“Enemy Aliens” and “Silk Stocking Girls”: The Class Politics of Internment in the Drive for Urban Order during World War I

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-458
Author(s):  
Adam Hodges
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
World War ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
Local Perceptions ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
War Effort

This article focuses on the two national internment programs developed in the United States during World War I from the vantage point of Portland, Oregon, and argues that they unfolded locally. Both the male enemy aliens at risk of internment and the girls and women who experienced confinement due to sexual activity tended to be poor. Authorities deemed that they were, or were likely to become, radicals or prostitutes—but that they were not to be prosecuted as such. Officials could banish or track them more easily as threats to the war effort, rather than as threats to urban social stability and economic development. Scholars of the home front have ignored the evolution of local-federal partnerships to track or intern these two groups and have so far failed to establish how local perceptions of the dangerous poor shaped cooperation with wartime federal authority.

Kentucky Joins the Great War

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Bettez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
German Language ◽  
American Population ◽  
World War ◽  
Support Organizations ◽  
War Effort ◽  
The Great War

This chapter covers the commonwealth’s response to World War I and efforts to support the war after the United States entered it in April 1917. It describes support from newspaper editors Henry Watterson and Desha Breckinridge. It also discusses attitudes toward the state’s extensive German American population, including an effort to ban the teaching of the German language in schools and the repression of people deemed disloyal or insufficiently supportive of the war. Kentuckians also rallied to the war effort in a positive way, supporting Liberty Bond and Red Cross campaigns. They joined support organizations such as the Four Minute Men and the American Protective League.

Over Here, Over There

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
Claude Debussy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Influenza Epidemic ◽  
World War ◽  
Charles Ives ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Global Population ◽  
Gold Star

Music in World War I played an important role in cementing the transatlantic alliance among Anglophone and Francophone allies. Chapters 1–5 consider responses to the war by five individuals from three countries: Frank Bridge, Charles Ives, Claude Debussy, John Philip Sousa, and Irving Berlin. Chapters 6–10 gradually expand the focus to ever larger groups of people: women theatre organists in the United States, the Longleat community in England, the greater citizenry of Canada, the service flag and Gold Star mother movements throughout the United States, and the global population devastated by the influenza epidemic. A “prelude,” “interlude,” and “postlude,” which provide context and supplemental material, are co-authored by the three editors, who speak as representatives of England, Canada, and the United States. The whole demonstrates not only the importance of musical exchanges and influences in shaping transatlantic support for the war effort but also the range of contributions made—from unknown amateurs to major composers, from local communities to international populations, and from regions that span a third of the globe.

Capitalizing patriotism: the Liberty loans of World War I

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sung Won Kang ◽  
Hugh Rockoff
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Federal Reserve ◽  
The United States ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
World War ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
Bond Issues ◽  
Tax Exempt ◽  
War Effort

Although taxes were raised substantially in the United States during World War I, recourse was had to five bond issues, the famous Liberty loans, to finance the bulk of war expenditures. The Secretary of the Treasury, William Gibbs McAdoo, hoped to create a broad market for the Liberty bonds and to limit their yields by following an aggressive policy of ‘capitalizing patriotism’. He called on everyone from Wall Street bankers to the Boy Scouts to volunteer for campaigns to sell the bonds. The campaigns have become legendary. Some of the nation's best-known artists were recruited to draw posters depicting the contribution to the war effort to be made by buying bonds, and giant bond rallies featuring Hollywood stars were organized. These efforts, however, enjoyed limited success. The yields on the Liberty bonds were kept low mainly by making the bonds tax exempt and by making sure that a large proportion of them were purchased directly or indirectly by the Federal Reserve, turning the Federal Reserve into an engine of inflation. Patriotism proved to be a weak, although not powerless, offset to normal market forces.

The Home Front

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth Abelson Macleod
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
Women Artists ◽  
Women Musicians ◽  
The United States ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Attitudes Toward Marriage

This chapter examines Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler's life against the backdrop of contemporary U.S. attitudes toward marriage, motherhood, and careers for women. Unlike most women musicians of her generation, who gave up their professions when they married or had children, Bloomfield-Zeisler resumed concertizing mere months after the births of each of her three sons. The chapter emphasizes Bloomfield-Zeisler's need to prove that she could “do it all,” and proceeds with a discussion of the image of women artists in literature during the period, with particular attention to Bert Leston Taylor's 1906 novel The Charlatans. The chapter also considers the increasingly vulnerable plight of German musicians in the United States during World War I; the effect of the war on Fannie and her husband, Sigmund Zeisler; the ways in which the Zeislers chose to manifest their patriotism; Bloomfield-Zeisler's last years, which were marked by a number of philanthropic involvements; and her death on August 20, 1927.

