Transcript World War I at Home

the Home Front
Mobilizing for War
Government needed money
for the war
 WWI cost $33.5 billion dollars
 To raise money Americans
sold – War bonds – low
interest loans by civilians to
the government, meant to
be repaid in a number of
years

Americans Helped in the War Effort
Boy Scouts sold war
bonds
 Victory Gardens – send
food to the troops
 Wheatless Mondays and
Wednesdays and
meatless Tuesdays
 Government limited
civilian use of steel and
other metals

Social Changes
 African

Americans
Great Migration North
 Job opportunities
 Escape racial tension
 Women
Took over male jobs
 1919 passage of 19th Amendment

Propaganda
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President Wilson created the
Committee on Public
Information – writers, artists,
photographers and filmmakers
produced propaganda –
opinions expressed for the
purpose of influencing the
actions of others.
Sold the war through posters,
pamphlets and movies.
Intolerance and Suspicion
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Propaganda stirred
anti-German feelings
in America
Berlin, Maryland
changed to Brunswick,
Maryland
Sauerkraut became
“liberty cabbage”
Espionage Act
Act –
law that set
heavy fines and
long prison terms
for antiwar
activities and for
encouraging draft
resisters
 Espionage
Sedition Act
Act – law
that made it illegal
to criticize the war;
it set heavy fines
and long prison
terms for those
who engaged in
antiwar activities
 Sedition
New Jobs and the Great
Migration
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Labor shortage
Willing to hire African
Americans
1910-1920 500,000 African
Americans moved north to
cities such as New York,
Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland
and St. Louis
Movement north became
known as the Great
Migration
The Flu Epidemic of 1918
Flu in 1918 that
killed 20 million
people on six
continents
 No known cure
 Movement of
troops spread the
virus
 500,000
Americans died
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