has sought to expand its boundaries. This need increased greatly during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century with the start of the industrial revolution. This expansion was a big departure from earlier attempts to expand the boundaries of the U.S. The needed for natural resources forced the U.S to look for places that could supply them with the natural resources they needed and markets where they could sell their goods in. The need to imperialize caused the U.S. to look to foreign places to gain resources to better the nations industries.
In early American history, the U.S. economy was based on agriculture. This meant the U.S. did not need natural resources for factories. Still the U.S. was gaining land. This was called Manifest Destiny and only sought to get the entire North American continent. The never got the land to gain natural resources for and industrial society. They also did not go about gaining the land by force. Much of the land the U.S. gained in its infancy was purchased peacefully. Some examples of this were the Louisiana Purchase, The Gadsden Purchase, and the Oregon Purchase. The only reason the U.S. looked to gain these lands was for ports to benefit farmers who needed to ship their goods not for industrial needs. We were not in search of foreign markets to sell our goods so the U.S. never left the North American continent to search for land. So the imperialism of the late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth century was a big departure from the U.S. expanding it boarders in the early and mid 1800's. .
Throughout the world in the 1880's there was a large need for countries to gain places where they could get natural resources. Almost every western European nation was in need of a more extensive empire. Examples of this were the scramble for Africa, and the spheres of influence. The cartoonist Thomas Nast depicts this in his cartoon "The worlds plunder" which appeared in Harper's weekly in 1885.