The war that erupted between Cuba and Spain captured the attention of Americans because it highlighted economic and political instability in close geographical proximity to the United States. The long-held U.S. interest in ridding the Western Hemisphere of European colonial powers and American public outrage over brutal Spanish tactics created much sympathy for the Cuban revolutionaries. When the U.S. battleship Maine exploded and sank in Havana Harbor under mysterious circumstances on February 15, 1898, the result was "a splendid little war” that brought U.S. military and naval power to the front in the Caribbean and in Southeast Asia.    

Find out more about this conflict through contemporary images and artifacts, on display in the lobby May 23 through Labor Day, 2017.