Transcript The War at Home

The War at Home
Concern Over Patriotism
• Americans trying to
eliminate internal
enemies
• Resulted in attacks
on immigrants
Economy Changed People’s Lives
• People moved to find
jobs
• Women took “men’s”
jobs
• The President now
had control of the
economy
War Industries Board
• Encouraged mass
production to increase
efficiency
• Eliminate waste
• Set product quotas
• Allocated raw
materials
• Increased U.S.
production by 20%
War Industries board
• Led by Bernard M.
Baruch
• Changed women’s
clothing-Took steel
from women’s
corsets(80,000 tons)
• No more leather
shoes
• Shorter skirts
War Industries Board
• Encouraged
conservation
• Gasless Sundays
• Lightless nights
• Daylight-savings time
War Economy
• Some wages
increased
May have risen by as
much as 20%
• Some wages
decreased
May have lost 35% of
earning power
Union membership
increased
War Economy
• 6,000 strikes broke
out to protest high
prices and low wages
• Wilson creates
National War Labor
Board to deal with
labor disputes
War Economy
• “Work or Fight”
• NWLB pushed for 8
hour days
• safety inspections
• Pushed to observe
ban on child labor
War Economy
• Food Administrationconserve Food
• Led by Herbert
Hoover
• “meatless” and
“sweetless” days
War Economy
• People planted
“Victory Gardens”
• American food
shipments to Allies
tripled
Selling the War
• U.S. spent $33 billion
on war
• Raised 1/3 of this
amount through taxes
• Government sold
bonds
Committee on Public Information
• Government’s 1st
propaganda agency
• Was to popularize
war
• Led by George Creela muckraking
journalist
Drive for Conformity
• Targeted immigrants
• Americans w/
German sounding
names lost job
• Towns w/ German
names changed
names
Espionage and Sedition Acts
• Fined $10,000 and
imprisoned for 20 yrs
for interfering with
draft
• Obstructing sale of
liberty bonds
• Saying anything
disloyal about war
effort
Espionage and Sedition Acts
• Clear violation of 1st
Amendment
• Led to 6,000 arrests
• 1,500 convictions
African American Support
• W.E.B. Dubois
• Cooperation would
cause leadership to
listen to calls for racial
justice
African American Opposition
• William Monroe
Trotter- victims of
racism should not
support a racist
government
The Great Migration
• Thousands of
southern blacks
moved to cities in the
north
Why the Migration?
• 1. Escape racial discrimination in the
South
• 2. Drought in the South ruined many
cotton fields
• 3. Increased job opportunities
• 4. Rumors of prosperous northern African
Americans
Women in the War
• Filled roles formerly held
by men
• Driving cabs
• Delivery trucks
• Railroad workers
• Cooks
• Dockworkers
• Bricklayers
• Coal miners
• Ship building
Female Opposition
Jane Adams founded
Women’s Peace
Party
Flu Epidemic
• Fall of 1918
• 25% of Americans
became ill
Flu Epidemic
• Corpses lay unburied
for days
• 500,000 Americans
killed
• 40 million world wide
• Flu disappeared in
1919