International relations between Japan and the United States began in the late 18th and early 19th century with the 1852–1855 diplomatic but force-backed missions of U.S. ship captains James Glynn and Matthew C. Perry to the Tokugawa shogunate. Following the Meiji Restoration, the countries maintained relatively cordial relations. Potential disputes were resolved. Japan acknowledged American control of Hawaii and the Philippines, and the United States reciprocated regarding Korea. Disagreements about Japanese immigration to the U.S. were resolved in 1907. The two were allies against Germany in World War I.
From as early as 1879 and continuing through most of the first four decades of the 20th century, influential Japanese statesmen such as Prince Iesato Tokugawa (1863–1940) and Baron Eiichi Shibusawa (1840–1931) led a major Japanese domestic and international movement advocating goodwill and mutual respect with the United States. Their friendship with the U.S. included allying with seven U.S. presidents – Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was only after the passing of this older generation of diplomats and humanitarians, along with the evidence that many Americans believed all Asians to be alike with President Calvin Coolidge's signing of the Immigration Act of 1924 that Japanese militarists were able to gain control and pressure Japan into joining with the Axis powers in World War II.
