The Philippine Village exhibition at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair included over one thousand Filipino men and women, many from indigenous tribes who were displayed in several “villages.” The Philippine Reservation promoters…

This newspaper article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, provided one of the few opportunities for a Filipino to address a U.S. audience about the Philippine Reservation exhibit at the 1904 World’s Fair. The article extensively quotes Vicente…

Stereographic photographs were common souvenirs sold at the World’s Fairs. At the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the Philippine village attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. The U.S. government’s Bureau of Insular Affairs, which oversaw…

From 1898 to 1902, the United States waged a bloody war in the Philippines. Filipinos wanted independence from centuries of Spanish colonial rule. U.S. leaders, however, saw the opportunity to control the Philippines and gain access to markets in…

"Droch" was the pen name of Robert Bridges, a critic and editor at Scribner's and Life magazines and a friend to both Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. In this response to Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden," he opens by sarcastically…

During the 1890s, popular songs and sensationalist news coverage played a large role in drumming up support for U.S. intervention and the Spanish-American War. "The Belle of Manila," written in 1898, was one of many pro-war songs that were played in…

"The Black KPs" was written by Charles Hillman and Sidney L. Perrin in 1898 to bolster the domestic support for the war in the Philippines. While the sentiment behind the song was considered patriotic, the language in the lyrics are unmistakably…

In February 1899, British novelist and poet Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem entitled "The White Man's Burden: The United States and The Philippine Islands." In this poem, Kipling urged the U.S. to take up the "burden" of empire, as had Britain and other…

The Anti-Imperialist League was formed on June 15, 1898 to oppose U.S. annexation of the Philippines. Prominent members of the league included author Mark Twain, industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, and American Federation of Labor…

This booklet is curriculum support for the American Social History Project's 30-minute documentary Savage Acts: Wars, Fairs, and Empire 1898-1904. The viewer's guide contains background information on issues raised by the documentary, as well as…