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594 C

HAPTER 19

Terms & Names

MAIN IDEA

One American's Story

The War at Home

•War Industries

Board

•Bernard M.

Baruch

•propaganda

•George Creel

•Espionage and

Sedition Acts

•Great Migration

World War I spurred social,

political, and economic

change in the United States.

Such changes increased

government powers and

expanded economic

opportunities.

WHY IT MATTERS NOW

The suffragist Harriot Stanton Blatch visited a munitions plant in New

Jersey during World War I and proudly described women at work.

A PERSONAL VOICE HARRIOT STANTON BLATCH

“ The day I visited the place, in one of the largest shops women had

only just been put on the work, but it was expected that in less than

a month they would be found handling all of the twelve hundred

machines under that one roof alone. The skill of the women staggers

one. After a week or two they master the operations on the ‘turret,’

gauging and routing machines. The best worker on the ‘facing’

machine is a woman. She is a piece worker, as many of the women

are. . . . This woman earned, the day I saw her, ﬁve dollars and forty

cents. She tossed about the fuse parts, and played with that

machine, as I would with a baby.

”

—quoted in We, the American Women

Before World War I, women had been excluded from many jobs.

However, the wartime need for labor brought over a million more

women into the work force. For women, as for the rest of society,

World War I brought about far-reaching changes.

Congress Gives Power to Wilson

Winning the war was not a job for American soldiers alone. As Secretary of War

Newton Baker said, “War is no longer Samson with his shield and spear and

sword, and David with his sling. It is the conﬂict of smokestacks now, the com-

bat of the driving wheel and the engine.” Because World War I was such an

immense conﬂict, the entire economy had to be refocused on the war effort. The

shift from producing consumer goods to producing war supplies was too compli-

cated and important a job for private industry to handle on its own, so business

and government collaborated in the effort. In the process, the power of govern-

ment was greatly expanded. Congress gave President Wilson direct control over

much of the economy, including the power to fix prices and to

regulate—even to nationalize—certain war-related industries.

Harriot Stanton Blatch followed

in the footsteps of her famous

mother, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

▼

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Page 1 of 8

WAR INDUSTRIES BOARD

The main regulatory body was the War

Industries Board (WIB). It was established in 1917 and reorganized in 1918

under the leadership of Bernard M. Baruch

(bE-rLkP), a prosperous business-

man. The board encouraged companies to use mass-production techniques to

increase efﬁciency. It also urged them to eliminate waste by standardizing prod-

ucts—for instance, by making only 5 colors of typewriter ribbons instead of 150.

The WIB set production quotas and allocated raw materials.

Under the WIB, industrial production in the United States increased by about

20 percent. However, the WIB applied price controls only at the wholesale level.

As a result, retail prices soared, and in 1918 they were almost double what they

had been before the war. Corporate proﬁts soared as well, especially in such indus-

tries as chemicals, meatpacking, oil, and steel.

The WIB was not the only federal agency to regulate the economy during the

war. The Railroad Administration controlled the railroads, and the Fuel

Administration monitored coal supplies and rationed gasoline and heating oil. In

addition, many people adopted “gasless Sundays” and “lightless nights” to con-

serve fuel. In March 1918, the Fuel Administration introduced another conserva-

tion measure: daylight-saving time, which had ﬁrst been proposed by Benjamin

Franklin in the 1770s as a way to take advantage of the longer days of summer.

WAR ECONOMY

Wages in most industries rose during the war years. Hourly wages

for blue-collar workers—those in the metal trades, shipbuilding, and meatpacking,

for example—rose by about 20 percent. A household’s income, however, was largely

undercut by rising food prices and housing costs.

By contrast, stockholders in large corporations saw enormous proﬁts. One indus-

trial manufacturer, the DuPont Company, saw its stock multiply in value 1,600 per-

cent between 1914 and 1918. By that time the company was earning a $68-million

yearly proﬁt. As a result of the uneven pay between labor and management, increas-

ing work hours, child labor, and dangerously “sped-up” conditions, unions boomed.

Union membership climbed from about 2.5 million in 1916 to more than 4 million

in 1919. More than 6,000 strikes broke out during the war months.

To deal with disputes between management and labor, President Wilson estab-

lished the National War Labor Board in 1918. Workers who refused to obey board

decisions could lose their draft

exemptions. “Work or ﬁght,” the

board told them. However, the

board also worked to improve fac-

tory conditions. It pushed for an

eight-hour workday, promoted

safety inspections, and enforced

the child labor ban.

