6 North Carolina in an American empire
The Panama Canal under construction in 1913. About the photograph
The United States expanded its economic influence and added overseas territory in the last decades of the nineteenth century, using both diplomacy and its military power. North Carolinians participated in this drive for empire, notably in the Spanish-American War of 1898. In this chapter we’ll evaluate America’s imperialism in the Gilded Age and North Carolinians’ contributions.
