Why the United States Purchased Alaska

The 1867 Alaska Purchase ($7.2 million, ~$144M today) was driven by multiple strategic and economic factors:

Strategic & Geopolitical

• Westward Expansion: Manifest Destiny logic; securing North American Pacific presence.
• Pacific Access: Deep-water ports for naval power and Asian trade.
• Preventing British/Russian Expansion: Russia feared British seizure; U.S. wanted to exclude rivals.
• Post–Civil War Diplomacy: Strengthened U.S.–Russia ties (both saw Britain as rival).

Economic

• Fur Trade: Lucrative sea otter, seal, fox pelts.
• Resource Potential: Timber, minerals (gold discovered 1880s), fisheries.
• Whaling: North Pacific whaling grounds.

Domestic Politics

Secretary of State William H. Seward championed the deal. Critics mocked "Seward's Folly" and "Seward's Icebox," but the Klondike Gold Rush (1896) and later oil (Prudhoe Bay, 1968) vindicated the investment. Alaska became a state in 1959.