FOOD ADMINISTRATION

help produce and conserve food,

Wilson set up the Food Admin-

istration under Herbert Hoover.

Instead of rationing food, he

called on people to follow the

“gospel of the clean plate.” He

declared one day a week “meat-

less,” another “sweetless,” two

days “wheatless,” and two other

days “porkless.” Restaurants

removed sugar bowls from the

table and served bread only after

the ﬁrst course.

The First World War 595

Background

In 1913 Henry

Ford speeded up

factory production

with a constantly

moving assembly

line. Wartime

production spread

this technique

throughout the

country.

Skillbuilder

Answers

1. The prices

doubled, while

income more

than doubled.

2. A working

family would

have beneﬁted

from the

increase in

buying power.

MAIN IDEA

Making

Inferences

Why would

labor disputes

affect the

war effor t?

A. Answer

Labor disputes

would slow

down produc-

tion and

jeopardize

the American

war effort.

Consumer Price Index*

*A measure of changes in the prices of goods and

services commonly bought by consumers; see Economics

Handbook, page R39.

1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920

Consumer Price Index

Source: Historical Statistics

of the United States

Average Annual Income

1920

1919

1918

1917

1916

1915

1914

$627

$633

$706

$830

$1,047

$1,201

$1,407

The War Economy, 1914–1920

SKILLBUILDER

Interpreting Graphs

How did the rise in average annual income compare with the

rise in prices from 1914 to 1920?

How might the combined change in wages and prices affect

a working family?

p0594-601aspe-0519s3 10/17/02 8:58 AM Page 595

Page 2 of 8

Homeowners planted “victory gardens” in their yards.

Schoolchildren spent their after-school hours growing tomatoes and

cucumbers in public parks. As a result of these and similar efforts,

American food shipments to the Allies tripled. Hoover also set a high

government price on wheat and other staples. Farmers responded by

putting an additional 40 million acres into production. In the

process, they increased their income by almost 30 percent.

Selling the War

Once the government had extended its control over the economy, it was faced

with two major tasks: raising money and convincing the public to support the war.

WAR FINANCING

The United States spent about $35.5 billion on the war effort.

The government raised about one-third of this amount through taxes, including

a progressive income tax (which taxed high incomes at a higher rate than low

incomes), a war-proﬁts tax, and higher excise taxes on tobacco, liquor, and luxury

goods. It raised the rest through public borrowing by selling “Liberty Loan” and

“Victory Loan” bonds.

The government sold bonds through tens of thousands of volunteers. Movie

stars spoke at rallies in factories, in schools, and on street corners. As Treasury

Secretary William G. McAdoo put it, only “a friend of Germany” would refuse to

buy war bonds.

COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION

To popularize the war, the govern-

ment set up the nation’s ﬁrst propaganda agency, the Committee on Public

Information (CPI). Propaganda is a kind of biased communication designed to

inﬂuence people’s thoughts and actions. The head of the CPI was a former muck-

raking journalist named George Creel.

Creel persuaded the nation’s artists and advertising agencies to create thou-

sands of paintings, posters, cartoons, and sculptures promoting the war. He

recruited some 75,000 men to serve as “Four-Minute Men,” who spoke about

everything relating to the war: the draft, rationing, bond drives, victory gardens,

and topics such as “Why We Are Fighting” and “The Meaning of America.”

Nor did Creel neglect the written word. He ordered a printing of almost

25 million copies of “How the War Came to America”—which included Wilson’s

war message—in English and other languages. He distributed some 75 million

pamphlets, booklets, and leaﬂets, many with the enthusiastic help of the Boy

596 C

HAPTER 19

A Japanese-

American family

tends a victory

garden in New York

City in 1917.

A wartime poster encourages

Americans to conserve

resources.

▼

B. Answer

The government

raised some

money through

taxes and some

through the sale

of bonds.

MAIN IDEA

Summarizing

How did the

government raise

money for the

war effor t?

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Page 3 of 8

Analyzing

Scouts. Creel’s propaganda campaign was highly effective. However, while the

campaign promoted patriotism, it also inflamed hatred and violations of the civil

liberties of certain ethnic groups and opponents of the war.

Attacks on Civil Liberties Increase

Early in 1917, President Wilson expressed his fears about the consequences of

war hysteria.

