As a result of the Industrial Revolution, the U.S. became a true world power for the first time in history. There were four major reasons for the U.S. to develop an empire in the late 1800's, which were the closing of the American frontier, economics, religious and moral reasons, and geopolitics (Schultz, 2013). The idea behind manifest destiny was that the U.S. was destined by God to control all of the lands between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. After the all of that land was conquered, many believed that the U.S should continue to conquer and explore overseas and into other continents. Economically speaking, the need to develop an empire was that many businesses needed new areas in which to sell their goods and products in order to increase
