for projecting these images
of wartime motherhood was the
newly emerging motion picture industry. In numerous wartime
films, the national and political
issues surrounding military conscription were translated into a
family drama, in which a mother and
son struggle over a decision about military enlistment. The
message of these films, and of other
wartime media, was clear and consistent: American mothers
could disrupt the war effort and
subvert the war by holding their sons back from the army.
American mothers must be taught their
proper place and American sons their manly duty. In short, the

creators of the war culture
“managed” the problem of the draft, of antiwar opposition in
general and women’s activism in
particular, by coding these national and political issues in
gender and family terms. In doing so, the
wider political claims of feminist pacifism were diminished, and
the feminist critique of war,
developed during the neutrality period, was projected back to
the public as an individual and
selfishly unpatriotic response to the nation’s wartime crisis.
Source 44:
From World War I until early 1920, railroad, mining, and
grower interest prodded the U.S. Secretary
of Labor to waive the head tax, literacy tests, and the
prohibition on contract labor to admit alien
labor from Mexico into the United States. This brought
tremendous employment opportunity for
Mexicans. Mexican track workers helped modernize America’s
railroad system, and increased
northern employer demand for labor allowed the entrance of
Mexicans into steel and auto
manufacturing and meatpacking production, jobs in which they
enjoyed a minimum wage and an

eight-hour day.
4 Zaragosa Vargas, Crucible of Struggle, A History of Mexican
Americans from Colonial Times to the Present Era. (New York:
Oxford University Press), 2011. Vargas is a Distinguished
Professor of Latino Studies at the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill. He has written many books on Mexican American
experiences and is an expert in Mexican American labor
unions in the Midwest.
Despite the great demand for labor during the World War I
years, thousands of Mexicans fled to
Mexico because they feared military conscription for duty
overseas. The exodus was the result of
widespread misunderstanding regarding the 1917 Selective
Service legislation expanding the size of
the U.S. armed forces from one hundred thousand to five
million within a year. As one scholar
observed, “this legislation required all men, including aliens,
between twenty-one and thirty-one
years of age to register for military service. Mexicans in Texas
could not understand why they were
required to register for military service if they were not subject
to the draft.” Most Mexican
Americans patriotically backed World War I and served

overseas as volunteers or draftees. They
viewed the war as an opportunity to improve their status by
demonstrating their loyalty and
thereby gain full equality.
Owing to the patriotism of “One Hundred Percent
Americanism” sweeping the country, Mexican
Americans were organized by the federal government into
Loyalty Leagues. The leagues selected
“Four-Minute Men” to make brief speeches at churches, labor
union halls, movie theatres, and
public gatherings as a way to encourage voluntary enlistments
and home-front participation in
agencies such as the Councils of Defense and the Red Cross, the
purchase of Liberty Bonds, and
patriotic commitment by men and women to the war effort.
The U.S. military was strictly segregated and rife with
discrimination. Soldiers with Spanish
surnames were often the objects of ridicule and abject scorn by
Anglo officers and enlisted men
and, like black soldiers, were relegated to menial positions.
Mexican Americans who could not
speak English were separated by Spanish-language group and
sent to Camp Cody in New Mexico or

to Camp Gordon in Georgia to improve their English
proficiency with bilingual officers as their
instructors. Mexican American soldiers served on the front
lines with the American Expeditionary
Force in France, Belgium, and Germany and fought bravely and
effectively. About ten thousand
Spanish-speaking New Mexicans volunteered for service in the
war. In southern Colorado the
Mexican American volunteer rates exceeded that of Anglos.
Many Mexican Americans were cited
for their valor and bravery on the battlefields of Europe.
A member of the Company B of the 355th Infantry Regiment,
Private Marcelino Serna of
Albuquerque, New Mexico, single-handedly charged and
captured twenty-four Germans on
September 12, 1918. For this and other acts of bravery and
courage under fire, Serna was awarded
the Distinguished Service Cross, the French Croix de Guerre,
the Victory Medal with three bars, and
two Purple Hearts. David
B. Cantú of Laredo
enlisted in the U.S. Army
using his Anglo father’s

name Barkley to avoid
being segregated into a
noncombat unit. Barkley-
Cantú served with
Company A, 356th
Infantry, 89th Division, in
France. In November
1918, his unit was
Figure 1 Private Marcelino Serna
http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=im
ages&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjn6Kqz7aLdAhVNQ
6wKHekfDLoQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=http://www.elpasotimes.co
m/story/news/military/2016/05/14/hurd-rename-tornillo-bridge-
wwi-el-paso-hero/84385758/&psig=AOvVaw1-
RNjeh_EV83AejrdoLtoi&ust=1536202202235268
engaged in pushing the Germans out of the Argonne Forest and
across the Meuse River. The
Tejano drowned crossing the river after going behind German
lines to gather information about
troop strength and deployments. For his actions, Barkley-Cantú
was awarded the Medal of Honor,
the French Croix de Guerre, and the Italian Croce al Merito di

Guerra. Fellow native Texan José de
la Luz Sáenz kept a diary, which was published in 1933. In
recounting his wartime service, Sáenz
linked the American World War I “rhetoric of democracy” with
the Mexican struggle for civil rights.
On his return from the war, Sáenz translated his sacrifices and
those of the many other American
soldiers of Mexican descent fighting for democracy into a
movement for civil rights in Texas.
Source 55:
Under the authority granted to him by the [Food and Fuel
Control Act], Wilson appointed
Progressive reformer Herbert Hoover as head of the United
States Food Administration (USFA).
Hoover was given authority over the distribution, importation,
exportation, production, purchase,
and storing of food, and had a monumental task ahead of him.
Europe, which had been at war
since 1914, was on the brink of starvation. Fearing a similar
fate, Americans had already begun
hoarding food, and shortages, price inflation, and food riots
loomed on the horizon. A poor crop
season in 1916 and rising prices only worsened the situation and

