Unit II Becoming a World Power

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Unit II- Becoming a World Power

• Chapter 8 Section 3
• The Home Front

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The Home Front

• The Main Idea
• The U.S. mobilized a variety of resources to wage
  World War I.
• Reading Focus
• How did the government mobilize the economy for
  the war effort?
• How did workers mobilize on the home front?
• How did the government try to influence public
  opinion about the war?

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Mobilizing the Economy
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Government takes control- War Industries Board

• The Overman Act of 1918 helped create the War
  Industries Board- Bernard M. Baruch in charge.
• Job- decide what goods should be produced and set
  prices for government purchases or supplies.
• During the war production went up, waste went
  down and criticism lessened.

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Mobilization of Money

• Military Expenses
• Expenses for army, navy, credit and materials for
  allies ran into billions.
• 23 billion for the U.S. war effort and 10
  billion for war loans to Allies.
• Taxes and Loans to pay the expenses.
• Increased taxes brought in 10.5 billion
• The rest came from loans from the people through
  sale of Liberty Loans and a Victory Loan.

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Raising Money, Conservation and Government
Controls- 221 min.
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Daylight Savings, Taxes, and Liberty Bonds 104
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Mobilization

• Army needed to be fed, clothed, equipped and
  armed
• Shortages at first
• American factories were supplying pistols,
  rifles, machine guns, shells and bullets.
• Heavy equipment- artillery, tanks and airplanes
  were provided by British and French.

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Regulations to Supply U.S. and Allied Troops
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Government takes control

• Some Private Businesses were taken over.
• Some railroads and railway express companies, and
  inland waterway systems. Then telephone,
  telegraph and cable.
• 1/2 billion was invested in improvements and
  equipment.
• Council of Defense
• National Food-control program- Herbert Hoover
• Broad powers over production and distribution of
  food, fuel, fertilizer, and farm machinery.
• Voluntary wheatless, meatless, and heatless
  days.
• War gardens
• Set Prices for crops to help farmers and
  encourage production. Farmers paid off
  mortgages, new machinery, etc. Price of land
  went up. (Farmers would pay a peacetime price
  for wartime prosperity)
• Rationed coal

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Mobilizing the Economy

• How did the government mobilize the economy for
  the war effort?
• What was the War Revenue Act of 1917?
• What was the function of the War Industries
  Board?
• Why do you think it was necessary for the
  government to set prices and production controls
  for food and fuel during the war?

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Mobilizing the Economy

• What steps did the Fuel Administration take to
  encourage fuel conservation?
• How did patriotism play a part in the passage of
  the 18th Amendment?

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Mobilizing Workers

• During the war, the profits of many major
  industrial companies skyrocketed because
  companies sold to the federal government.
• This created enormous profits for stockholders of
  industries like steel, oil, and chemicals.
• Factory wages also increased, but the rising cost
  of food and housing meant that workers were not
  much better off.
• War demands also led to laborers working long
  hours in increasingly dangerous conditions in
  order to produce the needed materials on time and
  faster than other companies.
• These harsher conditions led many workers to join
  labor unions.

Union membership increased by about 60 percent
between 1916 and 1919, and unions boomed as well,
with more than 6,000 strikes held during the war.
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Wartime Workers
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Government takes control- The Labor Force

• A million women helped fill the gap in the labor
  force left by men.
• Mills and factories
• Acts of Patriotism by women, but yet after the
  war they were asked to leave their jobs for men
  returning.
• Blacks- moved north to get jobs.
• Shortage of labor sent wages up. Real income
  went up 20
• United States Employment Service created to fill
  jobs in vital industries.
• A National War Labor Board- created to arbitrate
  labor disputes.- 8 hour workday and government
  support of unions.

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Influenza Spreads

• Three waves of a severe flu epidemic broke out
  between 1918 and 1919 in Europe and in America.
• Of all American troops who died in World War II,
  half died from influenza.
• On the Western Front, crowded and unsanitary
  trenches helped flu spread among troops, then to
  American military camps in Kansas and beyond.
• This strain of influenza was deadly, killing
  healthy people within days, and during the month
  of October 1918, influenza killed nearly 200,000
  Americans.
• Panicked city leaders halted gatherings, and
  people accused the Germans of releasing flu germs
  into the populace.

