Unit II- Becoming a World Power
Chapter 8 Section 3
The Home Front
The Home Front
The Main Idea
The U.S. mobilized a variety of resources to wage World War I.
Reading Focus

How did the government mobilize the economy for the war effort?

How did workers mobilize on the home front?

How did the government try to influence public opinion about the war?
Mobilizing the Economy
• Going to war was extremely expensive, and
President Wilson needed to find ways to pay for it.
Taxes
•Congress
passed
the War
Revenue
Act of
1917.
Loans
and
Liberty
Bonds
Regulating
Industry
Mobilization of Money

Military Expenses
–
–
–
Expenses for army, navy, credit and
materials for allies ran into billions.
$23 billion for the U.S. war effort and $10
billion for war loans to Allies.
Taxes and Loans and Liberty Bonds
Government takes control- War
Industries Board
The
Overman Act of 1918
helped create the War
Industries Board- Bernard
M. Baruch
– Job-.
– During the war.
Raising Money, Conservation and Government Controls- 2:21 min.
Daylight Savings, Taxes, and Liberty Bonds – 1:04
Mobilization
Army
needed to be
fed, clothed, equipped
and armed
Regulations to Supply U.S. and Allied Troops
Regulating Food
• Congress passed
the Lever Food and
Fuel Control Act.
• Herbert Hoover’s
Food
Administration.
• The 1919 Volstead
Act.
Regulating
Fuel
•The Fuel
Administration
•daylight
savings time
•fuel
conservation.
Government takes control

Some Private Businesses were taken over.

Council of Defense
Mobilizing the Economy




How did the government mobilize the economy
for the war effort?
What was the War Revenue Act of 1917?
What was the function of the War Industries
Board?
Why do you think it was necessary for the
government to set prices and production
controls for food and fuel during the war?
Mobilizing the Economy
 What
steps did the Fuel
Administration take to encourage
fuel conservation?
 How did patriotism play a part in
the passage of the 18th
Amendment?
Mobilizing Workers

During the war, the profits of many major industrial
companies skyrocketed.

This created enormous profits for stockholders

Factory wages also increased, but the cost of food and
housing went up.

War demands also led to laborers working long hours in
increasingly dangerous conditions.

labor unions.
Union membership increased by about 60 percent between
1916 and 1919, and unions boomed as well, with more than
6,000 strikes held during the war.
Wartime Workers
National War
Labor Board
Women’s
War Efforts
Government takes control- The
Labor Force
 United
States Employment Service
created to fill jobs in vital
industries.
 A National War Labor Boardcreated to arbitrate labor
disputes.- 8 hour workday and
government support of unions.
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 (02:38)
Influenza Spreads

Three waves of a severe flu epidemic
broke out between 1918 and 1919 in
Europe and in America.

Of all American troops who died in
World War II, half died from influenza.

On the Western Front, crowded and
unsanitary trenches helped flu spread
among troops, then to American
military camps in Kansas and beyond.

This strain of influenza was deadly,
killing healthy people within days, and
during the month of October 1918,
influenza killed nearly 200,000
Americans.

Panicked city leaders halted gatherings,
and people accused the Germans of
releasing flu germs into the populace.
Scientists have
Reconstructed the
1918 influenza
Virus and found it
to be a bird flu that
was transmitted
directly to humans
They analyzed two
People who died in
1918 epidemic..
By the time it passed, over 600,000 Americans lost their lives.
Mobilizing Workers




How did workers mobilize on the home front?
What were some of the policies set by the
National War Labor Board?
What can you infer from the fact that profits of
many major industrial corporations skyrocketed
because they sold their products to the federal
government?
How did war demands lead to an increase in union
membership?
Mobilizing Workers
How
did the influenza
epidemic affect American
life?
How did the influenza
epidemic spread?
Influencing Public Opinion
President Wilson used a number of tactics to gain the support of
Americans who had favored neutrality in World War I.
Propaganda
• The Committee on
Public Information
(CPI) appointed
reporter and
reformer George
Creel as its leader.
Reactions
Fear on the Homefront: The Espionage and Sedition Acts (05:19)
WWI: The Espionage and Sedition Acts (03:43)
Government takes controlMobilizing Minds
 Millions
opposed to warGerman Americans, Irish
Americans, Socialists,
Progressives, Pacifists,
 Committee on Public
Information- The Creel
Committee
Propaganda and the Creel Committee – 1:51
Limiting Antiwar Speech
Some Americans Speak Out
• Prominent Americans such as pacifist reformer Jane Addams and Senator
Robert La Follette spoke out against the war.
• Addams founded the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
• Wilson’s administration tried to limit public speech about the war.
Legislation
•Espionage Act
•Sedition Act
Opponents
• More than 1,000 opponents of war were jailed under
those acts
• Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs
Opponents Go to the Supreme Court
Schenck
v. United States
(1919)
Influencing Public Opinion
 How
did the government try to
influence public opinion about
the war?
 What is propaganda?
 How did anti-German feelings
affect American life during
World War I?