threatened to precipitate a major
food crisis. Hoover had to convince Americans to self-regulate
their consumption of food
voluntarily, and realized that playing on patriotic sentiments
would be the easiest, and quickest,
way to do so. He urged Americans to ‘Go back to simple food,
simple clothes, and simple pleasures.
Pray hard, work hard, sleep hard and play hard. Do it all
courageously and cheerfully.’ He
repeatedly stressed good old American self-sacrifice and
selflessness would save the nation and
possibly the whole world.
When the US entered the war in 1917, approximately one-third
of the American population were
either immigrants or the children of immigrants, and over 10
million Americans hailed from one of
the Central Powers—Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and
the Ottoman Empire. Moreover,
millions of Irish Americans sided with the Central Powers
because of their turbulent history with
the English. Thus in order to bridge the gap between its native
and immigrant populations, the
federal government decided to create a series of propaganda

posters designed to win the hearts
and minds of potential detractors. Through its Vernacular Press
Division (VPD), the USFA called on
immigrants to participate in the food conservation effort. The
most famous example of these
posters depicted ‘tempest tossed’ immigrants superimposed over
a rainbow-framed Statue of
Liberty. As the poster, which was translated into numerous
languages, including Italian and Yiddish,
5 Tunc, Tanfer Emin. 2012. "Less Sugar, More Warships: Food
as American Propaganda in the First World War." War In
History 19, no. 2: 193-216. Military & Government Collection,
EBSCOhost (accessed September 30, 2017). Tunc is an
Assistant Professor of American Culture and Literature at
Hacettepe University in Turkey. She received her doctorate
from
State University of New York. She has published more than 70
works, has obtained grants and recognition of Ivy League
institutions, and is a committee board member of several
distinguished international organizations.
conveyed, ‘Food will win the war. You came here seeking
Freedom. You must now help to
preserve it. WHEAT is needed for the allies. Waste nothing.”

Rather than forcing immigrant groups to Americanize through
his food campaign, Herbert Hoover
attempted to mobilize them by pursuing the softer tactic of
graphic persuasion and cross-cultural
cooperation. Conserving food became a patriotic duty—one
that became equated with American
identity even for non-citizen immigrants. Thus, for many,
participating in such efforts became
perhaps the first of many steps toward assimilation. However,
this call to action was limited to the
‘right’ immigrants. While Jewish immigrants of German
descent were invited to join the food
conservation movement through Yiddish powers, the majority of
German immigrants were
blatantly excluded from these propaganda campaigns. In fact,
many people became targets of
grass-roots ‘100% American campaigns’ which not only
succeeded in practically eliminating the
teaching of German as a foreign language in American schools,
but also lynched Germans, such as
Robert Prager, a baker with socialist sympathies living in
Collinsville, Illinois. Declared the ‘scum of
the melting pot’ by the popular American magazine The
Saturday Evening Post, German immigrants

were swept up in this hysteria, which included senseless
violence, the burning of textbooks which
praised medieval Germany, the banning of German classical
music and theatrical productions, and
the renaming of German food.
Source 66:
In June of 1917, the American Red Cross held a patriotic
meeting at Carnegie Hall for the purpose of
recruiting nurses. Several black nurses attended and, as noted
by the New York Age, “were given
every consideration.” Thoms, immediately responding to this
“fervid plea for efficient nurses,”
urged all black nurses “of recognized, registered schools” to
enroll in the American Red Cross.
What Thoms did not consider was that the American Red Cross
deemed efficient nurses to be white
nurses. Frances R. Elliot Davis was the first black nurse to take
a course at Columbia University for
the Town and Country Nursing Service of the American Red
Cross, a branch associated with rural
nursing and charity work. When America entered the war in
1917, all of the Town and Country Red

Cross Nurses were automatically enrolled as American Red
Cross Nurses and received the Red Cross
Pin—except Davis.
A storm of protests ensued and the issue was given great
coverage in the black press. Sympathetic
newspapers printed letters from black nurses who found
themselves equally slighted. One angry
black nurse, who identified herself as having three years of
hospital, operating room, and clinical
experience, was stunned when she and her patriotic friends were
informed that they would not be
6 Patterson, Andrea. 2012. "Black Nurses in the Great War:
Fighting for and with the American Military in the Struggle for
Civil Rights." Canadian Journal Of History 47, no. 3: 545-566.
Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed
September 30, 2017). Patterson is Professor of Liberal Studies
at the California State University—Fullerton. She earned a
PhD in the history of science, with emphasis in medicine, from
the University of California—Berkeley.
accepted. Her anonymous editorial, published in the New York
City Sun, claimed that “our good
intentions were thwarted, and the Government was deprived of

whatever ability we possessed.”
This anonymous black nurse pointedly denounced Jane A.
Delano, the chairman of the National
Committee of Red Cross Nursing, calling her “the dictator of
Red Cross destinies….” [and stated]
black nurses were “ready and willing to enter the government
service without compensation other
than our own satisfied consciences, but absolutely not through
the condescension of Miss Delano.”
It is evident that nurses not only made strategic use of black
newspapers, but also directly
challenged white authority by opening criticizing “dictator”
Delano. This nurse further used her
editorial platform to recommend that American black nurses
offer services to the British Red Cross
in Canada, “where the strain of bigotry never smirches,” and
which would receive them “with open
arms.”
It is important to mention that not all whites had an opportunity
to serve either, as poor and less
educated women were also denied access. Furthermore,
according to Susan Zeiger, even middle-

and upper-class white nurses were “frustrated by lack of formal
recognition.” The American
military viewed nurses as threatening “precisely because
nursing was considered an indisputable
military need, because women controlled it, and because it was
thought to have the potential to
disrupt gender relations in the post-war period.” The
independence of wartime nurses gave rise to
fears that these single women might not be willing to settle
down into domesticity once the war
ended.
The refusal to accept black nurses into the American Red Cross
was more than some blacks could
tolerate after black soldiers had enlisted in unprecedented
numbers. The Red Cross and the War
Department blamed each other for the failure to recruit black
nurses. The Red Cross insisted that it
“at all times had been willing to enroll colored nurses meeting
requirements for service in military
hospitals,” but the appointment of nurses rested with the
Surgeon General. At a meeting of the
National Committee of Red Cross Nursing Service before the
war, the Surgeon General stated that

