World War I

Background

Though World War I began symbolically with the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, the United States of America did not enter the war with the rest of the world. In fact, for nearly three years, the United States was not involved in any active warfare. The American public monitored the battles going on in Europe, unsure whether they would get involved. Even so, the American governement seemed to be leaning towards the Allied Forces, Great Britain in particular.

Uncertain Neutrality

Discussions over the war in Europe were present in American magazines before U.S. involvement. For some citizens, thoughts of war were far from their minds. For others, the U.S. was bound to get pulled in one way or another. The general consensus, though, was that the American populous was largely anti-war. This was true across political, class, and color lines. In the 1916 Presidental Election, Woodrow Wilson ran on a platform of peace and neutrality. He promised that he would not force America to participate in the war.

After the sinking of the U.S.S. Lusitania by a German submarine (U-boat) in 1915, there was a push to prepare for potential war developed by the former Army Chief of Staff and former President Theodore Roosevelt. This was dubbed the Prepardness Movement. Though that movement pushed Wilson to increase the size of the military, by 1917 it was still nowhere near large enough to face off against Germany.

The U.S. Enters the War

In 1917, the United States intercepted a telegram from Germany to Mexico (the so-called Zimmerman Telegram) proposing that Mexico joins forces with Germany and invade the southwest states that they lost after the Mexican-American War. The United States formally declared war on Germany as a result on April 6, 1917. As expected, America fought on the side of the Allied Forces. Due to the small size of the armed forces at the time, the U.S. War Department issued a draft for men aged 18-30 years old. In addition, many men and women who volunteered to serve in the military.

The American public had to mobilize quickly to subliment the war effort. The economy struggled in 1917 as a result of the quick change. Though white women took more factory and manufacturing jobs than before, it was not to the extent that would be reached during World War II. Efforts were made to conserve food and other materials so that it could go to the soldiers overseas.

Coming to Europe's Aid

World War I had been raging for years before U.S. Involvement. Countries saw great loss of life and municipal destruction. France, in particular, was the site of a lot of trench warfare and bombings. The U.S. military helped the French military expell German soldiers from their towns. American soldiers were particularly instrumental in the First and Second Battle of the Marne in 1918.

Though the United States provided much needed money, supplies, and new soldiers to the Allies, they had not yet caught on to the new methods of war. Tacticians were not vry well-versed in trench warfare and relied on methods that the Europeans had deemed ineffective during the early part of the war. Nevertheless, the influx of soldiers that were not brokendown by years of fighting helped the Allies against the exhausted, depleted German army.

Although the American military drafted and recruited Black men, they were mostly relegated to manual labor jobs. This could be anything from smithing to grave digging. W.E.B. DeBuis encouraged Black people to enlist in the hopes that it would improve the Black community's station after the war. Though this did not happen for many reason, chief among them is that only about 20% of the Black soldiers that were deployed in France saw active combat.

Post-War Changes

World War I armistice was declared on November 11, 1918. In the wake of the war, the United States became embroiled in issues. There was a lack of work for the returning veterans and no predetermined way to fix it. Anti-communist sentiment started to ramp up in the first couple years after the war. During and after the war, many African-Americans moved to the North for job opportunities that were vacated by white soldiers. Race riots occured across the country, in part because of the theoretical rise in status that African-Americans soldiers gained overseas.

President Woodrow Wilson lost public opinion for entering a war most of the public was neutral towards at best. By extension, his political party, Democrats, lost their hold over Congress. In 1920, Republican candidate William Harding outsed Woodrow Wilson, running on a campaign of "returning to normal" after the effects of the war. The 1920s was an ecconomically prosperous time for the United States and more young people started moving to urban centers.