The Dawn of the American Empire, 1898 - 1919 (Exhibit)
This web page contains links to the content of the exhibit pages for the exhibit 'The Dawn of the American Empire, 1898 - 1919' by the late
Al Kugel.
Triggered by victories at Manila Bay and Santiago de Cuba in the 1898 war with Spain, a large portion of the American public became enthused about extending American political control beyond the North American continent. In this, they were supported by the philosophical doctrine of Social Darwinism, the political themes of Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine (made more aggressive by Theodore Roosevelt), the economic vision (somewhat hallucinatory) of a vast American trading empire in the Pacific and the military need for bases from which coal-powered ships could be refueled.
These needs and aspirations led the United States to extend its control to 8 areas between 1898 and 1917.
The following pages show the development of U.S. military, political and postal arrangements during this approximately 2-decade expansionist period in its newly-acquired possessions of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, Samoa, the Canal Zone and the Virgin Islands.
This exhibit was created by, and is the property of the late Al Kugel, and is being supplied by his heirs as a courtesy to the Military Postal History Society. (See the MPHS webpage) The Military Postal History Society (MPHS) is a non-profit organization for philatelists and stamp collectors interested in the collecting and studying of the postal aspects of all wars and military actions of all countries, including soldiers' campaign covers, naval mail, occupation and internment covers, patriotics, propaganda, V-mail, censorship and similar related material.
These exhibit page scans were made from black and white photocopies of the original exhibits. Those exhibits were created by Al Kugel many years ago, and are presented here for historical and research purposes. As far as the MPHS is aware, there are no color scans available of these older exhibit pages, nor for any of the illustrated postal history items.
It is noted that some pages of this exhibit are missing.
This exhibit contains 158 pages, divided into 10 frames. Each frame is a single searchable
PDF file.
(See
the PDF information page for additional help with this file format.)
Frame 1 of the Exhibit of American Empire
Frame 2 of the Exhibit of American Empire
Frame 3 of the Exhibit of American Empire
Frame 4 of the Exhibit of American Empire
Frame 5 of the Exhibit of American Empire
Frame 6 of the Exhibit of American Empire
Frame 7 of the Exhibit of American Empire
Frame 8 of the Exhibit of American Empire
Frame 9 of the Exhibit of American Empire
Frame 10 of the Exhibit of American Empire
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Updated 4 September 2026