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Chapter 1: Making modern America (1870-1919), socialists, especially, who…

- - - - workers + families had little legal protection: women had little legal protection
        women had few rights
        African Americans were subject to overwhelming discrimination
        
        individuals/groups called 'Progressives' emerged in the 1900s to bring out change in US society
        
        1917: US declared war on Germany and sent troops to Europe
        
        Us moved to a war footing w/ propaganda campaigns framing the conflict as a 'war for democracy'
- - - - dangerous conditions
        
        the US had the highest rate of accidents in the industrialised world: 1880-1900: 35,000 workers died in factory + mining accidents; based on Social Darwinism (gap between rich and poor was based on evolutionary order)
    - - unconstitutional too for state/local governments
        
        US lagged behind other Western nations
- - - - different groups had different opinions
        
        British Americans supported Britain and saw it as the defender of liberty and democracy
        
        German Americans identified with Germany
        
        Jewish immigrants from Russia, who had migrated to escape persecution were not happy about America supporting the Tsar
        
        feminists, pacifists, social reformers believed America’s domestic reforms would be halted by the war
        
        socialists believed that American workers should not be sent to kill fellow workers in a war between rival capitalist nations
  - - - treaty harshly punished Germany + declared it to be responsible for the war, Germany's coal and iron-producing region was ceded to France, German territories were redistributed among the winning nations
  - - - Henry Cabot Lodge strongly opposed it;
        
        argued that membership of the League of Nations would commit the United States to involvement in the affairs of other countries + deprive the country of its freedom
        
        this reflected the United States’ position that it would not become involved with international events outside the Western Hemisphere
        
        Wilson was convinced that the treaty reflected the hand of God, +refused to negotiate with Cabot
        
        treaty + covenant were defeated in Senate
        
        some historians argue that the United States’ isolationist decision not to become a member of the League of Nations made it a less effective organisation
  - - - Austro-Hungarian Empire
      - parts of Tsarist Russia and Germany
    - - Yugoslavia
      - Austria
      - Poland
      - Finland
    - - some shared ethnic + linguistic characteristics, others were comb. of diverse nationalities
  - - - seen as opportunity to serve +hoped that white America would reward their service + white supremacy would disappear
  - - - (1916): President Woodrow Wilson declared his support for women’s suffrage
        
        (1920): the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, preventing states from using gender as a qualification for the suffrage (the right to vote); American women had the vote
      - some suffragists continued to use militant tactics (eg. chaining themselves to the White House, going on hunger strikes) which brought more attention to the cause
    - - women reformers believed the ban would protect women from domestic violence at the hands of drunken husbands + from poverty when the family wages were spent on alcohol
      - urban reformers hoped it would reduce violence in the cities
      - employers imagined a more productive + orderly workforce
      - (1914): 18 American states had introduced prohibition
  - - - all men of military age were required to register for the draft
        
        the American army swelled from 120,000 to 5 million men
      - - government agencies took over the management of railways, food production, fuel, employment from private enterprise, and experts were appointed to run these agencies
      - - taxes on individuals + corporations rose significantly to pay for the war effort, and Americans were urged to buy Liberty Savings Bonds (aka Liberty loans) to further contribute
      - an ‘Americanisation’ program was introduced in schools, to encourage migrants to become fully assimilated into American society
    - - (April 1917): the Committee on Public Information (CPI) was formed + immediately launched a propaganda war
      - (1914): nearly 9 million German Americans in the United States found their culture + language under attack once America entered the war:
        
        Germany and the Kaiser became the opposite of democracy and anti-German feeling was stirred up by posters depicting Germans as brutal and inhumane
        
        communities banned German music + teaching German language was forbidden in some states
        
        common German words/phrases were removed/replaced
        
        the German ‘hamburger’ was replaced by the more patriotic ‘Liberty sandwich’
        
        despite this anti-German sentiment, thousands of Americans of German ancestry fought in the AEF, including its commander, John J Pershing
        
        his paternal family, then known as Pfoerschin, had migrated to the United States in the late 1700s
      - although the war was sold as a fight for liberty and democracy, civil liberties on the home front were being repressed on a scale not seen since the 18th century:
        
        - 'The Espionage Act 1917' prohibited spying, interfering with the draft/making false statements that could interfere with military success
        
        - newspapers + magazines critical of America’s involvement in the war were banned from the post
        
        - the Sedition Act 1918 made it an offence to speak critically of the federal government
- - - - national + international transportation of goods
      - telegraph lines followed the railways , resulting in faster + more efficient communication
        
        changed the way the markets were linked
        
        before
        
        until the civil war, business + competition only in local markets
        
        after
        
        1890s, American grain farmers loaded their grain onto railway cars to transport to cities
        
        competing with farmers across America and Italy for the best prices
        
        industrialisation of food production
        
        wealth shifting from agricultural producers to industrialists and those who lent money to build factories
  - - - 1929: over 20 million
    - - Homestead Act promised free land to anyone who could farm it