In the mid 1890s the perennial hostilities between independence-seeking Cubans and their Spanish rulers began to escalate. Although the Cuban insurgency raised concerns in America, the United States was reluctant to insinuate itself militarily into the colonial affairs of another country. With the sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898, however, the United States was drawn into open war with Spain. The conflict was a brief one--among the briefest of all American wars--but by Spring 1899 Cuba achieved its independence, Spain lost the last remnants of its empire, and the United States suddenly acquired far-flung insular possessions (including Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain, and the peaceful annexation of the independent Hawaiian Republic). The national and international identities of both Spain and the United States were completely reconfigured; identities that would carry them through the twentieth century. The final disintegration of a once powerful, world-wide empire forced Spain to reevaluate and reconstitute its national self-image. The United States, previously an isolated participant in world affairs, was dramatically transformed into an interventionist power, boldly implicated in international developments.

1998 marked the centenary of these pivotal events. To explore the momentous effects of the War of 1898 on the countries involved, UWM’s Department of Spanish & Portuguese organized the international conference "The 1898 Spanish-American War and 20th-Century Hispanic and American Cultures," September 17-19, 1998. In association with this conference, the Golda Meir Library presented "A Spanish-American War Centennial--War and Response," an exhibition highlighting the military, social, and literary aspects of the conflict. Organized by guest curator Pierre Ullman, Professor Emeritus, Department of Spanish & Portuguese, and Max Yela, Head, Special Collections, Golda Meir Library, the exhibition of over seventy books and artifacts drew mainly on the resources of the library’s Special Collections and the general collections and focused primarily on materials published within the first twenty years after the war.

"A Spanish-American War Centennial" included general histories, memoirs, biographies, essays, and U. S. regimental accounts. A special focus of the exhibition was on the literary response to the war. In the United States, a considerable body of literature grew out of American experiences in the war, including the anti-imperialist writings of Mark Twain, the poetry of Richard Hovey and William Vaughn Moody, the war correspondence of Stephen Crane and Richard Harding Davis, and the anti-war columns of Ambrose Bierce in the otherwise hysterically pro-war rhetoric of the Hearst newspapers. In Spain, the war’s impact on literary expression was much more profound. Because of their country’s defeat, Spanish intellectuals were able to advocate ideological renewal more persuasively. For the literati, the moribund, empire-laden Spanish mentality had to be thoroughly renovated in order to come to terms with contemporary circumstances. Individual approaches to this spirit of rejuvenation were diverse, but whatever their approach, most post-war writers seemed united in protest against the immediate past, and in the need for a new interpretation of history and tradition for the future. These writers became known as the Generation of 1898, and included Azorín, Antonio Machado, Miguel de Unamuno, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, and Pío Baroja. The exhibition included many first and early editions by these and other influential writers of the Generation of 1898.

"A Spanish-American War Centennial--War and Response" was free and open to the public. For further information about the exhibition, please contact Special Collections Librarian Max Yela at (414) 229-4345, or e-mail special@gml.lib.uwm.edu.

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