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US History
WWI at Home Readings
Over Here! WWI at Home…
Approximately one-third of the nation (32 million people) were either foreign-born or the
children of immigrants, and more than 10 million Americans were derived from the nations of
the Central Powers. Furthermore, millions of Irish Americans sided with the Central Powers
because they hated the English.
The Wilson administration was convinced that it had to mobilize public opinion in support of the
war. To influence public opinion, the federal government embarked on its first ever domestic
propaganda campaign. Wilson chose muckraking journalist George Creel to head the
government agency, the Committee on Public Information (CPI). The CPI placed pro-war
advertisements in magazines and distributed 75 million copies of pamphlets defending
America's role in the war. Creel also launched a massive advertising campaign for war bonds
and sent some 75,000 "Four-Minute Men" to whip up enthusiasm for the war by rallying
audiences in theaters. The CPI also encouraged filmmakers to produce movies, like The Kaiser:
the Beast of Berlin, that played up alleged German atrocities. For the first time, the federal
government had demonstrated the power of propaganda.
Anti-German Sentiment
German American and Irish American communities came out strongly in favor of neutrality.
The groups condemned massive loans and arms sales to the allies as they saw the acts as
violations of neutrality. Theodore Roosevelt raised the issue of whether these communities
were loyal to their mother country or to the United States:
Those hyphenated Americans who terrorize American politicians by threats of the foreign vote
are engaged in treason to the American Republic.
Once the United States entered the war, a search for spies and saboteurs escalated into efforts
to suppress German culture. Many German-language newspapers were closed down. Public
schools stopped teaching German. Lutheran churches dropped services that were spoken in
German.
Germans were called "Huns." In the name of patriotism, musicians no longer played Bach and
Beethoven, and schools stopped teaching the German language. Americans renamed
sauerkraut "liberty cabbage"; dachshunds "liberty hounds"; and German measles "liberty
measles." Cincinnati, with its large German American population, even removed pretzels from
the free lunch counters in saloons. More alarming, vigilante groups attacked anyone suspected
of being unpatriotic. Workers who refused to buy war bonds often suffered harsh retribution,
and attacks on labor protesters were nothing short of brutal. The legal system backed the
suppression. Juries routinely released defendants accused of violence against individuals or
groups critical of the war.
A St. Louis newspaper campaigned to "wipe out everything German in this city," even though
St. Louis had a large German American population. Luxembourg, Missouri became Lemay;
Berlin Avenue was renamed Pershing; Bismark Street became Fourth Street; Kaiser Street was
changed to Gresham.
Perhaps the most horrendous anti-German act was the lynching in April 1918 of 29-year-old
Robert Paul Prager, a German-born bakery employee, who was accused of making "disloyal
utterances." A mob took him from the basement of the Collinsville, Illinois jail, dragged him
outside of town, and hanged him from a tree. Before the lynching, he was allowed to write a
last note to his parents in Dresden, Germany:
Dear Parents: I must on this, the 4th day of April, 1918, die. Please pray for me, my dear
parents.
In the trial that followed, the defendants wore red, white, and blue ribbons, while a band in the
court house played patriotic songs. It took the jury 25 minutes to return a not-guilty verdict.
The German government lodged a protest and offered to pay Prager's funeral expenses.
The Espionage & Sedition Act
In his war message to Congress, President Wilson had warned that the war would require a
redefinition of national loyalty. There were "millions of men and women of German birth and
native sympathy who live amongst us," he said. "If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt
with a firm hand of repression."
In June 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act. The piece of legislation gave postal officials
the authority to ban newspapers and magazines from the mails and threatened individuals
convicted of obstructing the draft with $10,000 fines and 20 years in jail. Congress passed the
Sedition Act of 1918, which made it a federal offense to use "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or
abusive language" about the Constitution, the government, the American uniform, or the flag.
The government prosecuted over 2,100 people under these acts.
Political dissenters bore the brunt of the repression. Eugene V. Debs, who urged socialists to
resist militarism, went to prison for nearly three years. Another Socialist, Kate Richards
O'Hare, served a year in prison for stating that the women of the United States were "nothing
more nor less than brood sows, to raise children to get into the army and be made into
fertilizer."
In July 1917, labor radicals offered another ready target for attack. In Cochise County,
Arizona, armed men, under the direction of a local sheriff, rounded up 1,186 strikers at the
Phelps Dodge copper mine. They placed these workers--many of Mexican descent--on railroad
cattle cars without food or water and left them in the New Mexico desert 180 miles away. The
Los Angeles Times editorialized: "The citizens of Cochise County have written a lesson that the
whole of America would do well to copy."
The radical labor organization, the International Workers of the World (IWW), never recovered
from government attacks during World War I. In September 1917, the Justice Department
staged massive raids on IWW officers, arresting 169 of its veteran leaders. The
administration's purpose was, as one attorney put it, "very largely to put the IWW out of
business." Many observers thought the judicial system would protect dissenters, but the courts
handed down stiff prison sentences to the radical labor organization's leaders.
Radicals were not the only one to suffer harassment. Robert Goldstein, a motion picture
producer, had made a movie about the American Revolution called The Spirit of '76, before the
United States entered the war. When he released the picture after the declaration of war, he
was accused of undermining American morale. A judge told him that his depiction of heartless
British redcoats caused Americans to question their British allies. He was sentenced to a 10
year prison term and fined $5,000.