the Army Nurse Corps did not recruit black nurses because
proper quarters could not be secured
for them. Based on that decision the Red Cross decided not to
enroll them either.
Reviews
A review is different from an argument in that the review is a
critique of published research. An author of a
review might examine the quality of the argument presented by
a historian, or comment on how this new
research fits into the current classifications of the topic.
Reviews often comment on the format and structure of
a work, the length and types of sources utilized, and the writing
style. A review may highlight drawbacks to a
source, i.e. too many statistics, too narrow to be applicable to
generalities, too dry, too dense, filled with errors.
Reviews may contrast a current publication with a “classic” or
“leading” perspective in the field. These
comparative critiques can also be useful for understanding what
is valued by scholars at a given period of time.
For example, if a reviewer comments on a historian’s decision
to analyze irrigation development and difficulties
in West Texas, while ignoring East Texas, this reflects a
regional bias. If a reviewer acknowledges an author’s

contributions to feminist studies by responding positively to the
author’s research of women during wartime,
but then negatively sheds light on the author’s decision to
ignore the specific contributions of Asian American
women, then this reflects the reviewer’s sensitivity to continued
marginalization of Asian American women in
the historical memory.
In sum, a review evaluates the worthiness of research as well as
its worth to the field (of other publications on
that particular topic). In the following examples, study the
phrasing of each source to determine what
information should be extracted from a review during the course
of research.
Source 77:
The main thesis of this book is that, as a result of the measures
adopted and employed by the
Wilson administration to control speech and behavior during the
period of American belligerency in
World War I, ''Civil liberties emerged ... as a relatively
significant issue in public policy for the first
time in American history." Then there follow discussions of the
general legal status of civil liberties
before World War I; the struggle in 1917 and 1918 over the
adoption of legislation to curtail certain
types of speech and action; the enforcement of these laws by the
Wilson administration; the

impact of this enforcement upon the public, the bar, and the
courts; and the emergence of a group
(the Civil Liberties Bureau) organized for the express purpose
of protecting civil liberties. The next-
to-the-last chapter, "The Reaction of Legal Community," is
particularly good, although it would have
been stronger if the author had broadened his research to
include the actions and decisions of
federal judges George W. Anderson in Boston and Francis
Fisher Kane in Philadelphia.
…. We do desperately need a fresh new study of the Wilson
administration's policies toward civil
liberties, but Paul L. Murphy has not given us one. On the
contrary, the major part of his book
simply distills what earlier historians, most of them doctrinaire
civil-libertarian publicists, have
written. For example, we need to place the record of the Wilson
administration within a worldwide
context. The most important reality of 1917-1918 was the fact
that the United States was engaged
in a total war, and it seems a bit much to expect the government
to tolerate any significant
opposition to or obstruction of the war effort. Murphy avoids
this problem by ignoring it. Actually,
compared to the civil-rights policies of the governments of the
European belligerents during World
War I, those of the United States seem almost tolerant. Finally,
there are a disturbing number of
errors in this book. A few examples must suffice. Wilson did
not call for anti-free-speech legislation
in his annual message of 1915; no "cabinet measures" were
introduced into Congress in mid-1916
calling for "sharp" curtailment of freedom of speech and of the
press; and the Webb-Overman Bill

of early 1917 (considered by a regular, not a special, session)
punished only espionage and
sabotage. The Espionage Act did not "categorically" reject, "by
legislature [sic] enactment, freedom
of expression for the first time in American history." Moreover,
"courageous" Senator Joseph I.
France could not have known about the British Defense of the
Realm Act of 1914 when he said that
the western world had seen "no such repressive a criminal
statute [the Espionage Bill] since the
dark ages." The membership of the Socialist party in 1917 was
between 80,000 and 100,000, not
"hundreds of thousands." To cite a final example, Murphy's
interpretation of the Adamson Act is,
to say the least, remarkable. "The historian, sixty years
removed," this book concludes, "observes
what was happening in the civil liberties area during World War
I with a sense of impatience and
annoyance." No one would dispute this explanation of the
author's approach and method.
7 Link, Arthur. (1981). The Journal of American History, 68(1),
165-166. doi:10.2307/1890974
Source 88:
Professor Arthur S. Link, the leading authority on Woodrow
Wilson, has now turned his attention to
Wilson as an international statesman in Wilson the Diplomatist.
His book is interpretative rather than

narrative; it has no elaborate apparatus of footnotes or
bibliography; but it none the less valuable for
that. Mr. Link’s purpose has been to relate Wilson, the man, to
the problems he faced, to show how
Wilson’s preconceptions led him to judge a situation, and how,
in turn, the facts of that situation
modified his judgments. This kind of assessment is perhaps
peculiarly appropriate to an American.
When Wilson came to the White House he had made no more
than a fairly casual study of foreign
affairs. his main interests had been domestic and constitutional.
The outside world was still not the
accepted context, nor foreign policy the determinant, of national
activity. Wilson brought to his
diplomacy moral standards learned in a land both diverse and
isolated. He faced a problem worthy of
him, unique in its moral complexity. The first World War is
still the greatest cataclysm since the French
Revolution. Its outbreak could not be explained merely in
diplomatic terms. Much effort and skill
were wasted then, and have been wasted since, on the false
issue of war guilt; but thinking men were
shocked into questioning the basis of their society. To these
Wilson was uniquely able to appeal. This

man and the opportunity met. Attention has been concentrated
on the origins of the war. In Europe
much less attention has been given to the period when war
might have been ended by negotiation.
But in the United States too, attention has been concentrated on
the origins of the war—the American
war—and on the process by which Wilson, the advocate of
neutrality both on moral and on political
grounds, came to be convinced that the United States must
intervene. Wilson was dominated, as was
no other leader, by the peace to which he looked forward. His
fight for the treaty and for the League
was almost too directly the result of his decision for war. It is
for that reason less interesting. It is also,
probably, less important. For Wilson’s mistakes at Versailles,
and his failure to retain American
support, were secondary. The treaty was vastly better than it
would have been without the moral
forces which Wilson called up and led. And most of the
mistakes of the post-war years—which were
obviously not Wilson’s—were not even American. Between the
wars Europe might, with knowledge
and determination, have saved herself. These lacking, the
United States could not have saved her.

