Teaching “Americanism with a World Perspective”: The Junior Red Cross in the U.S. Schools from 1917 to the 1920s

2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia F. Irwin
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
World Peace ◽  
World War ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Immigration Restriction ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
History Of

The involvement of the United States in World War I, from April 1917 to November 1918, marked a high point in the history of American internationalist thought and engagement. During those nineteen months, President Woodrow Wilson and his administration called on Americans to aid European civilians and to support Wilson's plans for a peacetime League of Nations, defining both as civic obligations; many responded positively. The postwar years, however, saw a significant popular backlash against such cosmopolitan expectations. In 1920, Congress failed to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and rejected U.S. participation in the League. A growing chorus for 100% Americanism and immigration restriction, meanwhile, offered evidence of a U.S. public that was becoming more insular, more withdrawn from the world. Yet such trends were never universal. As scholars have begun to acknowledge, many Americans remained outward looking in their worldviews throughout the period, seeing engagement with and compassion for the international community as vital to ensuring world peace.

The League of Nations and the United States

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Laderman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
International Peace ◽  
World War ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
New States ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Global Affairs

Although the League of Nations was the first permanent organization established with the purpose of maintaining international peace, it built on the work of a series of 19th-century intergovernmental institutions. The destructiveness of World War I led American and British statesmen to champion a league as a means of maintaining postwar global order. In the United States, Woodrow Wilson followed his predecessors, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, in advocating American membership of an international peace league, although Wilson’s vision for reforming global affairs was more radical. In Britain, public opinion had begun to coalesce in favor of a league from the outset of the war, though David Lloyd George and many of his Cabinet colleagues were initially skeptical of its benefits. However, Lloyd George was determined to establish an alliance with the United States and warmed to the league idea when Jan Christian Smuts presented a blueprint for an organization that served that end. The creation of the League was a predominantly British and American affair. Yet Wilson was unable to convince Americans to commit themselves to membership in the new organization. The Franco-British-dominated League enjoyed some early successes. Its high point was reached when Europe was infused with the “Spirit of Locarno” in the mid-1920s and the United States played an economically crucial, if politically constrained, role in advancing Continental peace. This tenuous basis for international order collapsed as a result of the economic chaos of the early 1930s, as the League proved incapable of containing the ambitions of revisionist powers in Europe and Asia. Despite its ultimate limitations as a peacekeeping body, recent scholarship has emphasized the League’s relative successes in stabilizing new states, safeguarding minorities, managing the evolution of colonies into notionally sovereign states, and policing transnational trafficking; in doing so, it paved the way for the creation of the United Nations.

scholarly journals THEODORE ROOSEVELT IN THE EYES OF THE ALLIES

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-101
Author(s):  
Michael Patrick Cullinane
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
World History ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Theodore Roosevelt ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Transnational Relations ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
Political Speeches

As Woodrow Wilson traveled across the Atlantic to negotiate the peace after World War I, Theodore Roosevelt died in Long Island. His passing launched a wave of commemoration in the United States that did not go unrivaled in Europe. Favorable tributes inundated the European press and coursed through the rhetoric of political speeches. This article examines the sentiment of Allied nations toward Roosevelt and argues that his posthumous image came to symbolize American intervention in the war and, subsequently, the reservations with the Treaty of Versailles, both endearing positions to the Allies that fueled tributes. Historians have long depicted Woodrow Wilson's arrival in Europe as the most celebrated reception of an American visitor, but Roosevelt's death and memory shared equal pomp in 1919 and endured long after Wilson departed. Observing this epochal moment in world history from the unique perspective of Roosevelt's passing extends the already intricate view of transnational relations.

Latin America and the League of Nations

1926 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-30
Author(s):  
Percy Alvin Martin
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
World War ◽  
The Past ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
Post War ◽  
International Status

To students of international relations it has become almost a commonplace that among the most significant and permanent results of the World War has been the changed international status of the republics of Latin America. As a result of the war and post-war developments in these states, the traditional New World isolation in South America, as well as in North America, is a thing of the past. To our leading sister republics is no longer applicable the half-contemptuous phrase, current in the far-off days before 1914, that Latin America stands on the margin of international life. The new place in the comity of nations won by a number of these states is evidenced—to take one of the most obvious examples—by the raising of the legations of certain non-American powers to the rank of embassies, either during or immediately after the war. In the case of Brazil, for instance, where prior to 1914 only the United States maintained an ambassador, at the present time Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, and Japan maintain diplomatic representatives of this rank.Yet all things considered one of the most fruitful developments in the domain of international relations has been the share taken by our southern neighbors in the work of the League of Nations. All of the Latin American republics which severed relations with Germany or declared war against that country were entitled to participate in the Peace Conference. As a consequence, eleven of these states affixed their signatures to the Treaty of Versailles, an action subsequently ratified in all cases except Ecuador.

