American Domestic Affairs during WWI

A detailed Summary of American Domestic Affairs during WWI

American Domestic Affairs during WWI

Though the WWI was started in Europe and had to do with European problems and didn't really have to do with America at first, when we got involved it changed our country forever. The war started mainly over a man named Franz Ferdinand who was the archduke of Austria-Hungary. He went to the Serbia, which was an area that everyone wanted to have control of; he was there to see how the people took his presence and to see how easy it would be to take over. Some people here knew this and were not happy, they didn't want him to take over their land. When he went to Sarejaveo these people killed him; Austria-Hungary was outraged but was hesitant to declare war because Russia was Serbia's ally. The two major sides were the Triple Antente, which consisted of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; then there was the Triple Alliance, which consisted of Russia, France and England. Eventually Austria-Hungary did declare war, and then like wildfire the two sides were declaring war against each other until most of Europe was a battlefield. You might ask yourself, what did America have to do with this; the truth is that America was only involved after Germany tried to make Mexico attack us by sending them th

While the Great War was called this for being a very large and devastating war in Europe, it also had very many effects on the American country and the people who lived there. It tested and created many methods of propaganda that would be used in the wars that would come and we also learned from many of our mistakes. It gave many groups of people a way to advance themselves in society. Women made great leaps in the workplace during the war and African Americans became more urbanized and proved that they could be a part of the industrial workplace. Even though there was still much racism in the north, it was nothing compared to that in the south. It made many temporary changes in our country from factories changing their products to support the war, to the changing of German products to make them sound more American. One negative change that happened during the war was the anti-German feelings that had boiled over in America. These feelings went away temporarily after the war but then came back during WWI, but now most of the feelings have vanished. The changes that happened in America for the most part happened to benefit our soldiers in the war, but as we can see now some of these changes have benefited life in America.

After volunteering for the army was no longer popular among the public, the only way to get people to be in the army was to set up a Universal Draft. Although there was still a great deal of patriotism in America the enthusiasm to join the army was lacking. All able-bodied men between the ages eighteen and forty-five were considered possible soldiers. This meant that maybe a father and an oldest son from one family could both be drafted. People had to fill out draft papers and send them to the government and then you were put into a raffle to be drafted. If you did not send in the papers you were breaking the law and could be arrested and sent to jail. There was a lot of propaganda for the draft making people think that it was their duty to sign up for the draft, even though there were posters that made it seem that volunteering was their duty. Draft dodgers were seen as cowards, and were treated like traitors. The main slogan for the draft was "Work or Fight" saying that you should work or fight and that people who didn't do either would not be tolerated. The idea of the draft was to turn America's men into soldiers. Although the propaganda was everywhere and influenced people to sign up for the draft, 337,000 men escaped the draft (History of Us). The men that were drafted were sent of to brief training camps and then sent to Europe into the war. The army was not ready for fighting a war like they were put into. The draft was successful in getting a large number of men to fight in the war and although it was not a voluntary decision it was taken better by the public in this war than it was in wars that were to come.

e Zimmerman Telegraph. This was decoded and sent to us, we were naturally angry and felt it necessary to take action. We got into the war late, but the changes it made in our country were great. Groups of people moved around in our country, names were changed and groups of people were persecuted. Even though the fighting and the reasons the war was called great all happened in Europe, there were considerably large events that happened in America due to the war as well.

To try to curb the American public's hysteria about espionage and to try to stop espionage; the government created the Espionage act of 1917. Spies and espionage frightened the American public and it was a very possible thing that could happen. There was much hysteria in America about people giving secrets to the enemy, which would endanger our country. This act created in 1917 made the penalties for treason and espionage more serious. Before this, espionage was not a very big topic for discussion because the enemy was either in our country or a very insignificant foe that did not have the ability to steal secrets from A

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Approximate Word count = 3793
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History