This must affect our judgment of Wilson’s work. His critics
have too often fallen into the idealistic
error to which Wilson was prone—and for which they do not
hesitate to attack him—that of regarding
as failure anything less than complete success. His final
‘failure’ has led too many to overlook how
subtle, and how largely correct, his important judgments were.
Mr. Link is not misled. His account of
Wilson’s policy is balanced, lucid and perceptive. In giving it
he is constantly illuminating about the
great struggle which Wilson was trying to assess. Historians
will always differ about this subject, but
here is required reading for students both of Wilson and of the
war.
8 A. E. Campbell. The English Historical Review 74, no. 292
(1959): 546-47. http://0-
www.jstor.org.libcat.sanjac.edu/stable/559295. Campbell’s
critique is a review of Authur S. Link’s, Wilson the
Diplomatist:
A look at His Major Foreign Policies, 1957, John Hopkins
University Press. At the time of the review’s publication,
Campbell
was a professor at King’s College in Cambridge, but concluded
his work as Professor Emeritus at University of Birmingham.
He is a British scholar who was considered a leading historian
of early twentieth century U.S. foreign policy.

http://0-www.jstor.org.libcat.sanjac.edu/stable/559295
Reviews provide a rich amount of information and can be a
useful starting point for students who need to
quickly deduce which issues are currently debated by historians.
There are websites dedicated to informing the
public about recent history publications and these sites provide
scholarly critiques to assist readers. Here are a
few:
-- https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/168
-Net -- https://www.h-net.org/reviews/home.php
-- http://historymatters.gmu.edu/webreviews/
Some sites provide specific guidelines for submitting a review:
--
https://www.historians.org/publications-and-
directories/american-historical-review/book-review-guide
--
https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/reviews_in_american_histor
y/guidelines.html
--
http://jah.oah.org/submit/book-reviews/

Determining Credibility
Secondary sources vary in quality. Some books and articles are
better researched or take into consideration a
broader range of perspectives. How can you tell which
secondary source is more reputable? Which source
should you trust? There are intrinsic and extrinsic measures of
quality. Intrinsic gauges of quality appear in the
book or article itself, while extrinsic measures of quality
require you to refer to book reviews and other
published aids to assess the quality of a secondary source.
Intrinsic measures of merit include the following tests:
1. How detailed is the author’s account? Does it have enough
facts to satisfy an ordinary reader’s
curiosity? How well did the author convince you?
2. Does the author seem familiar with other scholars’
arguments? Does he or she recognize and augment
or challenge other scholars’ conclusions in the text or notes?
3. Does the author use sufficient reference notes? Do the notes
cite primary material or merely other
secondary sources? Does the author seem to have gone directly
to the primary material or relied on
others’ research? Do the notes seem fresh (that is, has the
author made use of the most recent

research on his or her topic)?
4. If your secondary source is a book, who published it? A
good piece of scholarship will generally find a
good publisher—that is, if the book was published by a first-
rate press, you can be sure that it received a
thorough review before it was accepted. Universities sponsor
some of the best scholarly presses. Many
leading commercial publishers also have extensive lists of
history books. The quality of the journal in
which an article is published is a good guide to the quality of
the article.
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/168
https://www.h-net.org/reviews/home.php
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/webreviews/
https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/reviews_in_american_histor
y/guidelines.html
http://jah.oah.org/submit/book-reviews/
Extrinsic guides to quality secondary sources:
1. As you become familiar with a number of secondary sources
on any topic, you will begin to find that
some of them are cited widely. By their choice of authorities,

the historians themselves are telling you
which secondary sources they rate the highest.
2. Book reviews will help you to discover other scholars’
evaluation of the history book you have in your
hand. The reviewers restate the thesis or theme of a book,
report its findings, and then assess the
quality of the book and the success of the author in completing
the task he or she has set out to
accomplish.
3. Awards from a reputable organization may distinguish the
source as highly credible.
4. You may want to review the education level and occupation
of the author. However, you also want to
see whether or not the research preferences of the author match
his/her degree(s). For example, while
an individual may hold a doctorate in Business Technology with
emphasis in Marketing and Computer
Graphics, this would be a poor match for a published work on
the philosophy of teaching kindergartners.
Historiography
The study of the evolution of research on a particular topic is
known as historiography. In other words, a history
of what people have said and thought about a historical event.
When conducting research, it is always best to

understand what has been explored previously, which aspects of
the research have been fully explored, to
identify research gaps, and to rethink past publications in light
of new sources, new events, new approaches to
managing similar events, etc. Yes, “history repeats itself,” but
never in exactly the same way. When a period in
time seems very similar to past experiences, it is useful to
understand what is similar and what is dissimilar.
Often it is the ‘dissimilar’ angle of the current event that
reignites public interest in the past. The ‘dissimilar’
component also may breathe new life into interpretations of the
past. In the following source selection,
identify the evolution of the historical topic and how the
historian explains these changes in interpretation over
time.
Source 89:
Why did the United States intervene in World War I? The
immediate impetus behind the decision
to declare war is clear enough, but its deeper roots are more
puzzling. In defiance of American
threats, Germany launched a campaign of unrestricted
submarine warfare in February 1917.
President Woodrow Wilson was not eager for war but both

contemporary observers and
subsequent historians generally agree that failure to carry out
his earlier threats would have caused
an unacceptable loss of prestige and credibility. On the other
hand, as Kennan's comments suggest,
9 Fordham, Benjamin O. "Revisionism Reconsidered: Exports
and American Intervention in World War I." International
Organization 61, no. 2 (2007): 277-310. http://0-
www.jstor.org.libcat.sanjac.edu/stable/4498146. Fordham is a
Professor
of Political Science at Binghamton University and considers
himself an expert on economic influence in international
relations. The most thorough World War I historiographies
include Jennifer D. Keene’s, “Remembering the ‘Forgotten
War’:
American Historiography on World War I, Historian 78, no. 3:
439-468. History Reference Center, EBSCOhost (accessed
September 30, 2017). Keene is a Professor and Chair of the
Department of History at Chapman University and has published
many books on the United States during World War I. For a
global historiography, see Keir A. Lieber’s, “The New History
of
World War I and What It Means for International Relations
Theory,” in International Security 32, no. 2, pgs. 155-191.
Lieber
is a professor at Georgetown University and specializes in
international affairs.
the reasons Wilson made the threats that led to war in 1917 are