By the time it passed, over 600,000 Americans
lost their lives.
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The Great Influenza- Spanish Flu Pandemic

• In the spring of 1918 large numbers of soldiers
  in the trenches in France became ill. The
  soldiers complained of a sore throat, headaches
  and a loss of appetite. Although it appeared to
  be highly infectious, recovery was rapid and
  doctors gave it the name of 'three-day fever'. At
  first doctors were unable to identify the illness
  but eventually they decided it was a new strain
  of influenza.
• The soldiers gave it the name Spanish Flu but
  there is no evidence that it really did originate
  from that country. In fact, in Spain they called
  it French Flu. Others claimed that the disease
  started in the Middle Eastern battlefields,
  whereas others blamed it on China and India.
• Other notions of this strain of influenza's
  origin contained less-politically charged, but
  equally specious logic. According to one theory,
  poison gases used in the war, air charged with
  carbon dioxide from the trenches, and gases
  formed from decomposing bodies and exploding
  munitions had all fused to form a highly toxic
  vapor that flu victims had inhaled. Among the
  other causes advanced were air stagnation, coal
  dust, fleas, the distemper of cats and dogs, and
  dirty dishwater. A recent study argued that the
  disease was brought to the Western Front by a
  group of USA soldiers from Kansas. It
  originally most likely came from animals.

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The Great Influenza- Spanish Flu Pandemic

• The USA was also very badly affected by the
  virus. By September a particularly virulent
  strain began to sweep through the country. By
  early December about 450,000 Americans had died
  of the disease.
• The country that suffered most was India. The
  first cases appeared in Bombay in June 1918. The
  following month deaths were being reported in
  Karachi and Madras. With large numbers of India's
  doctors serving with the British Army the country
  was unable to cope with the epidemic. Some
  historians claim that between June 1918 and July
  1919 over 16,000,000 people in India died of the
  virus.
• It has been estimated that throughout the world
  over 70 million people died of the influenza
  pandemic. In India alone, more people died of
  influenza than were killed all over the world
  during the entire 1st World War.

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Mobilizing Workers

• How did workers mobilize on the home front?
• What were some of the policies set by the
  National War Labor Board?
• What can you infer from the fact that profits of
  many major industrial corporations skyrocketed
  because they sold their products to the federal
  government?
• How did war demands lead to an increase in union
  membership?

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Mobilizing Workers

• How did the influenza epidemic affect American
  life?
• How did the influenza epidemic spread?

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Influencing Public Opinion
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Fear on the Homefront The Espionage and Sedition
Acts (0519)
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Government takes control- Mobilizing Minds

• Millions opposed to war- German Americans, Irish
  Americans, Socialists, Progressives, Pacifists,
• Committee on Public Information- The Creel
  Committee
• Assigned to sell the war to America
• Propaganda- depict the Germans as hateful beasts,
  barbarous Huns bent on world domination.
• Whip up enthusiasm, sell war bonds, hate our
  enemy, keep people working hard.
• Stirred up spy scares, traitor hunts, slackers,
  etc.
• German language studies dropped, German words
  changed, Anti- German madness was really
  Anti-American.

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Propaganda and the Creel Committee 151
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Limiting Antiwar Speech
Some Americans Speak Out
Legislation
Opponents
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Government takes control- Attacking Civil
Liberties

• Espionage Act of 1917
• Censorship
• Penalties against anyone who handed out
  information about anything connected with
  national defense.
• Penalties to anyone urging resistance to military
  duty or draft.
• Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917
• Any newspaper printed in a foreign language in
  the U.S. must furnish an English translation to
  the Postmaster general
• Sedition Act of 1918- went further that the 1798
  version.
• Penalties on anyone who used disloyal, profane,
  scurrilous, or abusive language about the U.S.
  government, flag or uniform.
• Strange way to fight a war- Eugene Debs socialist
  candidate for President went to jail. How can
  the nation improve its war effort if citizens are
  not allowed to criticize the govt or armed
  forces? Actual opposition was light and did
  little to hamper the war effort.

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Opponents Go to the Supreme Court

• Many Americans thought the Espionage and Sedition
  Acts violated the First Amendment, but others
  thought they were essential to protect military
  secrets and the safety of America.
• The Supreme Court also struggled to interpret the
  acts.
• In one case, Charles Schenck, an official of the
  American Socialist Party, organized the printing
  of 15,000 leaflets opposing the war and was
  convicted of violating the Espionage Act.
• He challenged the conviction in the Supreme
  Court, but the Court upheld his conviction,
  limiting free speech during war.
• Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote the
  Courts unanimous decision, stating that some
  things said safely in peacetime are dangerous to
  the country during wartime.

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Influencing Public Opinion

• How did the government try to influence public
  opinion about the war?
• What is propaganda?
• How did anti-German feelings affect American life
  during World War I?