AMSCO 7.6 World War I: Home Front

Overview

AMSCO Topic 7.6, World War I: Home Front, covers how the United States mobilized its economy, controlled public opinion, restricted civil liberties, and changed socially during World War I, plus the chaotic postwar years of 1919-1921. This chapter sits in APUSH Period 7 (1890-1945) and connects directly to a big course theme: how wartime demand for labor triggered internal migration, especially the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South. It also explains why the war years produced a Red Scare, immigration restrictions, and a backlash against radicalism and unions.

The chapter opens with a quote from Schenck v. United States (1919): "When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its efforts that their utterance will not be endured as long as men fight." That one sentence captures the whole civil liberties story of this topic.

Mobilizing the Economy for War

U.S. mobilization in 1917 was a race against time. Germany was preparing a knockout blow, and Wilson's team had to convert America's huge economic resources into war power fast enough to matter.

Wartime Agencies

The Wilson administration created hundreds of temporary agencies run by experts from business and government. This model of government-led economic management later influenced New Deal programs in the 1930s. Know these five:

• War Industries Board (Bernard Baruch, a Wall Street broker): set production priorities and centralized control over raw materials and prices.
• Food Administration (Herbert Hoover, an engineer): pushed households to eat less meat and bread so food could be shipped to French and British troops. U.S. food shipments overseas tripled in two years.
• Fuel Administration (Harry Garfield): saved coal by closing nonessential factories and putting daylight saving time into effect for the first time.
• Railroad Administration (Treasury Secretary William McAdoo): took public control of the railroads to coordinate traffic and standardize equipment.
• National War Labor Board (former President William Howard Taft): arbitrated labor disputes. Workers won real gains during the war: higher wages, a more common eight-hour day, and growing union membership.

Paying for the War

The government raised $33 billion in two years through loans and taxes. Four massive Liberty Bond drives convinced Americans to lend their savings to the federal government. Congress also raised personal income and corporate taxes and added a new tax on luxury goods.

Public Opinion and Civil Liberties

The government used both patriotic persuasion and legal intimidation to keep the public behind the war.

The Committee on Public Information

Journalist George Creel ran this propaganda agency, which enlisted artists, writers, vaudeville performers, and movie stars. They made films, posters, and pamphlets and organized volunteer speakers, all urging Americans to watch for German spies and "do your bit."

Anti-German Hysteria

War fever gave nativist groups cover to attack minorities as disloyal. The American Protective League ran "Hate the Hun" campaigns and used vigilante actions against anything German, from Beethoven's music to sauerkraut. War manufacturers could legally refuse to hire, or could fire, American citizens of German descent.

Limits on Immigration

The Barred Zone Act (Immigration Act of 1917) banned entry by anyone from a region stretching from the Middle East to Southeast Asia and added a literacy test aimed at blocking immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. This act set the stage for the sharp immigration restrictions of the 1920s (covered in AMSCO 7.8 on 1920s cultural and political controversies).

Espionage and Sedition Acts

• Espionage Act (1917): up to 20 years in prison for inciting rebellion in the armed forces or obstructing the draft.
• Sedition Act (1918): went further, banning "disloyal" or "abusive" remarks about the U.S. government.

About 2,000 people were prosecuted under these laws; half were convicted and jailed. The most famous was Socialist leader Eugene Debs, sentenced to ten years in federal prison for speaking against the war.

Schenck v. United States (1919)

The Supreme Court upheld the Espionage Act in a case about a man imprisoned for distributing anti-draft pamphlets. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ruled that free speech can be limited when it poses a "clear and present danger" to public safety. This is a go-to example for any APUSH question on wartime civil liberties.

The Armed Forces

Thousands of young men volunteered as soon as war was declared, but the military needed more.

Selective Service Act (1917)

Secretary of War Newton D. Baker built a "selective service" draft run by local boards, designed as a democratic system that would call on all groups in the population. All men 21 to 30 (later 18 to 45) had to register. About 2.8 million men were drafted by lottery, on top of nearly 2 million volunteers. Roughly half of everyone in uniform made it to the Western Front.

African Americans in the Military

Almost 400,000 African Americans served in World War I, in segregated units. Few were allowed to be officers, and all were barred from the Marine Corps. W. E. B. Du Bois believed that fighting to "make the world safe for democracy" would earn Black Americans equal rights at home after the war. He was bitterly disappointed.

Effects on American Society

Wartime factories needed workers to replace drafted men and ramp up production, so people moved from rural areas to cities across the country. This migration story is the core of the College Board's framing for Topic 7.6.

More Jobs for Women

Women filled jobs vacated by drafted men, with thousands entering the workforce for the first time. Their wartime contributions finally convinced Wilson and Congress to support the 19th Amendment, protecting women's right to vote.

