SHAPE AND TRANSFORM MEXICO, 1848-1911 by

This dissertation examines U.S. views of Mexico from the end of the U.S.-Mexico War in 1848, to the end of the first phase of the Mexican Revolution in May 1911. During this period numerous Americans saw Mexico as a laboratory to test their ability to transform a country seemingly in need of guidance. Americans, however, struggled to define the role of the United States: whether it was solely to be a model for other nations to follow, or whether Americans should be actively involved in this process. In the years after the U.S. Civil War, a diverse group of Americans, especially missionaries, investors, and working-class activists, saw Mexico as a nation in need of change and sought to affect its transformation through the means of informal imperialism. Yet they vigorously disagreed whether this transformation should occur in religious, political, economic or social terms. Despite these differences, they all believed that Mexico could be reshaped in the image of the United States. Their views thus provided a powerful counter-narrative to persistent U.S. images of the Mexican people as irredeemable because of allegedly inherent inferiorities based on race, religion or culture