Just after midnight on 17 January 1900, a special train pulled out of Chicago carrying a contingent of public officials on a secret mission to Lockport, about 30 miles to the southwest along the Des Plaines and Illinois River Valleys. They were racing to beat an injunction that was expected to be issued later that day by the United States Supreme Court. The managers of the Sanitary District of Chicago (SDC) were headed for a dam that controlled the water level in a brand new, 30-mile ship canal and drainage channel. Touted as the world's largest earth-moving project, the $33, 000, 000 waterway promised not only to solve the city's sanitation problems but also to boost its economy as the centerpiece of a grand, deep-water highway from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Reaching their destination before noon, they ordered the dam's “bear trap” doors lowered, sending a rush of water down the Illinois River. The opening of the canal was so hurried that unfinished construction projects five miles downstream at Joliet were swept away in the ensuing flood, creating a sudden danger of inundating the city.

Thanks to Richard Jensen, Kriste Lindenmeyer, Alan Lessoff and William G. Shade for helpful comments on this essay.

Comparative perspectives on the United States have received increased attention in recent years, stimulated apparently by the rise in world history's popularity. David Thelen's sponsorship of transnational history as a subject of three special issues of the Journal of American History no doubt has contributed to the trend. The reprinting of C. Vann Woodward's The Comparative Approach to American History in 1997, the publication of George Fredrickson's essays on comparative history, and the report of the La Pietra Project reflect recent efforts to put United States history in an international perspective. While comparative history hardly has gained equal footing with nationally-centered studies, enough work on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era has appeared over the last decade and a half to warrant an assessment. This essay takes note of scholarship on economics, business, politics and governance that has examined the United States within an international context during the 1870s–1914 era. My objective is to discern trends in the literature and suggest opportunities for future research rather than to provide a comprehensive bibliographical survey.