The “friends” of the United States: the transformation of U.S. cultural diplomacy in Spain (1865–1900)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study goes beyond the debate on anti- and philo-American discourses to focus on the role U.S. cultural diplomacy played in shaping Spanish views on the United States in the late nineteenth century. Drawing from a wide variety of contemporary sources, it argues that the outbreak of the American Civil War led to the active promotion of American democratic ideals in Spain by a host of official and unofficial cultural diplomats alike. But support for Spanish republicans was gradually replaced by a focus on educational reform as a more effective tool to spread American liberty abroad after the collapse of the Spanish Republic.