Women, African Americans, & the Flu
World War I was at the time the most devastating war the world had ever seen. It
was ‘the war to end all wars”. Countless young men’s lives were sacrificed in the
name of freedom and democracy, and countless more deployed into the war, and
experienced the horrors first hand. With nearly all able, working men serving
overseas in the war, women undertook the task of managing the war effort at home,
and also providing for their families. African-Americans as well worked to manage the
war effort, and provide for themselves and families. The home front became a nation
of working women and African –Americans, who not only worked in factories to
produce goods needed for the war, but also cared for the sick and wounded men from
the war, recruited men and also supported to war with bonds and boycotts.
After America entered into the war in Europe, thousands of men were deployed
overseas, and a great portion of that number was killed. With so many casualties and
many more men serving abroad, the brunt of the production in factories were left to
the women and African-Americans left in the U.S. Women, who had once only
contemplated staying home to manage their house and families, were now working in
all types of factories. From the production of ammunition and military products to
household goods, about one million women worked long hours in factories fulfilling the
jobs usually held for men only.
Women working in factories not only supported the war effort by providing
materials for the military and American citizens, but also allotted for the independence
of women. Finally, the majority of women in the U.S. were working and making their
own wages in order to support their families. Due to the strength and independence
women displayed during the war years, women gained more respect from politicians,
and once the war was over women’s suffrage was almost immediately granted. “We
have made partners of the women in this war; shall we admit them only to a
partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnerships of privilege and
right?” (Woodrow Wilson).
Not only were women working jobs in factories that had only been reserved for
white males, but also African-Americans migrated from the rural south to the urban
north, and began to undertake the jobs left by men serving in the armed forces. This
is referred to as the Great Migration. Millions of African Americans fled the south for
numerous reasons. The KKK was still raging war against African Americans in the
south, lynching at least 2 per week until 1920. The North was their escape from this
violent social group. Also, a large bug infestation ruined most of the cotton crop in
1918, having nothing left to farm, African Americans were forced to look for jobs
elsewhere. Entrepreneurs such as Henry Ford recruited African Americans to come to
the North, taunting them with free railroad tickets to any northern destination with a
Ford Factory. This way, African Americans could move their entire family to safety,
secure a job, and be free of the KKK. Many more African-Americans held jobs during
the war years than ever before, and they too helped with the war effort by producing
goods for both the military and the home front.
Not only did women work in factories supporting the military aboard and home
front, but also many upper class women, who did not need to work for money to
support a home, joined organizations that cared for wounded soldiers, and also the
victims of the 1918 influenza pandemic. One of these organizations included the
American Red Cross, which was instrumental during America’s time of need. Some
women worked abroad with the Red Cross while others stayed at home supplying the
organization. Many women worked as nurses in the Red Cross performing duties such
as rolling bandages, knitting socks, and working in military hospitals taking care of
wounded soldiers. Women also organized clubs and canteens for soldiers on leave, as
well as drove ambulances across battlefields. Women also helped with the
recruitment of men in America by encouraging other women to outcast any man who
had not joined the war.
The war had a heavy impact on America’s economics and culture. Liberty
bonds became one of the most common ways to support the American war effort, and
everyone bought liberty bonds to support the war, but also for the economic promise
they offered. Twenty billion dollars was collected from Americans simply buying a war
bond, or loan to the US government. This “loan” was one that would never be paid
back to Americans, and that was just fine with them, as they were “helping beat the
Hun”. It is estimated that 90% of the war was funded through these bonds.
Propaganda helped convince Americans it was their duty to contribute economically.
Propaganda also encouraged Americans, mainly women and families, to ration
their food in order for it to be sent to the soldiers abroad. American women observed
days for boycotting a certain food or material. National “wheat less” or “sweet less”
days were used as a way to conserve food during the war. In addition, women
created “war gardens” that produced extra fruits and vegetables, which were rare for
the lack of labor on farms. Prohibition restricted the sale of grain supplies, and the
eighteenth amendment also banned consumption of alcohol. Women on the home
front obliged all of these efforts and restrictions for the sole purpose of supporting
American in the war, and because, according to propaganda posters, they would be
seen as “helping the enemy” if they didn’t.
Finally, one of the most dramatic events occurring on the American home front
during WWI was the large influenza (flu) outbreak. Without a modern medical
vaccination, 500,000 people suffered and died from this pandemic disease. This
greatly contributed to the chaos of the war years.
Truly, World War I was very devastating to all nations in involved, and the
home front of the nations had to substitute for all the men serving in the military or
killed in action. However, in America the majority of the war effort on the home front
was conducted by women forced to provide for their families while their men were at
war. Other women joined the effort just to help the Americans in the war. American
women and African-Americans fulfilled factory jobs that supplied the armed forces and
households in the U.S., and women served as nurses and recruiters for the military.
Women back on the home front also bought Liberty bonds, and observed days
for conserving food, as well as abiding by numerous laws, which aided the war effort.
The support of all the hard working people on the home front during World War I
enabled America and the Allied forces to win the “Great War”, and end the violence,
death, and despair, which had scourged the world in the early twentieth century.