WWIAmericans on the Home Front

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

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”

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?

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

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

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