far less obvious. The risk of war
was apparent at the time. As early as mid-1915, many observers,
including Wilson's secretary of
state, William Jennings Bryan, worried that the president's
response to the German submarine
campaign could eventually lead to intervention. The submarine
threat to American lives does not
offer a very convincing explanation on its own. German
submarine activity had cost only 236
American lives by April 1917, all but fourteen embarked on
ships flying the flags of belligerent
states. From the perspective of 7 December 1941, or 11
September 2001-not to mention the
53,402 American combat deaths sustained after intervention-
these losses are not especially large.
They hardly seem sufficient to explain the abandonment of the
long-standing American policy of
avoiding entanglement in conflicts among the European powers.
Debate among historians about American intervention has
focused on filling this explanatory gap.
Some have stressed broader strategic considerations,
particularly the need to prevent Germany
from dominating the European continent or eroding British

control of the seas. Others have argued
that Wilson's policies arose from his ideological commitments
to democracy and international law.
Still others have focused on the psychology of Wilson and his
closest advisers to explain his choices.
One potential explanation is almost universally dismissed by
contemporary historians of U.S.
foreign relations: that the war-induced boom in exports to the
Allies prompted the Wilson
administration to take a strong stand against German submarine
warfare, ultimately leading to
intervention. This explanation was widely accepted during the
interwar period and provided the
intellectual justification for the neutrality legislation of the
1930s. Largely for this reason, it became
deeply unfashionable after Pearl Harbor. Today, the
"revisionist" historians who advanced this line
of argument during the 1920s and 1930s, when they are
remembered at all, tend to be lumped
together with the isolationist politicians who resisted American
intervention in World War II. This
article will make a case for reconsidering their argument about
the influence of economic interests

on American involvement in the war. The economic explanation
offered by most academic
revisionists was subtler and more convincing than the
conspiracy theories about influential
"merchants of death" that publicists and politicians promoted
during the interwar period. It also
bears directly on recent scholarly debates about the effect of
trade on international conflict. An
analysis of data on the wartime export boom and congressional
voting on war-related measures
offers substantial evidence that economic factors influenced
political actors' positions on the war.
This article proceeds in four sections. The first reviews the
revisionist argument and its relationship
to current scholarship on trade and conflict. The second
evaluates the plausibility of the
revisionists' claims by examining data on the aggregate
economic impact of the war on the United
States before intervention. The third section tests the influence
of economic considerations on the
positions of political actors more rigorously using congressional
roll-call votes on war-related
measures. A final section summarizes and concludes.

Source 910:
Interpretations of Woodrow Wilson’s “progressive” foreign
policy have changed continually in
response to widening bodies of research material and the
developing tones of society. After writings
of the 1920s offered generally positive appraisals, the
depression decade delivered some striking
criticisms of Wilson’s diplomacy. Positive assessments
returned to the fore in the era of World War II,
but these interpretations were soon countered by neorevisionist
writings of the 1960s which focused
on counterrevolutionary, ethnocentric elements in Wilsonian
ideology. During the 1970s Mr. Wilson
was reinterpreted yet again, this time with the use of recently
opened foreign records as well as new
insights advanced by the Woodrow Wilson Papers project under
the direction of Arthur S. Link.
Indeed, Link himself provided further delineation of the
President’s religious views, and a substantial
body of literature portrayed the modern complexity of not just
Wilson but his times. Economic,
political, moral, legal, and security factors became integrated in
multicausal estimates of what

motivated Wilson; idealism and realism were considered
intertwined strains of his world view.
Woodrow Wilson and a Revolutionary World in many ways
represents an extension of this most recent
wave of Wilsonian studies. Edited by Professor Link and
offered as a supplement to The Papers of
Woodrow Wilson, the work brings together original essays by
seven scholars. Although most of the
essays detail individual episodes of Wilsonian diplomacy, all
share the unifying theme that Wilson was
neither a rapid interventionist nor an ineffectual idealist. The
book unfolds the argument that Wilson
usually took rational, well-informed positions on the
revolutionary upheaval and social disorder of the
era of World War I.
Questions for Consideration:
1. DEFINE: What does historiography mean?
2. IDENTIFY: What kind of information should be included in
a review or critique?
3. COMPARE AND CLASSIFY: Based on our study of U.S.
entry into World War 1, which
historian argued the war was a matter of national security and
would this author be classified as
orthodox or revisionist? What “schools of thought” were

outlined in this packet? Where would
other scholars/publications fit; how would they be classified?
4. CONTRAST AND EVALUATE: How do scholars organize
their writing? Did all of the
scholarly examples included in the packet clarify their purpose
and/or thesis? Does the creation
of a contrasting framework make it easier for readers to process
similarities and differences in
interpretation?
5. RESEARCH AND CRITICAL THINKING: Perform an
internet search and locate a recent
publication on WW1. Take a moment to read the synopsis and a
couple of reader reviews of this
publication. Would the author of the book you examined be
considered orthodox, revisionists,
post-revisionist, or neo-orthodox, and why? Did the
information provided in the review of the
book you located offer a balanced perspective of advantages and
disadvantages associated with
this book?
10 Tennant S. McWilliams. The Journal of Southern History 49,
no. 3 (1983): 470-472. This is a review of Woodrow Wilson
and a Revolutionary World, 1913-1921, edited by Arthur S.
Link and published by University of North Carolina Press in
1982.

