Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898-1935

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Nov 29 22:06:13 PST 2001



>>Here's a question. What if there are no more terrorist attacks? Will the
>>public's memory of Sept. 11 start to fade?
>>
>>Seth
>
>Here's another question, do you remember the USS Maine?
>
>Carl

We must encourage Americans to remember the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, the Anti-Imperialist League, and so on; and there is no better on-line resource than _Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898-1935_, ed. Jim Zwick, at <http://www.boondocksnet.com/ail98-35.html>. I urge you all to explore everything in BoondocksNet.com (at <http://www.boondocksnet.com/>).

***** About Boondocks

Derived from the Tagalog word bundok, meaning mountain, "boondocks" became part of American vocabulary during the Philippine-American War. Mountainous terrain offered refuge and strategic advantages to Filipinos fighting for their country's independence, and patrolling the boondocks became a common task for the U.S. military as it sought to eliminate resistance to U.S. rule. The boondocks were a contested terrain. They were bases of resistance. In American usage the word means hinterland, back country, or a remote and underdeveloped area.

Some History

This site was placed online January 12, 1995. Chuck Gardner, then based in Manila and running the historic (in web terms) Soc.Culture.Filipino site, helped me to learn the basics of creating a web site during Christmas break in December 1994 and early January 1995. Mark Twain on the Philippines and a one-page directory of Mark Twain Resources on the World Wide Web were the first pages placed online. At the time, the texts of some of Mark Twain's novels and stories were online, but there was only one other site devoted to the author and no biographical or critical materials were yet available. The only other resource about the Philippine-American War and turn-of-the-century U.S. imperialism available online was the U.S. Army Handbook on the Philippines. Most of the email received from this site during its first months came from people who had never heard of the war or Mark Twain's writings about it.

In March of 1995, the "Mark Twain on the Philippines" pages were incorporated into the much larger Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898-1935. The still broader Sentenaryo/Centennial section grew out of discussions begun at the first North American conference on the centennial of the Philippine Revolution held at Loyola University in Chicago in April 1995. It was created in September 1995 with articles contributed by scholars and community activists from both the Philippines and the United States and using web space provided by the New Technologies Early Adopters program in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. By 1997 the site was pushing the limits of the web space available at the university. In February 1997, Mark Twain Resources on the World Wide Web became the nucleus of a new Mark Twain site at About.com and the others were moved to a private account.

The site grew out of that space as well and in February 1999 it was moved to a dedicated web hosting service with its own domain: BoondocksNet.com. That seemed like an appropriate name for a site devoted to the largely forgotten but still contested history of that era. At its new location the site includes materials that were previously scattered across four web servers and still has room to grow. It also has access to excellent behind-the-scenes technology and programming capabilities that make the site easier to use. For example, a search engine that can handle complex queries and return ranked results became increasingly necessary as the site grew. But until all of the materials were consolidated in one place that wasn't possible. The site's bulletin board is another new feature made possible by the increased space and technological capabilities.

The site's Historical Graphics Gallery was reorganized and expanded in January 2000 to include one of the largest collections of historical political cartoons available on the Web. The Political Cartoons and Cartoonists section includes hundreds of political cartoons published in the United States and Europe from 1800 through the first decades of the 20th century.

In August of 2001, the site had more than 5,000 pages and more than 1,700 graphics....

<http://www.boondocksnet.com/about.htm> ***** -- Yoshie

* Calendar of Anti-War Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>



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