THE HOME FRONT

THE GOVERNMENT’S ROLE

Before the war the government played a small role in the day to day lives of Americans

It regulated industrial and agricultural products.

Attempted to manipulate the public’s opinion (propaganda)

MOBILIZATION AT HOME.

MobilizationEconomicEmotional

Troops

AMERICA MOBILIZES FOR WAR

US Army was originally a fraction of the size of European armies.

Wilson encouraged Americans to volunteer and pushed congress to pass “Selective Services Act”

Passed in 1917 Authorized a draft of young men

for military service in Europe.

9.6 million registered for the draft and were assigned a number.

Gov’t held a “great national lottery” to decide the order in which the draftees would be called into service.

Over course of war 24 million registered 2.8 actually drafted. 4 million total served including volunteers.

Wilson also worked to shift the economy to wartime production

Council of National Defense Created to oversee

different agencies. Food production, coal,

petroleum distribution, and railway use.

Government determined what crops grew and how supplies moved around on nation’s trains.

AMERICA MOBILIZES FOR WAR

WAR INDUSTRIES BOARD (WIB)

Bernard Baruch WIB regulated all

industries engaged in war effort.

System of free enterprise was curtailed to fulfill the nations need for war materials.

TO KEEP WORKERS WORKING…

WHAT DID FACTORIES PRODUCE?

Women's blouse factories made signal flags

Radiator manufacturers made guns

Automobile factories made airplane engines

Piano companies made airplane wings.

COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION (CPI)

Had to convince Americans that war was a just cause

Distributed 75 million pamphlets

Millions of posters that dramatized the needs of America and its allies

Stressed cruelty of Germans

PROPAGANDA: WILSON FORMED THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION (CPI).

What do these

posters say about Germany?

DOES PROPAGANDA EXIST IN THE 21ST CENTURY?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings changed the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries," in a culinary rebuke of France stemming from anger over the country's refusal to support the U.S. position on Iraq. http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/sprj.irq.fries/

THE HOME FRONT

Censorship Not told about high

death tollRomanticized the

battlefields“soldiers have died a

beautiful death, in noble battle, we shall rediscover poetry…epic and chivalrous”

THE HOME FRONT

Impossible to hide deathWomen in

mourningBadly wounded

soldiers returned home

Opposition began to emerge

OPPOSITION TO THE WAR

German Americans and Irish Americans opposed the allies Sometimes treated with prejudice

Draft created controversy Some refused and often court-martialed and

imprisoned. 12% of men who received draft notices didn’t

respond.

CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS

Moral or religious beliefs forbid them to fight in wars.

Exempted from combat “any well recognized

religious sect or organization… whose existing creed or principles forbid its members to participate in war.

WOMEN WORK FOR PEACE

Many American women opposed the war.

Jeanette Rankin, first women to serve in the US House of Representative voted against declaration of war.

Jane Addams- Women’s Peace Party

GOVERNMENT CRACKS DOWN ON DISSENT Espionage Act

Ban treasonable or seditious newspapers, magazines, or printed materials from the mail.

Limited freedom of Speech further with the Sedition Act Unlawful to use

“disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language.”

WOMEN EMBRACE NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Many women moved into the workforce for the first time.

Women filled jobs that were vacated by men who had gone to fight.

By their efforts during the war women convinced President Wilson to support their suffrage demands. 1919 right to vote.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN Presented new

opportunities to African-Americans

“If this is our country this is our war”

Movement from the rural South to the industrial North Great Migration

Escape the violent racism of the south

Others desired better jobs “I beg you, my brother,

to leave the benighted land . . . Get out of the South… Come north then, all you folks, both good and bad… The Defender says come”

Push from the South by… Jim Crow

Segregation laws Lynching and

other racial violence

Low-paying jobs as sharecroppers or servants

Ruined cotton crops due to weevil infestation

Pulled to the North by… Economic

prosperity in northern cities

Job openings due to reduced immigration

Aid from African Americans in the North

MEXICAN AMERICANS MOVE NORTH

Some of the same reasons African-Americans moved north

Many settled in the West working on large farms.

Barrios- Hispanic neighborhoods.

SCHENCK V. UNITED STATES 1919

The Facts The Issue The Decision

•During World War I, Charles Schenck was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917, which made it a crime to cause refusal of duty in the military.

•Schenck had distributed pamphlets urging men to resist the military draft

•Schenck’s appeal to the Supreme Court argued that his actions were protected by the First Amendment

•“Clear and Present Danger”

•The Court unanimously upheld Schenck’s conviction and said that in times of war the government may place reasonable limitations on freedom of speech.