Spanish-American War

Abstract

The Spanish-American War, fought in 1898 between the United States and Spain over interests in Cuba, was triggered by an alleged Spanish attack on the U.S. battleship Maine. The war occurred during the Gilded Age (1873–1900), a period of changing definitions of middle-class masculinity. Since the mid–nineteenth century, American middle-class men had been articulating new definitions of masculinity (associated with the notion of a “strenuous life” by contemporaries and described as a “passionate manhood” by historians) that emphasized the body, martial virtues, and military discipline. At the same time, the United States began to emerge as a world power that sought to emulate European colonial powers.