Transcript The Home Front

The Home Front
Chapter 19 Section 2
Building up the Military
• Selective Service Act of 1917 – required
all men b/w 21 & 30 to register for the
draft
• A lottery randomly picked who would be
called b/f the draft board and then they
would be accepted or exempted from
service
Building a War Society
• In order to successfully mobilize
people’s minds for war a Committee on
Public Information was established
• To sell America on the idea of war
• Propaganda
• The spreading of ideas to promote a cause
or to damage an opposing cause
• Trying to make people believe like you do
• Used by all sides in World War I
A War Society
• Total War
• Warfare that requires the participation of
an entire society
• Everyone in the country is completely
involved in the war, not just the military
and the soldiers
Women
• WWI – first war that women officially
served in the armed forces
• The navy allowed women to enlist to meet
its clerical needs
• The women wore uniforms and were assigned
the rank of yeoman
• The army only allowed women to serve in
the Army Nursing Corps
• They were the only women in the military to
be sent overseas during the war
American nurses arrive in London on their way to
France
Organizing Industry
• War Industries Board (WIB)
• Job – to coordinate the production of war
materials
• Told manufacturers what they could and could
not produce
• Controlled the flow of raw materials
• Ordered the construction of new factories
• Occasionally set prices, w/ President Wilson’s
approval
Organizing Industry
• Food Administration – ran by Herbert
Hoover – most successful govt. agency
• Job – increasing food production while
reducing civilian consumption
• Encouraged citizens to…
• Plant “victory gardens” – to raise their own
vegetables
• “Hooverize” by serving just enough and not
wasting any food
• Have Wheatless Mondays, Meatless Tuesday’s
and Porkless Thursdays
Organizing Industry
• Fuel Administration
• Job – manage the nation’s use of coal and
oil
• To conserve energy…
• Introduced daylight savings time
• Shortened workweeks for factories that did not
make war materials
• Asked citizens to observe Heatless Monday’s
Organizing Industry
• National War Labor Board – ran by
William Howard Taft
• Mediated labor disputes to prevent strikes
from disrupting the war effort
• Pressured industry to grant important
concessions to workers such as…
• Wage increases, an 8 hour work day, right of
unions to organize and bargain collectively
Civil Liberties Reduced
• Espionage Act of 1917
• Established penalties and prison terms for
anyone who gave aid to the enemy,
penalized disloyalty & interfering w/ the
war effort
• Sedition Act of 1918
• Made illegal any public expression of
opposition to the war
• This allowed officials to prosecute anyone
who criticized the president or govt.
Violence at Home
• Fear of spies led to the mistreatment
of German Americans or anything
having to do w/ Germany
• Advertisers changed the names of…
• Sauerkraut to “liberty cabbage”
• Hamburger to “salisbury steak”
• Schools dropped German language classes
• Orchestras stopped performing Beethoven
and other German composers
• Some even beat German Americans
Schenck vs. United States
• Convicted under the Federal Espionage
Act
• The defendants were charged w/
distributing leaflets aimed at inciting draft
resistance during WWI
• Disloyalty and interfering with the war
effort
• They said that anti-draft speech was
protected under the First Amendment
• It went to the Supreme Court
The Court’s Response
• The Supreme Court unanimously
rejected the defense
• They explained that whether or not speech
is protected it depends on the context in
which it occurs
• It was decided the defendants antidraft
speech created a “clear and present
danger” to the success of the war
effort
• Therefore, it was not protected