The Alaska Purchase, historically also referred to as Seward's Folly, was the purchase of Alaska by the United States from the Russian Empire in 1867. The purchase, done at the behest of United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, gained 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km²) of new United States territory. Originally organized as the Department of Alaska, the area was successively the District of Alaska and the Alaska Territory before beco...
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The Alaska Purchase, historically also referred to as Seward's Folly, was the purchase of Alaska by the United States from the Russian Empire in 1867. The purchase, done at the behest of United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, gained 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km²) of new United States territory. Originally organized as the Department of Alaska, the area was successively the District of Alaska and the Alaska Territory before becoming the modern state of Alaska upon being admitted to the Union in 1959.
Russia was in a difficult financial position and feared losing Russian Alaska without compensation in some future conflict, especially to the British, whom they had fought a decade earlier in the Crimean War. While Alaska attracted little interest at the time, the population of nearby British Columbia started to increase rapidly after hostilities ended. The Russians therefore started to believe that in any future conflict with Britain, their hard-to-defend region might...
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