1. WWI
Americans on the Home Front

2. • Liberty Bonds
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Redeemed for original value + interest
More than $20 billion raised
Boy and Girl Scouts sold them to public
Artists and actors also helped sell bonds
Paid for ¼ of U.S. war costs
―Buy Bonds Till It Hurts‖
―The Soldier Gives—You Must Lend‖
• Taxes led to $10 billion
Financing the War

5. • Industry switched from commercial to war goods
• War Industries Board – Bernard Baruch
• Decide which factories would switch to war materials
• Handed out raw materials, told what and how much to
produce, and how much to sell them for (fixed prices)
• ―Dollar-a-year-men‖
Managing the Economy

6. Government manages production and
distribution of food and fuels necessary for
war effort
• Increased farm output, price controls on
food, and rationing
• Herbert Hoover—U.S. Food
Administration
• ―Food will win the war‖
• Daylight Savings Time – more sunlight
during the day for work and less fuel used
• Still have this today, should we?
Managing the War

7. • Much division prior to entry in to war; unification &
patriotism after U.S. enters war
• Government censorship on press and banning of
publications from mail
• Committee on Public Information (CPI)
• George Creel
• Rally support for war
Enforcing Loyalty

11. • National Security League preached ―100% Americanism‖
• Fear of Foreigners
• Literacy tests for immigrants
• German hate
• ―Salisbury steak,‖ ―liberty cabbage,‖ & ―police dogs‖
• Espionage and Sedition Acts (1917 & 1918)
• Broke 1st amendment rights
• Over 1000 convictions
• Eugene Debs arrested, Big Bill Haywood forced to flee
Enforcing Loyalty

12. • After the War
• Slowed flow of immigrants from Europe
• Business needed workers – African Americans, Mexican
Americans& Women take on new roles
• 400K women w/ in industrial jobs during war
• Increased social & economic power
• Only temporary change
• African American ―Great Migration‖ to North during war
• African American population of Chicago doubled between 1910 &
1920
• Omaha’s black population went from 4K to 10K over same time
period
• Race riots, summer of 1919=―Red Summer‖
• Riots in Tulsa; Chicago; Washington, DC; St. Louis; Omaha
• http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.afam.032
• Resurgence of the KKK
Changing People’s Lives