An Uneasy Neutrality

The Wilson administration declared the nation neutral but allowed businesses to extend loans to the warring nations, principally the Allies (Britain, France, and Russia), to purchase food and military supplies. Americans were outraged by the Germans’ use of submarine (U-boat) warfare, especially the sinking of the Lusitania. In 1917, submarine attacks and the publication of the Zimmermann telegram, which revealed that Germany had tried to encourage Mexico to wage war against the United States, led America to enter the Great War.

Mobilizing a Nation

The Wilson administration drafted young men into the army and created new agencies such as the War Industries Board and the Food Administration to coordinate industrial production and agricultural consumption. As white workers left their factory jobs to join the army, hundreds of thousands of African Americans migrated from the rural South to the urban North as part of the Great Migration. Many southern whites and Mexican Americans also migrated to industrial centers. One million women participated in war work but were encouraged to leave these jobs as soon as the war ended. The federal government severely curtailed civil liberties, and the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917 and 1918 criminalized virtually any public opposition to the war.

Communists seized power in November 1917 in Russia and negotiated a separate peace treaty with Germany, thus freeing the Germans to focus on the Western Front. By 1918, however, the arrival of millions of American troops turned the tide of the war. German leaders sued for peace, and an armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. Woodrow Wilson insisted that the United States wanted a new, democratic Europe. His Fourteen Points (1918) speech outlined his ideas for a League of Nations to promote peaceful resolutions to future conflicts.

At the Paris Peace Conference, President Wilson was only partially successful. The Treaty of Versailles (1919) did create a League of Nations but included a “war guilt clause” that forced Germany to pay reparations for war damages to France and Britain. In the end, Wilson’s illness following a stroke, his refusal to compromise on the terms of the treaty, and his alienation of Republican senators resulted in the Senate voting against ratification.

The United States struggled to come to terms with its new status as the leading world power and with changes at home. As wartime industries shifted to peacetime production, wage and price controls ended. As former soldiers reentered the workforce, unemployment rose, and consumer prices increased, provoking labor unrest in cities across the nation. Many Americans believed these problems were part of a Bolshevik plot. Several incidents of domestic terrorism provoked what would be known as the First Red Scare (1919–1920), during which the Justice Department illegally arrested and deported many suspected radicals, most of whom were immigrants. At the same time, race riots broke out as resentful white mobs tried to stop African Americans from exercising their civil rights. The summer of 1919 also brought the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (1919) to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.

The Wilson administration declared the nation neutral but allowed businesses to extend loans to the warring nations, principally the Allies (Britain, France, and Russia), to purchase food and military supplies. Americans were outraged by the Germans’ use of submarine (U-boat) warfare, especially the sinking of the Lusitania. In 1917, submarine attacks and the publication of the Zimmermann telegram, which revealed that Germany had tried to encourage Mexico to wage war against the United States, led America to enter the Great War.

The Wilson administration drafted young men into the army and created new agencies such as the War Industries Board and the Food Administration to coordinate industrial production and agricultural consumption. As white workers left their factory jobs to join the army, hundreds of thousands of African Americans migrated from the rural South to the urban North as part of the Great Migration. Many southern whites and Mexican Americans also migrated to industrial centers. One million women participated in war work but were encouraged to leave these jobs as soon as the war ended. The federal government severely curtailed civil liberties, and the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1917 and 1918 criminalized virtually any public opposition to the war.

Communists seized power in November 1917 in Russia and negotiated a separate peace treaty with Germany, thus freeing the Germans to focus on the Western Front. By 1918, however, the arrival of millions of American troops turned the tide of the war. German leaders sued for peace, and an armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. Woodrow Wilson insisted that the United States wanted a new, democratic Europe. His Fourteen Points (1918) speech outlined his ideas for a League of Nations to promote peaceful resolutions to future conflicts.

At the Paris Peace Conference, President Wilson was only partially successful. The Treaty of Versailles (1919) did create a League of Nations but included a “war guilt clause” that forced Germany to pay reparations for war damages to France and Britain. In the end, Wilson’s illness following a stroke, his refusal to compromise on the terms of the treaty, and his alienation of Republican senators resulted in the Senate voting against ratification.

The United States struggled to come to terms with its new status as the leading world power and with changes at home. As wartime industries shifted to peacetime production, wage and price controls ended. As former soldiers reentered the workforce, unemployment rose, and consumer prices increased, provoking labor unrest in cities across the nation. Many Americans believed these problems were part of a Bolshevik plot. Several incidents of domestic terrorism provoked what would be known as the First Red Scare (1919–1920), during which the Justice Department illegally arrested and deported many suspected radicals, most of whom were immigrants. At the same time, race riots broke out as resentful white mobs tried to stop African Americans from exercising their civil rights. The summer of 1919 also brought the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (1919) to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.