Domestic World War I
(Over There: famous song)
(Hun: Germans; propaganda poster)
Joining the War Effort
 Americans were urged to join the war before they
were drafted (by the Selective Service Act)
 Many recruiting posters were seen in public places
 Most famous was James M. Flagg’s “I Want You for
U.S. Army” poster
Mass Production of War Materials
 U.S. factories cranked out ships and
weapons
Huge increase in government
involvement in the economy
 Economy had to be re-focused on the war effort
 Shift from producing consumer goods to war
supplies was complicated, so business & the govt.
collaborated (consumer goods still produced, but
not as many)
 In the process, the power of govt. greatly
expanded
 Congress gave President Wilson direct control over
much of the economy, including the power to fix
prices and to regulate (even nationalize) certain
war-related industries
 Numerous govt. war agencies created
War Industries Board (WIB)
 Main regulatory body
 Headed by Bernard Baruch
 Directed production and controlled the economy
 Allocated (distributed) raw materials
 Allocated war production to existing factories and
built new ones
 Also regulated production of non-war goods
 Encouraged companies to use mass-production
techniques to increase efficiency
 Industrial production increased by about 20%
War Industries Board
 Picture: Bernard Baruch, head of the WIB
War Inflation
 WIB applied price controls only at the
wholesale level; as a result, retail prices
soared
 In 1918 retail prices were almost double
what they had been before the war
Wages and Labor during WWI
 Wages in most industries rose during WWI
 A household’s income, however, was weakened by rising
food prices and housing costs
 Stockholders in large corporations made huge profits
 Unions boomed / membership increased
 Thousands of strikes broke out
 National War Labor Board: established by President
Wilson to deal with disputes between management &
labor; also established policies affecting wages, hours,
and working conditions
Women and WWI
 The need for wartime workers brought over a million
more women into the work force
Fuel Administration
 Monitored coal supplies and rationed gasoline and
heating oil
 “Gasless Sundays” and “lightless nights” adopted by
many Americans to conserve fuel
 Daylight-Saving Time: another conservation measure
started in March 1918 (to save fuel and electricity)
Food Administration
 Headed by Herbert Hoover
 Saw to it that food production was increased and less
food was wasted
 Food wasn’t rationed, but Hoover asked people to
voluntarily conserve food
 Special days of the week: “wheatless,” “meatless,”
“sweetless,” “porkless”
Food Administration
Victory Gardens
 Food Administration encouraged these
 Homeowners planted vegetables in their yards so
commercially-grown food could be sent to the soldiers
 American food shipments to the Allies tripled
 Farmers put millions more acres into production
 Farmers’ income increased
WWI Food Conservation
and Prohibition (of alcohol)
 Support for prohibition grew during the war
 Not producing alcohol saved grain for the war effort
 Many beer producers were German, and there was
prejudice toward anything German
 18th Amendment passed shortly after the war
Financing WWI: Taxes & Bonds
 U.S. spent about $35 billion
 Govt. raised about 1/3 of this through taxes
 About 2/3 of the money was raised through public
borrowing by selling government bonds
 War bonds called “Liberty Loans” & then “Victory Loans”
Propaganda Agency:
Committee on Public Information
 Headed by journalist George Creel
 Purpose: to publicize the American
cause and stimulate patriotism
 Produced many propaganda posters, etc.
 75,000 “Four-Minute Men” spoke at
various functions about the draft,
voluntary rationing, bond drives, victory
gardens, and topics such as “Why We Are
Fighting”
Committee on Public Information
Negative Effect of Propaganda:
Attacks on Civil Liberties
 Conformity became expected after war was declared
 Anti-immigrant hysteria (especially against people from
Germany or Austria-Hungary)
 Some Americans with German names lost their jobs
 German music stopped being played and learned
 German language stopped being taught in schools
 Some German-Americans were physically attacked
 German measles became “liberty measles,” sauerkraut
became “liberty cabbage,” and dachshunds became
“liberty pups”
Anti-German comic, 1917
Espionage and Sedition Acts
 Passed in 1917 and 1918
 Americans could be fined up to $10,000 and sentenced
to 20 years in jail for interfering with the war effort or
criticizing the war effort
 Criticized by many for violating the First Amendment
 Socialists and other left-wingers like radical labor union
leaders, along with newspaper editors, targeted & jailed
 Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs was jailed in 1919
for violating the acts
WWI’s Impact on Woman’s Suffrage
 NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage
Association) pushed hard for the right to vote
 Radical Alice Paul formed the National Woman’s
Party
 Patriotic American women headed committees,
knitted socks for soldiers, sold liberty bonds,
worked in factories, etc., during WWI and now
claimed their overdue reward for supporting the
war effort
 President Wilson and other politicians now
supported the right to vote for women
 Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919,
and it was ratified in 1920
WWI and Woman’s Suffrage
 Picture: Alice Paul
WWI and Blacks: Great Migration
 Black public opinion about the war was divided
 W. E. B. DuBois & others said blacks should support it
 Other black leaders said that victims of racism should
not support a racist government
 The greatest effect of WWI on African Americans’ lives
was that it accelerated the Great Migration, the largescale movement of hundreds of thousands of Southern
blacks to cities in the North
 Factors: blacks sought to escape the Jim Crow South;
more job opportunities in the North, esp. due to the war
(for example, Henry Ford opened his auto assembly line
to black workers in 1914)
WWI and Blacks: Great Migration
 Northern manufacturers sent recruiting agents to
distribute free railroad passes throughout the South
 The publisher of the black-owned newspaper Chicago
Defender bombarded Southern blacks with articles
contrasting life in the South with life in the North
 Blacks migrated to such cities as Chicago, NY, & Philly