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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 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.