scholarly journals The hierarchical society: the politics of self-determination and the constitution of new states after 1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Society ◽  
International System ◽  
World Politics ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
World War ◽  
New States ◽  
History Of

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.

A (Very Selective) Early History of Ballet in America

Ballet Class ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 3-24
Author(s):  
Melissa R. Klapper
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Young People ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early History ◽  
World War ◽  
Ballet Dancers ◽  
Metropolitan Opera ◽  
History Of

Ballet developed slowly in the United States and depended on European dancers and teachers at first, but by mid-nineteenth century a few American-trained ballet dancers were beginning to make their mark. The opening of the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School in 1909 and the tours of Anna Pavlova contributed greatly to popularizing ballet and inspiring young people to begin taking ballet class before World War I. Expansion continued from the 1920s through the 1940s with the founding of the School of American Ballet and the performances of the various Ballet Russe companies in every corner of the country. The Littlefield sisters and Christensen brothers helped make ballet American by establishing important homegrown ballet companies with primarily American dancers. The regional ballet movement fostered further growth. All these developments in professional ballet encouraged ever-increasing numbers of Americans not only to enjoy performances but also to take ballet class themselves.

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.

1. The best hope of mankind? A brief history of the UN

2015 ◽  
pp. 8-25
Author(s):  
Jussi M. Hanhimäki
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
United Nations ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
International Peace ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
The United Nations

The International Peace Conference in 1899 established the Permanent Court of Arbitration as the first medium for international disputes, but it was the League of Nations, established in 1919 after World War I, which formed the framework of the system of international organizations seen today. The United Nations was created to manage the world's transformation in the aftermath of World War II. ‘The best hope of mankind? A brief history of the UN’ shows how the UN has grown from the 51 nations that signed the UN Charter in 1945 to 193 nations in 2015. The UN's first seven decades have seen many challenges with a mixture of success and failure.

The Wilsonian Order Project

2020 ◽  
pp. 132-163
Author(s):  
Kyle M. Lascurettes
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
International Order ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
World War ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
Bolshevik Revolution ◽  
Paris Peace Conference ◽  
At Home

How do we account for the vision of international order the American delegation pursued at the Paris Peace Conference after World War I, manifested most concretely in the Covenant of the League of Nations that was written by avowed liberal internationalist Woodrow Wilson? The dominant inclusive narrative of order construction in 1919 emphasizes America’s liberal institutions at home coupled with its president’s progressive ideals and sense of ideological mission in world affairs. By contrast, chapter 6 (“The Wilsonian Order Project”) argues that the new ideological threat posed by radical socialism after the Bolshevik Revolution in late 1917 actually played the most critical role in shaping the order preferences of Wilson and his principal advisers both before and during the Paris Peace Conference.

Evergreen: The First U.S. Veterans’ Blind Rehabilitation Center

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-193
Author(s):  
Gregory L. Goodrich ◽  
Tom Zampieri
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Vision Loss ◽  
The United States ◽  
Rehabilitation Program ◽  
World War ◽  
Rehabilitation Facility ◽  
Adult Inpatient ◽  
History Of

Evergreen was a World War I (WWI) adult, inpatient vocational rehabilitation facility for war-blind soldiers, sailors, and marines in the United States. Although Evergreen shared similarities with European war-blind rehabilitation organizations, it was novel in its philosophy and approach. It was also unlike any civilian blind rehabilitation program of its day. Although there are no comprehensive records known to us of how many troops became blind or sustained vision loss during WWI, studying published reports of the veterans served by Evergreen provides some insight into this population. As the United States’ only blind rehabilitation facility for adults, Evergreen achieved several firsts, including having a national scope, being racially integrated (at least to some degree), and innovating a residential family training program. A role model of its day, it is now largely a footnote in the history of blind rehabilitation. We argue that the story of Evergreen contains lessons that should be remembered.

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