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Seward agreed to purchase Alaska for seven million dollars. Critics attacked Seward for the secrecy surrounding the deal with Russia, which came to be known as "Seward's folly." They mocked his willingness to spend so much on "Seward's icebox" and Andrew Johnson's "polar bear garden." Under the aegis of explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering, Russia established a presence in Alaska in the early eighteenth century. Russia initially approached the United States about selling the territory during President James Buchanan's administration, but the Civil War stalled negotiations. Seward, secretary of state under presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, supported American expansion and was eager to acquire Alaska. However, convincing the Senate that Alaska was an important addition to the United States proved difficult. The upper house ratified the treaty by just one vote.
The discovery of gold in the late 1890s increased Alaska's value as a U.S. possession and boosted its population. In 1912, the region was granted territorial status. The political situation stagnated until Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands of Agattu, Attu, and Kiska Islands during World War II--one of few battles on U.S. soil since the Civil War. U.S. response to the threat included construction of the Alcan Highway and an increased military presence in the region.
Alaskans approved statehood in 1946 and adopted a state constitution in 1955. On January 3, 1959, President Eisenhower announced Alaska's entrance into the Union as the 49th state.
Read "The Lure of Gold," an American Life Histories interview with an Alaska gold rush prospector. - To find legislation and reports on the Territory, search on Alaska in Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920. This search will retrieve another gem: The Harriman Alaska Expedition: Chronicles and Souvenirs May to August 1899, with photographs by Edward S. Curtis, paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, notes on the region's indigenous trees from pioneering forester Bernhard E. Fernow, and essays by conservationists George B. Grinnell, John Burroughs, and John Muir.
- View the Library of Congress exhibition In the Beginning Was the Word: The Russian Church and Native Alaskan Cultures.
- See the Global Gateway exhibit Meeting of Frontiers. This bilingual (English-Russian) presentation tells the story of the American exploration and settlement of the West, the parallel exploration and settlement of Siberia and the Russian Far East, and the meeting of the Russian-American frontier in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.
