History 2301E Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: George Creel, Espionage Act Of 1917, Civil Liberties
2 May 2018
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Department
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Professor
January 15, 2018
World War I at Home
U.S. Neutrality and the reasons they get involved
➢ Mobilizing for War
➢ The Social impact of the War
➢ Civil Liberties
o George Creel and the CPI
o The Espionage Act, 1917 and the Sedition Act, 1918
➢ 1919
o The Red Scare
o The Black Sox Scandal
Mobilizing for War
- Government intervention
o New agencies
▪ Want to ensure no food shortages
▪ Main influence is economic
▪ The Food Administration
• Wheatless Mondays and Wednesdays, meatless Tuesdays and
Thursdays, porkless Saturday
• Designed for Americans to conserve food at home so that they can
help to serve allies
• About patriotism – connects people to the war effort
▪ Victory gardens
• Plant your own food and not consume the food that farmers were
making
▪ Cookbooks
• On food preservation and using canned food
o Paying for war
▪ Taxes and the War Revenue Act, 1917
• Expanded the amount of income tax collected
• More people paying income tax
• Raised $21 million
▪ Borrowing
• Liberty Bonds
o Same as during the American Revolution
o A way for you to feel connected
o Hollywood stars also bought them
The Social Impact of the War
- Farmers
o Boom years
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▪ An economic boom
o When war broke out, farmers benefit in the U.S.
o In Europe, these farm lands turned into battlefields
o American agriculture goods were able to be sold to the French, German, Russian
and British
o Downside – to meet wartime demand, farmers bought more acres on credit
▪ When the war ends, by 1921/22 crashes down
• Farmers enter the great depression in 1922 – an economic crisis
- Labor
o No strike pledge
▪ Unions are seen as un-American, socialistic, flies in the face of
Protestantism
▪ Gov’t makes agreement between labor union and activists
• During the war, they will not go on strike or stop the war
production – regardless of pay
o The National War Labor Board
▪ Union organization and collective bargaining
• Unions have the right of collective bargaining – gets gov’t
approval
▪ Set up by the Gov’t
▪ When the Red Scare hits – fear of communism, socialists. unions are seen
as the face of communism in America
- Women
o War time work
▪ As the men go off to fight, women take the jobs on the farms and in the
factories
▪ about 1 million women enter the workforce in 1917
o Military service
▪ Part of the war effort
▪ The generals, nurses, secretaries
▪ Marjorie Stinson – helped to fly the planes from America over to Europe
• A support role
o Suffrage movement
▪ A way that women get the vote
- African Americans
o The Great Migration – begins in 1914 when the war breaks out
▪ Jobs
• American industry were losing their workforce – put ads in black
churches and newspapers
o Paid for their relocation costs and for them to travel north
• About economic opportunity
o A way to get out of agriculture work and share croppiing
▪ Racism
• Exact same racism exists in the North
▪ Millions migrate north
• Harlem, Detroit and Chicago
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