McWilliams has held positions in teaching and as Dean of the
School of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of
Alabama—Birmingham.
6. CAUSE AND EFFECT: What is propaganda and what role
did this type of source material play
in U.S. war involvement?
7. BIOGRAPHY/TOP DOWN: Woodrow Wilson is one of the
most frequently studied world
leaders; why are scholars drawn to Wilson? How do historians
understand his world view? Is
there consensus about Wilson’s agenda and/or importance; why
or why not?
8. WORLD VIEWS CONSIDERED: What did the treaty
concluding the war specify? How did
leaders in the U.S. view the treaty? What issues were discussed
in regards to signing the treaty?
How did other nations view the treaty? Did the United States,
or Wilson in particular, uphold the
ideas presented in the treaty or were the ideas aimed at
rewarding some while disadvantaging
others? (You may need to reflect on information presented
about the USSR in your textbook, as
well as other information presented in the lecture).
Motivation and Purpose in Primary Sources
Analyzing Motives for Imperialism

In dealing with primary sources, two of the most important
factors is understanding the motivation and purpose behind the
original author. What is the difference between motivation and
purpose? They are basically cause and effect. Motivation is the
"cause" -- the reason why the source was written. It is the
background for the source. Purpose is the "effect" -- the impact
or result. Sometimes cause is more complex than appears on the
surface. For example, a law states the outcome lawmakers hope
to achieve. In a basic sense, motivation is that they wanted that
goal. However, motivation goes deeper than just the desire to
achieve a goal. Motivation includes the attitudes or beliefs
behind that goal. Furthermore, individual motives may be
different, but compatible enough to support a like policy.
While the effect is the law, the causes may be many. To
complicate matters further, in a longitudinal study, or a study of
changes over time, the law may not be the singular effect.
Contrasting primary sources may reveal unintended effects of a
law. Court cases are primary sources and the verdicts in these
cases may expose a changing interpretation of the law, which
might prompt a student to inquire about changing societal
attitudes and values. Looking for Motivation and Purpose
Study the following source excerpts with the following
questions in mind:
· Which passages reveal the author’s motive?
· Is there any evidence to suggest the author’s beliefs are
singular or are they shared by the public?
· How have historians analyzed the motives of national leaders?
Who is the author of this source? can you locate the footnote
containing the Author information? What other important data
is provided in the footnote?
Source 1: “the Pacific is the future”
MR. PRESIDENT, I address the Senate at this time because
senators and members of the House on both sides have asked
that I give to Congress and the country my observations in the
Philippines and the Far East…..

Mr. President, the times call for candor…. The Philippines are
ours forever, "territory belonging to the United States," as the
Constitution calls them…. And just beyond the Philippines are
China's illimitable markets…. We will not retreat from either….
We will not repudiate our duty in the archipelago. We will not
abandon our opportunity in the Orient…. We will not renounce
our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the
civilization of the world…. And we will move forward to our
work, not howling out regrets like slaves whipped to their
burdens but with gratitude for a task worthy of our strength and
Thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as His
chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the
world….
This island empire is the last land left in all the oceans…. If it
should prove a mistake to abandon it, the blunder once made
would be irretrievable…. If it proves a mistake to hold it, the
error can be corrected when we will…. Every other progressive
nation stands ready to relieve us….
But to hold it will be no mistake. Our largest trade henceforth
must be with Asia. The Pacific is our ocean. More and more
Europe will manufacture the most it needs, secure from its
colonies the most it consumes. Where shall we turn for
consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question.
China is our natural customer. She is nearer to us than to
England, Germany, or Russia, the commercial powers of the
present and the future. They have moved nearer to China by
securing permanent bases on her borders. The Philippines give
us a base at the door of all the East.
...It will be hard for Americans who have not studied them to
understand the people…. They are a barbarous race, modified
by three centuries of contact with a decadent race…. The
Filipino is the South Sea Malay, put through a process of three
hundred years of superstition in religion, dishonesty in dealing,
disorder in habits of industry, and cruelty, caprice, and
corruption in government…. It is barely possible that 1,000 men
in all the archipelago are capable of self government in the

Anglo-Saxon sense....
But, Senators, it would be better to abandon this combined
garden and Gibraltar of the Pacific, and count our blood and
treasure already spent a profitable loss than to apply any
academic arrangement of self-government to these children….
They are not capable of self-government…. How could they be?
They are Orientals, Malays, instructed by Spaniards in the
latter's worst estate.... They know nothing of practical
government except as they have witnessed the weak, corrupt,
cruel, and capricious rule of Spain…. What magic will anyone
employ to dissolve in their minds and characters those
impressions of governors and governed which three centuries of
misrule has created? What alchemy will change the oriental
quality of their blood and set the self-governing currents of the
American pouring through their Malay veins? How shall they, in
the twinkling of an eye, be exalted to the heights of self-
governing peoples which required a thousand years for us to
reach, Anglo-Saxon though we are?
Mr. President, this question is deeper than any question of party
politics; deeper than any question of the isolated policy of our
country even; deeper even than any question of constitutional
power. It is elemental. It is racial. God has not been preparing
the English-speaking and Teutonic peoples for a thousand years
for nothing but vain and idle self-contemplation and self-
admiration. No! He has made us the master organizers of the
world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has given us
the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction
throughout the earth. He has made us adepts in government that
we may administer government among savage and senile
peoples. Were it not for such a force as this the world would
relapse into barbarism and night. And of all our race He has
marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead
in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of
America, and it holds for us all the profit, all the glory, all the
happiness possible to man. We are trustees of the world's
progress, guardians of its righteous peace. The judgment of the

Master is upon us: "Ye have been faithful over a few things; I
will make you ruler over many things."
Mr. President and Senators, adopt the resolution offered, that
peace may quickly come and that we may begin our saving,
regenerating, and uplifting work.... Reject it, and the world,
history, and the American people will know where to forever fix
the awful responsibility for the consequences that will surely
follow such failure to do our manifest duty....[footnoteRef:1]
[1: “Policy Regarding the Philippines,” Congressional Record,
56th Congress, 1st Session (9 January 1900), 704-712. Senator
Albert Beveridge (R-Ind) before Congress.
]
Source 2: “the Strenuous Life”
In speaking to you, men of the greatest city of the West, men of
the State which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who
pre-eminently and distinctly embody all that is most American
in the American character, I wish to preach, not the doctrine of
ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of
toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of
success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy
peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from
hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the
splendid ultimate triumph.
A life of ignoble ease, a life of that peace which springs merely
from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great
things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. I ask
only that what every self-respecting American demands from
himself and from his sons shall be demanded of the American
nation as a whole. Who among you would teach your boys that
ease, that peace, is to be the first consideration in their eyes-to
be the ultimate goal after which they strive? You men of
Chicago have made this city great, you men of Illinois have
done your share, and more than your share, in making America
great, because you neither preach nor practice such a doctrine.
You work yourselves, and you bring up your sons to work. If
you are rich and are worth your salt, you will teach your sons