Migration of Mexicans

Wartime job opportunities, combined with the upheaval of revolution in Mexico, brought thousands of Mexicans across the border to work in agriculture and mining, mostly in the Southwest, with a significant number heading to Midwest factories.

The Great Migration

The largest movement was the Great Migration of African Americans north (don't confuse it with the 17th-century Puritan migration of the same name). In 1900, about 90 percent of African Americans lived in the South. Between 1910 and 1930, about 1 million traveled north to seek city jobs. Three push factors drove the decision to leave:

1. Deteriorating race relations, marked by segregation and racial violence
2. Destruction of cotton crops by the boll weevil
3. Limited economic opportunities

Northern factory jobs were the pull. Migration slowed during the Great Depression of the 1930s, then resumed during World War II; between 1940 and 1970, over 4 million African Americans moved north. Many improved their economic conditions, but newcomers still faced racial tension and discrimination in northern cities.

African American population by region, 1900-1960 (U.S. Census, rounded):

Postwar Problems, 1918-1921

The shift from wartime patriotic fervor to peacetime brought a wave of social and economic upheavals.

The 1918 Pandemic

The most severe influenza outbreak of the 20th century began the year the war ended. It infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide and killed an estimated 50 million, including 500,000 to 675,000 Americans. It was first found in crowded U.S. military camps in spring 1918, hit 20-to-40-year-olds with surprisingly high mortality, and spread fast partly because wartime media coverage and morale-focused government messaging underreported it.

Demobilization and Recession

Four million men returned to civilian life. Many took jobs back from the women and African Americans who had briefly thrived on war work. Military orders dried up, European farm products returned to market (hurting U.S. farm prices), and a consumer buying spree fueled inflation and a short 1920 boom. In 1921 the economy plunged into recession, with 10 percent of the workforce unemployed.

The Red Scare and Palmer Raids

In 1919, unhappiness with the peace process, fear of communism after the Communist takeover in Russia, and labor unrest combined into the Red Scare. Wartime anti-German hysteria flipped into anti-Communist hysteria, feeding xenophobia and the immigration restrictions of the 1920s.

After a series of unexplained bombings, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer created a special office under J. Edgar Hoover to track radicals and ordered mass arrests of anarchists, socialists, and labor agitators. From November 1919 through January 1920, more than 6,000 people were arrested on limited evidence. Most were foreign born; 500, including radical Emma Goldman, were deported. When Palmer's predicted May Day 1920 riots never happened, he lost credibility and the hysteria receded.

Strikes of 1919

Unions had gained during the war, but the 1919 strike wave plus fear of revolution turned public opinion against them:

• Seattle (February): 60,000 unionists joined shipyard workers in a peaceful strike for higher pay. Troops were called out, but no violence occurred.
• Boston police (September): officers struck over the firing of colleagues who tried to unionize. Governor Calvin Coolidge sent in the National Guard to break the strike.
• U.S. Steel (September): state and federal troops were called out; after considerable violence and 18 worker deaths, the strike was broken in January 1920.

Racial Violence

Racial tension spiked after 1900: Jim Crow oppression, rapid Ku Klux Klan growth, continued lynching, and white resentment of Great Migration competition for jobs and housing. The largest wartime race riot hit East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1917. In 1919, violence erupted in many cities; a Chicago riot that started over the use of a beach killed 40 people and injured 500.

The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, called the single worst incident of racial violence in American history, began after African Americans thwarted the lynching of a Black man. White mobs destroyed more than 1,000 Black-owned homes and businesses in the prosperous neighborhood known as Black Wall Street and killed 50 to 300 people. The man whose lynching was prevented was later exonerated.

The same era saw a spike in Confederate monuments built between 1900 and the 1920s honoring Jefferson Davis and Confederate generals. Reformers argue these monuments, unlike earlier cemetery memorials to veterans, glorified the "Lost Cause" interpretation that defended white supremacy and slavery.

Decline of the Progressive Impulse

The war's sacrifices drained the Progressive idealism behind the crusade "to make the world safe for democracy." Most Americans wanted a return to what the next president called "normalcy": 1920s prosperity, cars, radio, and jazz, alongside reactionary moves to restrict immigration, deny science, and retreat from international commitments.

Key Terms to Know

Practice and Next Steps

Pair these notes with the Fiveable course-topic guide for 7.6 World War I: Home Front, which frames this material the way the exam tests it. For context, review the war's overseas side in AMSCO 7.5 World War I: Military and Diplomacy, then move ahead to AMSCO 7.7 on 1920s innovations. All Period 7 chapters live on the APUSH AMSCO notes hub.

To check yourself, run timed multiple choice on this period with guided practice, or write a causation essay on the Great Migration or the Red Scare and get instant feedback with FRQ practice.