Impact of WWI
at Home
I will analyze how WWI spurred social,
political, and economic change in the
United States.
Read One American’s Story
• Explain why the United States stopped being neutral
and joined the Allied powers in WWI.
• Read one American’s Story on page 388
• Explain how WWI impacted the lives of women in
America.
• Title Notes: WWI at Home in America
Reading
• Read pages 388 to 390 and create Cornell notes
explaining:
o
o
o
o
o
Wilson Gaining more economic control
War Industries Board
War Economy
National Labor Board
Food Administration
Congress gives more
power to Wilson
• Because World War I was such an immense conflict,
the entire economy had to be refocused on the
war effort.
• Business and government collaborated in the effort
to produce war supplies.
• The power of government was greatly expanded.
• Congress gave President Wilson more economic
power:
o fix prices
o Regulate or nationalize war-related industries.
War Industries Board
• War Industries Board (WIB)- main economic
regulation body..
• The board encouraged companies to
o use mass-production techniques to increase efficiency.
o eliminate waste by standardizing products
• The WIB set production quotas and allocated raw
materials.
• Effects
o industrial production increased 20% , however retail prices soared
o Corporate profits grew in industries like chemicals, meatpacking, oil, and
steel.
Other Economic
Regulatory Agencies
• Railroad Administration controlled the railroads
• Fuel Administration monitored coal supplies and
rationed gasoline and heating oil.
o people adopted “gasless Sundays” and “lightless nights” to conserve fuel.
o March 1918, introduced daylight-saving time, to take advantage of the
longer days of summer.
War Economy
• National Labor Board
• settled disputes between
companies and workers
• Workers who disobeyed
lost their draft
exemptions
• “Work or fight”
• improved factory conditions.
• eight-hour workday
• promoted safety
inspections
• enforced the child labor
ban
• Industrial wages rise;
offset by rising costs
of food, housing
• Large corporations
make enormous
profits
• Unions boom from
dangerous
conditions, child
labor, unfair pay
• 6000 Strikes
Food Administration
• American food
shipments to the Allies
tripled because
o Homeowners planted “victory
gardens”
o Food Grown in public parks.
• Hoover increased
wheat prices
o
Farmers put an additional 40
million acres into production.
• Not rationing food
• Promoted: “gospel of
the clean plate.”
• Hoover declared
weekly:
o
o
o
o
1 day “meatless,”
1 day “sweetless,”
2 days “wheatless,”
2 days “porkless.”
• Restaurants removed
sugar bowls served
bread only after the
first course.
Food Administration
Check for Understanding
• Explain the importance of each of the following
political impact of WWI at home:
o War Industries Board
o Food Administration
o National Labor Board
Reading
• Read pages 390 to 391 and create Cornell notes
explaining:
o Financing the war
o Propaganda
Read pages 391 to 392 and create Cornell
notes explaining:
Anti-Immigrant Hysteria
Espionage and Sedition Acts
Selling the War
• War Financing
• U.S. spends $35.5 billion on war effort
• 1/3 paid through taxes, 2/3 borrowed through sale of war bonds
Selling the War
• Committee on Public Information
• Propaganda—biased communication designed to influence people
• Former muckraker George Creel heads Committee on Public Information
• Creel produces visual works, printed matter to promote war
• Gets 75K volunteers, “Four-Minute Men” to speak about war, distribute materials
o Topics: the draft, rationing, bond drives, victory gardens, “Why We Are
Fighting” and “The Meaning of America.”
War Propaganda
American Poster
War Propaganda
Financing the War
Check for Understanding
• Explain how the war was financed.
• Explain why propaganda was used and how it
impacted America.
Reading
• Read pages 391 to 392 and create Cornell notes
explaining:
o Anti-Immigrant Hysteria
o Espionage and Sedition Acts
Attacks on Civil Liberties
• Propaganda promoted patriotism but also inflamed
hatred for immigrants
Attacks on Civil Liberties
• Anti-Immigrant Hysteria
•
•
•
•
Attacks against immigrants, especially from Germany, Austria-Hungary
Suppression of German culture—music, language, literature
People with German names lost jobs
Violence against German Americans
Attacks on Civil Liberties
• Espionage and Sedition Acts
o Espionage and Sedition Acts—person can be fined $100,000 or imprisoned for
20 years for:
• interfering with war effort, speaking against government or the war effort
o Violate 1st amendment; prosecute loosely defined antiwar activities
o target socialists, labor leaders
• Debs received 10 year prison sentence
• IWW targeted…eventually faded away
Attacks on Civil Liberties
• Espionage and Sedition Acts
o 2,000 Prosecutions
• Half convicted
o Anti-war newspapers lost mailing privileges
o Congressman Berger not allowed to go to Congress
Check for Understanding
• How did people lose their rights during the war?
• Argue if the Espionage and Sedition Acts were
justifiable during WWI.
Reading
• Read pages 392 to 394 and create Cornell notes
explaining:
o African Americans and the War
o The Great Migration
o Women and the War
The War Encourages
Social Change
• African Americans and the War
• Du Bois urges support for war to strengthen call
for racial justice
• Most African Americans support war
• However - Some think victims of racism should not support racist government
• Great Migration—large-scale movement of
Southern blacks to North
o escape racial discrimination in Jim Crow South
o take up new job opportunities- Factories were hiring as farms were struggling
• Press of new migrants intensifies racial tensions
in North
Great Migration• Between
1910 and
1930,
hundreds of
thousands of
African
Americans
migrated to
such cities
as Chicago,
New York,
and
Philadelphia.
Women in the War
• Women moved into jobs that had been held
exclusively by men.
o
o
o
o
o
o
railroad workers
cooks,
dockworkers,
bricklayers.
Coal Miners
Ship Builders.
• Many women continued to fill more traditional jobs
o nurses, clerks, and teachers.
Women in 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.”
• Women did not receive equal pay for equal work,
• Women in the war effort won support for Women
suffrage
o In 1919, Congress finally passed the Nineteenth Amendment, granting
women the right to vote.
o In 1920 the amendment was ratified by the states.
Check for Understanding
• Explain how WWI impacted the lives socially of the
following two groups:
o African Americans
o Women.
DOL
• Justify how WWI impacted America at home in
each of the following ways: (At least 2 examples
explained for each)
o Politically
o Socially
o Culturally