that though they may have leisure, it is not to be spent in
idleness; for wisely used leisure merely means that those who
possess it, being free from the necessity of working for their
livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some kind of non-
remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration,
in historical research-work of the type we most need in this
country, the successful carrying out of which reflects most
honor upon the nation.
If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good
faith to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid meeting
great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether
we shall meet them well or ill. Last year we could not help
being brought face to face with the problem of war with Spain.
All we could decide was whether we should shrink like cowards
from the contest, or enter into it as beseemed a brave and high-
spirited people; and; once in, whether failure or success should
crown our banners. So it is now. We cannot avoid the
responsibilities that confront us in Hawaii, Cuba, Porto Rico,
and the Philippines. All we can decide is whether we shall meet
them in a way that will redound to the national credit, or
whether we shall make of our dealings with these new problems
a dark and shameful page in our history. To refuse to deal with
them at all merely amounts to dealing with them badly. We have
a given problem to solve. If we undertake the solution, there is,
of course, always danger that we may not solve it aright; but to
refuse to undertake the solution simply renders it certain that
we cannot possibly solve it aright.
“When men fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear
motherhood, they tremble on the brink of doom. If we stand
idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble
peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win
at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then
the bolder and stronger peoples will pass you by, and will win
for themselves the domination of the world.”[footnoteRef:2] [2:
Roosevelt, Theodore. 1899. “The Strenuous Life.” In Theodore
Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses. New

York: The Century Co. 1901.]
Source 3: U.S. Exports[footnoteRef:3] [3: Historical Statistics
of the United States: Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington,
D.C.: Bureau of the Census, 1960, pp. 550-551.]
U.S. Exports In Millions of Dollars / Year
China
Japan
Australia / Oceania
1900
15
29
41
1897
12
13
23
1894
6
4
12
1888
5
4
15
1875
1
2
5
Motivation and Purpose in Secondary Sources
Secondary sources may be designed to be informative,
analytical, or persuasive. Informative texts are straightforward:
they tell readers about a subject. Textbooks, reference books,
encyclopedias, travelogues are all examples of concise
informative sources. You may also find informative writing in

scholarly journals and reports, however these sources may
attempt to provide information about certain aspects while
ignoring other facts and details so it is important to remain
suspicious about the motive of the writer while reading
informative works, as these types of sources are not immune to
bias.
Persuasive writing is one of the more popular forms of writing.
As a student, you encounter views designed to convince you of
a particular perspective. News articles and speeches are often
written in a way that sways the reader to agree with a particular
thought or view. Commercials and advertisements are certainly
written to convince the viewer or reader to agree with one side
or product. Persuasive writing is noticeably biased, however,
that does not mean readers should chunk persuasive pieces to
the corner and ignore them. These sources continue to offer a
better understanding of a view within the broader spectrum of
popular thoughts on a topic.
Analytical writing looks more specifically at a subject or event.
This style of writing breaks the subject/topic into parts,
studying each component. Explaining how something works or
happened might qualify as analytical. In the following
selection, historian John Hollitz offers insight into the changing
beliefs of historians about what motivated U.S. imperialism.
Source 4: Hollitz, Thinking Through the Past
Historians have been drawn to the decision to annex the
Philippines for several important reasons. When the United
States took control of the country, it broke with its own
revolutionary past and anti-colonial ideals. The decision for
empire also provides a powerful case study—for some, a
cautionary tale—regarding the unintended consequences of
intervening in foreign lands. In this case, of course, that
consequence was a prolonged, bloody military struggle far from
American shores. Finally, Philippine annexation occurred just
as the United States has arrived as a great power, a status it
holds more than a century later. To many historians, then,

American imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century
represents an important key for understanding the rise of the
United States as a global power.
If historians do not dispute the importance of Philippine
annexation, they do not necessarily agree about the reasons for
it. Often, their explanations reflect conflicting views about the
most important influences on foreign policy. Some scholars
argue that democratic or popular influences play an important
role in shaping policy; others contend that elites dominate
decision making. Still others insist that American foreign
policy has been shaped primarily by powerful ideas and cultural
forces. For the better part of a century, explanations for
Philippine annexation have reflected these competing views
about influence. The result has been a fierce debate among
historians not only about the forces propelling American
imperialism at the turn of the twentieth century, but about the
nature of foreign policy in a democratic society.
One argument, an extension of President William McKinley’s
own explanation at the time, emphasized a humanitarian
impulse behind American overseas expansion at the end of the
nineteenth century. In this view, the decision to go to war with
Spain so as to liberate Cuba from the oppressive Spanish rule
naturally spilled over to a desire to keep the Philippines once
the war was over. Annexation would “uplift” the Filipinos and
prevent another oppressive power from seizing an independent
but weak Philippines. Proponents of this view maintain that the
American empire was thus “accidental” in nature. An
unthinking response to events in Cuba and the Philippines, it
was carried out without forethought or assessments about
American strategic or economic interests. In other words, the
decision for empire was an “aberration” that was unrelated to
the needs of America’s expanding industrial economy.
That view did not long go unchallenged. In fact, early in the
twentieth century many historians believed that the search for
overseas markets explained both the war with Spain and the
subsequent decision for empire. In the 1930s, for example,

historian Charles Beard argued that McKinley’s decision for
war reflected his close ties to expansionist business leaders.
This interpretation was especially popular during the Great
Depression, when economic issues were on the minds of many
people. American generally held business responsible for the
country’s economic ills, and “war profiteers” were under
investigation by the U.S. Senate for their role in World War I.
At the same time, historian Julius Pratt argued that another
influential, elite group was more responsible for American
imperialism than profit-minded businessmen. In Expansionists
of 1898 (1936), Pratt concluded that many prominent business
leaders actually opposed going to war with Spain. Vocal and
well-placed officials such as Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Theodore Roosevelt, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, and
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge pushed McKinley to war with
Spain. Only when these expansionists pressed for retaining the
Philippines, Pratt concluded, did the business community finally
join the annexationist chorus.
Later, many historians rejected arguments about the
responsibility of these elite groups for American overseas
expansion. Reminded by World War II of the powerful effects
of mass hysteria, in the postwar years they emphasized the
emotional or irrational nature of American overseas expansion
at the end of the nineteenth century. In their view, McKinley
and the Congress were swept toward war and colonialism by a
public whipped to a frenzy by so-called yellow journalism—the
sensationalist coverage of Spanish oppression in Cuba. The
decision for war, then, was an “unthinking” response by
political leaders to popular passion. As historian Ernest May
argued in Imperial Democracy (1961), William McKinley was
simply unable to withstand the tide of public opinion and “led
his country unwillingly toward a war that he did not want.” A
little later, historian Richard Hofstadter extended this thesis
when he concluded that Americans were suffering from a
collective “psychic crisis” in the 1890s brought on by economic
depression and social turmoil related to industrialization.