A PERSONAL VOICE WOODROW WILSON

“ Once lead this people into war and they’ll forget there ever was such a thing

as tolerance. To ﬁght you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless

brutality will enter into the very ﬁber of our national life, infecting Congress, the

courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street. Conformity would be the

only virtue, and every man who refused to conform would have to pay the penalty.

”

—quoted in Cobb of “The World”

The president’s prediction came true. As soon as war was declared,

conformity indeed became the order of the day. Attacks on civil liberties, both

unofﬁcial and ofﬁcial, erupted.

ANTI-IMMIGRANT HYSTERIA

The main targets of these attacks were

Americans who had emigrated from other nations, especially those from

Germany and Austria-Hungary. The most bitter attacks were directed against the

nearly 2 million Americans who had been born in Germany, but other foreign-

born persons and Americans of German descent suffered as well.

Many Americans with German names lost their jobs. Orchestras refused to

play the music of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Some towns with

German names changed them. Schools stopped teaching the German language,

and librarians removed books by German authors from the shelves. People even

resorted to violence against German Americans, ﬂogging them or smearing them

The First World War 597

THE ENEMY WITHIN

After the United States entered the war, government

propaganda helped inﬂame prejudice against recent

immigrants. In the suspicious atmosphere of the time,

conspiracy theories ﬂourished, and foreign spies were

believed to be everywhere. This car toon reveals the

hysteria that gripped the country in 1917.

SKILLBUILDER

Analyzing Political Cartoons

What is happening in this cartoon?

What does the cartoonist suggest will happen

to “enemy aliens”?

SEE SKILLBUILDER HANDBOOK, PAGE R24.

MAIN IDEA

Developing

Historical

Perspective

What effect

did the war have

on the lives of

recent immigrants?

C. Answer

Recent immi-

grants suffered

persecution;

German immi-

grants and

those of German

descent suf-

fered the most

bitter attacks.

p0594-601aspe-0519s3 10/17/02 8:58 AM Page 597

Page 4 of 8

with tar and feathers. A mob in Collinsville, Illinois, wrapped a German ﬂag

around a German-born miner named Robert Prager and lynched him. A jury

cleared the mob’s leader.

Finally, in a burst of anti-German fervor, Americans changed the name of

German measles to “liberty measles.” Hamburger—named after the German city

of Hamburg—became “Salisbury steak” or “liberty sandwich,” depending on

whether you were buying it in a store or eating it in a restaurant. Sauerkraut was

renamed “liberty cabbage,” and dachshunds turned into “liberty pups.”

ESPIONAGE AND SEDITION ACTS

In June 1917 Congress passed the

Espionage Act, and in May 1918 it passed the Sedition Act. Under the Espionage

and Sedition Acts a person could be ﬁned up to $10,000 and sentenced to 20

years in jail for interfering with the war effort or for saying anything disloyal, pro-

fane, or abusive about the government or the war effort.

Like the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, these laws clearly violated the spir-

it of the First Amendment. Their passage led to over 2,000 prosecutions for

loosely defined antiwar activities; of these, over half resulted in convictions.

Newspapers and magazines that opposed the war or criticized any of the Allies

lost their mailing privileges. The House of Representatives refused to seat Victor

Berger, a socialist congressman from Wisconsin, because of his antiwar views.

Columbia University fired a distinguished psychologist because he opposed the

war. A colleague who supported the war thereupon resigned in protest, saying,

“If we have to suppress everything we don’t like to hear, this country is resting

on a pretty wobbly basis.”

The Espionage and Sedition Acts targeted socialists and labor leaders.

Eugene V. Debs was handed a ten-year prison sentence for speaking out

against the war and the draft. The anarchist Emma Goldman received a

two-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine for organizing the No

Conscription League. When she left jail, the authorities deported her to

Russia. “Big Bill” Haywood and other leaders of the Industrial Workers of

the World (IWW) were accused of sabotaging the war effort because they

urged workers to strike for better conditions and higher pay. Haywood

was sentenced to a long prison term. (He later skipped bail and fled to

Russia.) Under such federal pressure, the IWW faded away.

The War Encourages Social Change

Wars often unleash powerful social forces. The period of World War I was no

exception; important changes transformed the lives of African Americans

and women.

AFRICAN AMERICANS AND THE WAR

Black public opinion about the war was

divided. On one side were people like W. E. B. Du Bois, who believed that blacks

should support the war effort.