The United States and World War I

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross A. Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Politics ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Establishment ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Domestic Affairs

World War I profoundly affected the United States. It led to an expansion of America’s permanent military establishment, a foreign policy focused on reforming world politics, and American preeminence in international finance. In domestic affairs, America’s involvement in the war exacerbated class, racial, and ethnic conflict. It also heightened both the ethos of voluntarism in progressive ideology and the progressive desire to step up state intervention in the economy and society. These dual impulses had a coercive thrust that sometimes advanced progressive goals of a more equal, democratic society and sometimes repressed any perceived threat to a unified war effort. Ultimately the combination of progressive and repressive coercion undermined support for the Democratic Party, shifting the nation’s politics in a conservative direction as it entered the 1920s.

scholarly journals “Heaven, Hell, or Hoboken:” Anti-German Sentiment in Hoboken, 1917-1918, Some Examples

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Jonathan Lurie
Keyword(s):  
New Jersey ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Irish Immigrants ◽  
Local Newspapers ◽  
War Effort ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The City

In the early 20th century, urban centers in New Jersey, especially locations such as Newark, Hoboken, and Camden, were home to many immigrants from Europe. Hoboken stands out amongst these as it was the major port of embarkation for American troops en route to the World War I. The city saw American immigrants supporting the war effort in varying ways. Irish immigrants, for example, may well have looked at American support for Great Britain in a different light than native-born American citizens. Similarly, German-Americans, especially between 1914 and 1917, were ambivalent as American “neutrality” towards Germany shifted towards outright hostility. What can local newspapers, some of which catered to ethnic interests, tell us about the tensions between ethnic loyalties and the call for patriotic support for the Allies as the United States went to war? This paper focuses in part on editorial comments on the need for “loyalty,” and/or “patriotism” once war was declared in April, 1917. It was originally presented as a paper at the NJ Historical Commission’s 2017 conference, “New Jersey and The Great War,” held November 3-4, 2017 at Rowan College at Burlington County and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

Victors Defeated

2020 ◽  
pp. 32-62
Author(s):  
Martin Crotty ◽  
Neil J. Diamant ◽  
Mark Edele
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Simple Correlation ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
War Effort

This chapter look at cases that complicate any simple correlation between victorious wars and veterans' high postwar status. It examines the United States and the United Kingdom after World War I, the United Kingdom after World War II, Soviet veterans after both world wars, and China. It also elaborates how victory did not prevent many former soldiers from feeling betrayed by their governments, and often by society as well. The chapter discusses American World War I veterans that point to some gains after a limited contribution to the war effort and after many years of agitation. It describes the United Kingdom, long-suffering frontoviki in the USSR, and China's veterans that languished in obscurity for decades despite having paid a far higher price for their victory.

Herbert Hoover, the U.S. Food Administration, and the Dairy Industry, 1917–1918

1981 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Guth
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Planning ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
World War ◽  
Antitrust Laws ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Marketing Cooperatives

When the United States entered World War I, economic interest groups were far better developed and vocal than they had been at the beginning of the Progressive era. Resolving differing views of equitable policy as entertained by these groups resulted in government economic planning for prosecution of the war effort that, so far from being expertly organized and scientific, was confused and ad hoc. Further dramatic proof of this generalization is provided by Professor Guth in his essay on the marketing of fluid milk and its surplus during the war emergency. Producers had been moving towards marketing cooperatives, with all the risk of violation of antitrust laws that entailed. Much of the volume of milk sales had become concentrated in the previous three decades in a few large dealers who were economically strong, especially in the major milksheds. And a new force, the consumer groups, emerged to try the patience of all concerned with orderly marketing of milk in a time of rising production costs, including Herbert Hoover and his subordinates in and around the Food Administration. Quickly dismantled after the Armistice, the mechanisms they worked out nevertheless became the foundation for massive intervention in a highly demoralized industry after 1933.

scholarly journals Socks at War: American Hand Knitters and Military Footwear Production for the World Wars

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-92
Author(s):  
Rachel P. Maines
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Option ◽  
Home Front ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
World War ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

Abstract In both World Wars, combatant nations, including the United States, Britain, and Germany, learned that inadequate or poorly-maintained footwear produced costly and preventable casualties from trench foot and frostbite. While provision of shoes and boots to troops were major issues in earlier conflicts, no nation before World War I had fully appreciated the significance of warm, dry, well-fitting socks to the effectiveness of soldiers in the field. The large numbers of trench foot casualties in World War I, especially among the French and British, convinced policymakers that this vital commodity must receive a higher priority in military production planning, but few nations in wartime could shift production to knitting mills rapidly enough to make a difference. Thus, in Britain and the U.S, the best policy option proved to be recruiting women and children civilians to knit socks by hand for the military in the first war, and for refugees, prisoners and civilians in the second. This paper discusses the economic and military importance of this effort, including the numbers of pairs produced, and the program’s role in supplementing industrial production. The production of this low-technology but crucial item of military apparel is typical of detail-oriented tasks performed by women under conditions of full mobilization for war, in that they have a high impact on battlefield and home front performance and morale, but very low visibility as significant contributions to national defense. Often, both during and after the emergency, these efforts are ridiculed as trivial and/or wasteful. Unlike women pilots or industrial workers, handcrafters of essential supplies are regarded as performing extensions of their domestic roles as makers and caretakers of clothing and food. This was especially true in the U.S. in and after World War II, a wealthy industrialized nation that took pride in its modern - and thoroughly masculinist - military industrial complex.

scholarly journals An American-Made Miracle: The Politicization of Penicillin During World War II

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Herst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Home Front ◽  
World War ◽  
Venereal Diseases ◽  
War Effort ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Military ◽  
Alexander Fleming

The discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming in 1928 revolutionized the way infections were treated. In the context of World War II, the government of the United States politicized the production and use of penicillin as yet another weapon to win the war. It was carefully rationed on the home front, while being used with reckless abandon in the treatment battle wounds and venereal diseases on the battlefield. Penicillin was described as a miracle drug that would be able to cure everyone, when in reality it was only being used to benefit the military and the American war effort, at the expense of civilian lives.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document