WWI on the American homefront

1. WWI
Americans on the Home Front

2. Financing the War
• Liberty Bonds
• 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

6. Managing the Economy
• 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”

7. Managing the War
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?

8. Enforcing Loyalty
• 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

13. Enforcing Loyalty
• National Security League preached “100% Americanism”
• Fear of Foreigners
• Literacy tests for immigrants
• German hate
• “Salisbury steak,” “liberty cabbage,” & “police dogs”
• Meyer v. Nebraska, 1919
• Espionage and Sedition Acts (1917 & 1918)
• Broke 1st amendment rights
• Over 1000 convictions
• Eugene Debs arrested, Big Bill Haywood forced to flee
• Schenck v. U.S. (1919)—Speech uttered under circumstances that
would “create a clear and present danger to the safety of the
country” could be constitutionally restricted

14. Changing People’s Lives
• 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