A PERSONAL VOICE W. E. B. DU BOIS

“ That which the German power represents today spells

death to the aspirations of Negroes and all darker races for

equality, freedom and democracy. . . . Let us, while this war

lasts, forget our special grievances and close our ranks

shoulder to shoulder with our own white fellow citizens

and the allied nations that are ﬁghting for democracy.

”

—“Close Ranks”

598 C

HAPTER 19

Vocabulary

sedition: rebellion

against one’s

government;

treason

W. E. B. Du Bois

D. Answer

The Acts led to

thousands of

prosecutions;

people were

ﬁred from their

jobs; antiwar

newspapers and

magazines lost

their mailing

privileges.

▼

This Industrial

Workers of the

World (IWW)

sticker encourages

workers to join

the union.

MAIN IDEA

Analyzing

Effects

What impact

did the Espionage

and Sedition Acts

have on free

speech?

▼

p0594-601aspe-0519s3 10/17/02 8:58 AM Page 598

Page 5 of 8

Du Bois believed that African-American support for the war would strength-

en calls for racial justice. In contrast, William Monroe Trotter, founder of the

Boston Guardian, believed that victims of racism should not support a racist gov-

ernment. Trotter condemned Du Bois’s accommodationist approach and favored

protest instead. Nevertheless, despite grievances over continued racial inequality

in the United States, most African Americans backed the war.

THE GREAT MIGRATION

In concrete terms, the greatest effect of the First World

War on African Americans’ lives was that it accelerated the Great Migration,

the large-scale movement of hundreds of thousands of Southern blacks to cities

in the North. This great population shift had already begun before the war in the

late 19th century, when African Americans trickled northward to escape the Jim

Crow South—but after the turn of the century, the trickle became a tidal wave.

Several factors contributed to the tremendous increase in black migration.

First, many African Americans sought to escape racial discrimination in the South,

which made it hard to make a living and often threatened their lives. Also, a boll

weevil infestation, aided by ﬂoods and droughts, had

ruined much of the South’s cotton ﬁelds. In the North,

there were more job opportunities. For example, Henry

Ford opened his automobile assembly line to black workers

in 1914. The outbreak of World War I and the drop in

European immigration increased job opportunities for

African Americans in steel mills, munitions plants, and

stockyards. Northern manufacturers sent recruiting agents

to distribute free railroad passes through the South. In

addition, the publisher of the black-owned newspaper

Chicago Defender bombarded Southern blacks with articles

contrasting Dixieland lynchings with the prosperity of

African Americans in the North.

The First World War 599

History Through

THE MIGRATION OF THE

NEGRO, PANEL NO. 1

(1940–41)

This painting by Jacob Lawrence

shows three of the most common

destinations for African Americans

leaving the South. Why do you

think the artist has not shown

any individual facial features?

MAIN IDEA

Making

Inferences

How did

the war open

opportunities

for African

Americans?

E. Answer

World War I

increased job

opportunities

for African

Americans in

steel mills,

munitions

plants, and

stockyards.

Image not available

for use on CD-ROM.

Please refer to the

image in the textbook.

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Page 6 of 8

However, racial prejudice against African Americans also

existed in the North. The press of new migrants to Northern

cities caused overcrowding and intensiﬁed racial tensions.

Nevertheless, between 1910 and 1930, hundreds of

thousands of African Americans migrated to such cities as

Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. Author Richard

Wright described the great exodus.

A PERSONAL VOICE RICHARD WRIGHT

“ We are bitter no more; we are leaving! We are leaving our

homes, pulling up stakes to move on. We look up at the

high southern sky and remember all the sunshine and all

the rain and we feel a sense of loss, but we are leaving.

We look out at the wide green ﬁelds which our eyes saw

when we ﬁrst came into the world and we feel full of

regret, but we are leaving. We scan the kind black faces

we have looked upon since we ﬁrst saw the light of day,

and, though pain is in our hearts, we are leaving. We take

one last furtive look over our shoulders to the Big House—

high upon a hill beyond the railroad tracks—where the Lord

of the Land lives, and we feel glad, for we are leaving.

”

—quoted in 12 Million Black Voices

WOMEN IN THE WAR

While African Americans began

new lives, women moved into jobs that had been held

exclusively by men. They became railroad workers, cooks,

dockworkers, and bricklayers. They mined coal and took

part in shipbuilding. At the same time, women continued to ﬁll more traditional

jobs as nurses, clerks, and teachers. Many women worked as volunteers, serving at

Red Cross facilities and encouraging the sale of bonds and the planting of victory

gardens. Other women, such as Jane Addams, were active in the peace movement.

