Nationalism was a prevalent ideology throughout the world in the late 1800s, and as the Industrial Revolution allowed the United States to emerge as a world power at this time, there was a need to compete with Europe on the territory as well as technology. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, “empire building” enabled the capitalist expansion of the United States, thinly veiled by the nationalistic rhetoric of the “white man's burden” and the moral necessity to extend American culture to the “inferior” races. The discourse of imperialism necessitated an American national identity, revolving around the virtues of capitalism and democracy, expressions of masculinity, and white supremacy. New technology and the advent of mass production had so radically altered American culture that capitalism and consumerism markets began to be seen as synonymous with progress and civilization (Lears 202). The rise of the industry led to rapid urbanization and an influx of immigrants seeking employment opportunities in the booming U.S. economy. Westward expansion of the continent was therefore considered imperative to provide cheap land for a growing population and space for an abundance of workers in the late 19th century (88). When the frontier was officially closed in 1890, American expansionists turned their attention to establishing foreign colonies and creating new markets to balance industrial overproduction (200, 201). Historian Jackson Lears writes that American capitalists sought “free access to foreign markets, raw materials, and investment opportunities” (201). This access gained legal justification through the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Munroe Doctrine, which asserted the interventionist rights of the United States in any nation deemed “unstable,” in the east, resistant… at the center of the paper… Politics between the the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century requires that we recognize the greed and racism that built America's national identity. This national identity still permeates public rhetoric today as the United States continues its mission to “extend democracy” abroad. While modern history books may still point out how imperialism was beneficial to occupied nations, a deeper examination of history reveals that infrastructural improvements and supposedly good intentions do little to alleviate the suffering and cultural destruction faced by nations subject to invasion. Works Cited Lears, Jackson. Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern American, 1877-1920. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.Renda, Mary A.. Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.