The Effects of World War I In The United States: Social, Political, and Economic Changes

1. The Effects of World War I In The United States: Social, Political, and Economic Changes Created by: Sydney Steele Austin Roth

2. Congress Gives Power to Wilson • Because World War I created such a conflict, the entire economy had to be refocused on the war effort. The shift from producing consumer goods to producing war supplies was too complicated for private industries. Therefore, the government collaborated in the effort, granting President Wilson direct control in order to: • Fix prices • Regulate businesses • Nationalize certain war-related industries.

3. War Industries Board • Established in 1917 • Board encouraged companies to use mass production to increase efficiency and urged them to eliminate waste by standardizing production products. • Industrial production in U.S. increased about 20% • Retail prices soared because the price controls only affected whole sale prices. As a result: • corporate profits soared • Railroad Administration had also helped regulate the economy and they had monitored coal supplies and rationed gasoline and heating oil. • Fuel administration introduced daylight saving time, as a way to take advantage of the longer days of summer.

4. War Economy • Hourly wages for blue-collar workers-those in the metal trades, shipbuilding, and meatpacking rose 20%, but household’s income was largely undercut by rising food prices and housing costs. • Stockholders in large corporations saw enormous profits. • More than 6,000 strikes broke out during the war effort. • To deal with disputes, President Wilson established the National War Labor Board in 1918. • Workers who disobeyed, could lose their draft exemptions. • The board worked to improve factory conditions and pushed 8 hour workday, promoted safety inspections, and enforced the child labor to be banned.

5. Food Administration • Wilson set up the Food Administration under Herbert Hoover. • He declared for certain foods to be eaten on certain days. • Restaurants removed sugar bowls from the table and served bread only after the first course. • Gardens were planted. As a result, • American food shipments to the Allies tripled. • He set a high government price on wheat and other staples. As a result, • Farmers responded by putting an additional 40 million acres into production • Increased their income to 30%

6. War Financing • U.S. spent about $35.5 billion on the war effort. • 1/3 of this amount was raised through taxes, including: • Progressive income tax • war profits tax • And higher excise taxes on tobacco, liquor, and luxury goods • Government sold bonds through tens of thousands of volunteers.

7. Committee on Public Information • To popularize the war, the government set up a propaganda agency. • The head of the CPI was a former muckraking journalist named George Creel who: • Persuaded the nation’s artists and advertising agencies to create many items to promote the war.

8. Anti Immigrant Hysteria • Main targets of attacks on civil liberties were focused on: • Americans who emigrated from different nations, especially from Austria-Hungary and Germany • 2 million Americans who were born in Germany. • As a result: • many Americans lost their jobs, • Schools stopped teaching the German language, • Librarians removed books by German authors from the shelves, • People even resorted to violence.

9. Espionage and Sedition Acts • In June 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act • Under the Espionage Act, a person could be fined up to $10,000 and sentenced to 20 years in jail for interfering with the war effort or for saying anything disloyal, profane, or abusive about the government in the war effort. • Targeted socialists and labor leaders.

10. The War Encouraged Social Change • Black public opinion about the war was divided: • On one side were people like W.E.B. Du Bois, who believed that blacks should support the war effort • On the other side, William Monroe Trotter, believed that victims of racism should not support a racist government. He favored protest instead.

11. The Great Migration • Blacks moving to the North to escape the Jim Crow South because: • Many African Americans sought to escape racial discrimination in the south • A boll weevil infestation, aided by floods and droughts, had ruined much of the South’s cotton fields • More job opportunities in the North

13. Women in the War • Women began to integrate into jobs that have been attained by men such as: • Railroad workers • Cooks • Doc workers • Brick layers • Coal miners/Ship builders • More women began to apply for traditional jobs such as nurses. • Women volunteers, (red cross volunteers), also increased. • In 1919, Congress passed the nineteenth amendment, which had allowed women the right to vote.

14. Flu Epidemic • Fall of 1918, brought about an international flu epidemic that affected about 25% of the U.S. population. It affected the economy through many ways such as: • Mines being shut down, • Offices staggered, • Working hours changed so that more people would not be exposed, • Troop living conditions allowed the disease to spread more rapidly, killing 500,000 Americans • It finally disappeared in 1919.