Addams helped found the Women’s Peace Party in 1915 and remained a paciﬁst

even after the United States entered the war.

President Wilson acknowledged, “The services of women during the

supreme crisis have been of the most signal usefulness and distinction; it is high

time that part of our debt should be acknowledged.” While acknowledgment of

that debt did not include equal pay for equal work, it did help bolster public

support for woman suffrage. In 1919, Congress finally passed the Nineteenth

Amendment, granting women the right to vote. In 1920 the amendment was

ratified by the states.

600

Women worked

in a variety of

jobs during the

war. Here, women

assemble an

aircraft wing.

HISTORICAL

RACE RIOTS

Racial prejudice against African

Americans in the North some-

times took violent forms. In July

1917, a race riot exploded in East

St. Louis, Illinois. White workers,

furious over the hiring of African

Americans as strikebreakers at

a munitions plant, rampaged

through the streets. For ty blacks

and nine whites died.

Another riot erupted in July

1919 in Chicago when a 17-year-

old African American swam from

the water off a “black beach” to

the water off a “white beach.”

There, white bathers threw rocks

at him until he drowned.

African Americans retaliated,

and several riots broke out in the

city. Order was restored after sev-

eral days of violence that

involved about 10,000 people.

▼

F. Answer

Women moved

into jobs that

had been held

exclusively

by men.

MAIN IDEA

Analyzing

Effects

What effect

did the war have

on women’s lives?

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Page 7 of 8

THE FLU EPIDEMIC

In the fall of 1918, the United States suffered a home-

front crisis when an international ﬂu epidemic affected about one-quarter of the

U.S. population. The effect of the epidemic on the economy was devastating.

Mines shut down, telephone service was cut in half, and factories and ofﬁces

staggered working hours to avoid contagion. Cities ran short of cofﬁns, and the

corpses of poor people lay unburied for as long as a week. The mysterious illness

seemed to strike people who were otherwise in the best of health, and death

could come in a matter of days. Doctors did not know what to do, other than to

recommend cleanliness and quarantine. One epidemic survivor recalled that “so

many people died from the ﬂu they just rang the bells; they didn’t dare take

[corpses] into the church.”

In the army, where living conditions allowed contagious illnesses to

spread rapidly, more than a quarter of the soldiers caught the disease.

In some AEF units, one-third of the troops died. Germans fell victim in

even larger numbers than the Allies. Possibly spread around the

world by soldiers, the epidemic killed about 500,000 Americans

before it disappeared in 1919. Historians believe that the

inﬂuenza virus killed as many as 30 million people

worldwide.

World War I brought death and disease to

millions but, like the ﬂu epidemic, the war also

came to a sudden end. After four years of

slaughter and destruction, the time had come

to forge a peace settlement. Americans hoped

that this “war to end all wars” would do just

that. Leaders of the victorious nations gath-

ered at Versailles outside Paris to work out the

terms of peace, and President Wilson traveled

to Europe to ensure it.

The First World War 601

•War Industries Board

•Bernard M. Baruch

•propaganda

•George Creel

•Espionage and

Sedition Acts

•Great Migration

1. TERMS & NAMES For each term or name, write a sentence explaining its signiﬁcance.

MAIN IDEA

2. TAKING NOTES

In a chart like the one shown, list

some of the changes that the war

brought about for each group.

Explain how each group beneﬁted

from or was disadvantaged by

these changes.

CRITICAL THINKING

3. DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

How did the war affect government

power? Think About:

• how private business worked

with government

• how much control the president

gained over the economy

• the Espionage and Sedition Acts

4. MAKING INFERENCES

Why do you think the ﬂu spread so

quickly among the troops?

5. EVALUATING

Do you think that the war had a

positive or a negative effect on

American society? Think About:

• how the propaganda campaign

inﬂuenced people’s behavior

• the new job opportunities for

African Americans and women

• how the government controlled

industry

Changes Brought About

by the War

African Americans

Women

Immigrants

G. Answer

In the army,

living conditions

allowed conta-

gious illnesses

to spread

rapidly.

New York City

street cleaners

wore masks to

avoid catching

inﬂuenza.

▼

MAIN IDEA

Making

Inferences

How did

wartime conditions

help spread

the ﬂu?

p0594-601aspe-0519s3 10/17/02 8:58 AM Page 601

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