Increasingly frightened about their own prospects at home,
Hofstadter concluded, Americans were especially susceptible to
manipulation by the yellow press, which offered them the
prospect of overseas conquests as a cure for their own
frustrations. As in the humanitarian-impulse interpretation,
America’s unthinking decisions for war and empire were
aberrations that had more to do with popular influence on the
government than with concerns for overseas markets.
Historiography is the study of evolving scholarly interpretations
on a specific event. As scholars latch on to new evidence and
form new interpretations, old theories may be discredited.
When trying to understand an event, it is important to know how
leading scholars have shifted their thinking and why.
Sometimes old theories re-emerge as most valid.
….Closer to our own time, many historians have stressed the
important role of culture in shaping the past, even in the field of
foreign relations. These historians emphasize the ideological
rather than purely economic motives behind overseas expansion,
in particular the belief in the duty of the “Anglo-Saxon race” to
uplift “uncivilized” peoples. In Spreading the American Dream
(1982), for instance, Emily Rosenberg argued that assumptions
about the superiority of Anglo-Saxons and of American
political, religious, and economic institutions propelled
American expansion at the turn of the century. In Ideology and
U.S. Foreign Policy (1987), historian Michael Hunt likewise
argued that an ideological stew containing generous portions of
chauvinism and racism led many Americans to assume that they
could simply remake other societies. [footnoteRef:4] [4:
Hollitz, John. Thinking Through The Past: A Critical Thinking
Approach to U.S. History, Vol. 2, 4th Ed. (Wadsworth,
Cengage Learning), 2010, pg. 79-81.]
Source 5: Harvest of Empire
Victory in the Spanish-American War and the sudden
acquisition of overseas colonies made the nation uneasy at first.
True, Frederick Jackson Turner and others were espousing the

view that territorial expansion and Anglo-American freedom
were inseparable, and most Americans believed that, but
occupying foreign lands and lording over their peoples seemed
to contradict the very liberties for which the nation had fought
its own revolution. Not surprisingly, the war with Spain led to
our first anti-imperialist movement—against suppression of the
Filipino independence movement.
On the whole, outright territorial annexations ceased after 1898.
Wars of conquest, the sanctioning of armed invasions by
filibuster groups, the purchase of territories, gave way to
gunboat diplomacy and to a more disguised yet far more
extensive system of financial domination. Economic conquest
replaced outright political annexation, as the region evolved
into the incubator for the multinational American corporation.
By 1924, Latin America accounted for nearly half of all foreign
U.S. investment, according to one U.S. Department of
Commerce estimate.
As we shall see, a series of military occupations early in the
century—sometimes brief, sometimes lasting decades, but
always for the most spurious of reasons—allowed U.S. banks
and corporations to gain control over key industries in every
country. Latin American ventures sprang up on Wall Street
overnight as sugar, fruit, railroad, mining, gas, and electric
company executives raced south on the heels of the marines.
Thanks to the aid of pliant local elites and of U.S. diplomats or
military commanders who often ended up as partners of
managers of the new firms, the newcomers quickly corralled
lucrative concessions while the host countries fell deeper into
debt and dependence.
Nowhere did the new U.S. policy leave such as profound legacy
as in Puerto Rico. When General Nelson Miles landed in the
town of Guánica on July 25, 1898, in the midst of the Spanish-
American War, most Puerto Ricans greeted his arrival and
rejoiced at his promise to end Spanish colonialism. “Our
purpose is not to interfere with the existing laws and customs
which are beneficial for your people,” Miles declared in a

proclamation. Few imagined then that the island would remain
a U.S. possession for the entire twentieth century, or that it
would become the most important colony in our own country’s
history. Two years after the occupation started, Congress
passed the Foraker Act, which declared the island a U.S.
territory and authorized the president to appoint its civilian
governor and top administrators. The new law permitted
islanders their own House of Delegates, but it reserved for
Congress the right to annul any laws those delegates passed. It
assigned trade, treaty, postal, sanitary, and military powers to
the federal government and it gave the islanders only one
nonvoting delegate in Congress. In many ways, the Foraker Act
gave Puerto Ricans less self-government than they had enjoyed
under Spain. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, after
all, Puerto Ricans had been citizens of Spain and island voters
had sent as many as sixteen voting delegates to the Spanish
Cortes. And, in 1897, Spain had promulgated a new Charter of
Autonomy, which gave the island virtual sovereignty.
The Foraker Act, though, went beyond disenfranchising Puerto
Ricans. It forbade the island from making commercial treaties
with other countries and it replaced the Puerto Rican peso with
the American dollar, while devaluing the peso. This made it
easier for U.S. sugar companies to gobble up Puerto Rican-
owned lands. As a result, thousands of former independent
coffee farmers joined the ranks of the mushrooming agricultural
proletariat.
Legal challenges to the new law quickly led to several
precedent-setting cases before the Supreme Court. Known as
the “Insular Cases,” they were all decided by a narrow one-vote
margin, yet they have provided the principal legal backing for
this country’s holding of colonies to the present day. They are
the equivalent for Puerto Ricans of the Dred Scott Decision for
African Americans. Ironically, the same group of justices ruled
in Dred Scott and the Insular Cases. The pivotal decision was
Downes v. Bidwell in 1901. In that case, the Court ruled that
“the Island of Porto Rico is a territory appurtenant and

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