Unlike the more formal imperialism that characterized international geopolitics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States engaged primarily in informal imperial relationships with Europe, Asia, and Africa. For the most part, it was American companies rather than American administrators or armies who "invaded" other countries. As a result, these "invasions" proceeded through and created different types of material expressions -- shops instead of military installations, office buildings instead of governor's palaces. Yet few scholars have examined the material/spatial impacts of American corporate expansion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, thereby rendering invisible the important role of space as articulated in urban plans, commercial buildings, factory towns, and other forms in the maintenance of and resistances to economic power. This research project will examine the spatial aspects of American corporate expansion by focusing on the actual processes through which American companies created and sustained buildings throughout their "empire." The specific goals of this project are (1) to document the extent to which, and the spatial practices and processes through which, American commercial interests shaped the landscapes of cities/towns outside the United States in an era of early globalization and (2) to focus on the material aspects of economic expansion in order to understand the everyday practices through which American expansion occurred, was understood, and was countered. The investigator will focus on the material practices of American corporations in Russia, Scotland, India, and Argentina from 1880 to 1917 and will use a range of methods and materials. The general extent of American commercial spatial investments in these countries will be documented using secondary sources. By focusing on five to ten sites within each country, the actual practices and processes through which these spatial investments occurred and the meanings these buildings had for local peoples will be documented and examined using archival materials, particularly newspapers, municipal documents, photographs, and real estate records. Finally, field-based observations of extant structures will be used to "ground truth" the historical record. The project's results should help demonstrate the spatial impacts of American corporate expansion overseas in an early era of globalization.
By providing an empirical accounting of the spatial processes through which American companies began to expand outside national boundaries, this project will contribute considerably to widening and deepening basic understanding of the makings of an American informal empire. It will document an early era of globalization and make more apparent the material character of geo-economic power. This analysis of the material character of early globalizing efforts will provide an important context in which to examine early 21st century globalizing processes. It will also provide new theoretical insights into the relationships among space, informal imperialism, and the maintenance of power.
