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Covers shell shock

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Sedition Act Cartoon. The Sedition Act of 1918 (enacted May 16, 1918) was an Act of the United States Congress that extend… | Unit 3: Imperialism & WWI | Pinterest | Funny pictures, Cartoon and Funny

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Sedition Act Cartoon. The Sedition Act of 1918 (enacted May 16, 1918) was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds.

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Women have long been involved in the military during times of war, though not always in a capacity that we might recognize as "traditionally" military. For centuries women have followed armies, many of them soldiers' wives, providing indispensable services such as cooking, nursing, and laundry-in fact, "armies could not have functioned as well, perhaps could not have functioned at all, without the service of women." ¹

With the onset of World War I, women took on these same roles and newer ones, but their service during this conflict was significantly different from that of earlier wars. Thousands of women in the United States formed and/or joined organizations that worked to bring relief to the war-torn countries in Europe, even before official American entry into the war in April 1917. After the United States joined the Allies, women continued to join these organizations and dedicate themselves to supporting and expanding the war effort. These groups were highly organized, much like the military, which helped women garner respect from their fellow citizens and have their patriotic endeavors taken seriously.

Aside from their mass involvement in these voluntary organizations and efforts, a key difference between women's service during World War I and that of previous wars was the class of women involved. Typically women who followed armies were from the working classes of society, but during the Great War, women from all classes served in many different capacities. Upper class women were the primary founders and members of voluntary wartime organizations, particularly because they could afford to devote so much of their time and money to these efforts. Middle- and lower-class women also participated in these organizations and drives, although they were more likely to be serving as nurses with the military or replacing men in their jobs on the home front as the men went off to war. For the first time in American history, women from every part of the class spectrum were serving in the war in some capacity.

Another significant change to women's service during the Great War is that American civilian women donned uniforms. The uniforms allowed women to look the part and claim credibility for their services, as well as to be taken seriously by others; many women saw their wartime service as a way to claim full citizenship, and the uniforms symbolized "their credentials as citizens engaged in wartime service." ²

Other women donned uniforms because of their association with the military-World War I was the first time in American history in which women were officially attached to arms of the American military and government agencies. Yeomen (F) served with the Navy and the Marine Corps, while the Army Nurse Corps was attached to the Army. In France, 223 American women popularly known as "Hello Girls" served as long-distance switchboard operators for the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

World War I was without a doubt a watershed event for women's military service in the United States and elsewhere. However, we do not want to restrict our definition of women in the military to only women who served in the military. Instead, we want to broaden our understanding to include the women whose lives were affected by the military and the war: women who were left on the home front, women who saw their husbands and sons go off to fight, women in Europe who experienced the war firsthand as it ravaged their hometowns, and even the women in media and art who symbolically represented freedom, virtue, and victory and spurred their countrymen and women to arms. Therefore, the following sections of this object group showcase items from across the Smithsonian and across the entire spectrum of women's experiences in World War I.

The sections in this object group do not progress chronologically. Instead, they are arranged by collection type and subject matter. The latter sections of this object group highlight resources related to women in World War I that are held by other Smithsonian museums and archives.

The Women in World War I object group was made possible through the generous support of Bette and Lindsey Hagan and the James Lollar Hagan Internship program.

Further Resources
National Women's History Museum

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Women have long been involved in the military during times of war, though not always in a capacity that we might recognize as "traditionally" military. For centuries women have followed armies, many of them soldiers' wives, providing indispensable services such as cooking, nursing, and laundry-in fact, "armies could not have functioned as well, perhaps could not have functioned at all, without the service of women."

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He'd been elected on the promise of staying out of it...

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April 6, 1917: Two days after the U.S. Senate voted 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the U.S. House of Representatives endorses the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally enters World War I.

When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the United States, a position that the vast majority of Americans favored. Britain, however, was one of America's closest trading partners, and tension soon arose between the United States and Germany over the latter's attempted quarantine of the British Isles.

Several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines, and in February 1915 Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain. One month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the William P. Frye, a private American vessel. President Wilson was outraged, but the German government apologized and called the attack an unfortunate mistake.
WATCH: WWI: The Death of Glory on HISTORY Vault
On May 7, the British-owned Lusitania ocean liner was torpedoed without warning just off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,959 passengers, 1,198 were killed, including 128 Americans. The German government maintained that the Lusitania was carrying munitions, but the U.S. demanded reparations and an end to German attacks on unarmed passenger and merchant ships. In August, Germany pledged to see to the safety of passengers before sinking unarmed vessels, but in November sunk an Italian liner without warning, killing 272 people, including 27 Americans. With these attacks, public opinion in the United States began to turn irrevocably against Germany.

In 1917, Germany, determined to win its war of attrition against the Allies, announced the resumption of unrestricted warfare in war-zone waters. Three days later, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany, and just hours after that the American liner Housatonic was sunk by a German U-boat. On February 22, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war. In late March, Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships, and on April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. Four days later, his request was granted.

On June 26, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops landed in France to begin training for combat. After four years of bloody stalemate along the western front, the entrance of America's well-supplied forces into the conflict marked a major turning point in the war and helped the Allies to victory. When the war finally ended, on November 11, 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and some 50,000 of them had lost their lives.
READ MORE: 8 Events Leading to the Outbreak of World War I

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The United States officially enters World War I

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April 6, 1917: Two days after the U.S. Senate voted 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the U.S. House of Representatives endorses the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally enters World War I.

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Suggest googling lyrics as you listen

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Popular Music. sound recording | 1 10" disc recording. | Duration: 02:54 | Vocal (Category). Female vocal solo, with orchestra (Description). This recording is protected by state copyright laws in the United States. The Library of Congress has obtained a license from rights holders to offer it as streamed audio only.

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Before America's entry into World War I in 1917, citizens significantly debated whether the United States should remain neutral. Artists contributed to this national conversation through their artwork. Consequently, the government depended on these artists in a variety of ways. From garnering support from the American public to ascertaining information from behind enemy lines, American artists-and their visions-informed and influenced American culture and military strategy during the war and initiated a new wave of modern art in the aftermath of the war. In addition to the artwork on display in our new exhibition World War I Beyond the Trenches, we're showcasing a series of more than 30 propaganda posters culled from our collections. But with more than 500 in our collection, how did we narrow it down to under 50? This three-part blog series examines the visual themes of propaganda posters that informed our selection for display.

In order to galvanize American support for World War I, the government developed the Committee on Public Information, an organization dedicated to the dissemination of propaganda and convincing the American public that entry into the war, rather than neutrality, was absolutely necessary.

Assembled by Woodrow Wilson and led by George Creel, the CPI solicited artists to illustrate posters that rallied Americans around the cause. These propaganda posters utilized the rhetoric of patriotism to garner public support for a military offensive, including enlistment into the Armed Forces and appeals for food conservation. The New-York Historical Society's Library collection is a repository for hundreds of World War I-era posters, many of which were preserved and stored in the immediate aftermath of the war.

Military enlistment posters drew on wartime events in order to garner support and recruit soldiers. The Navy frequently incorporated images of the R.M.S. Lusitania, a passenger ship sunk by German U-boats in 1915 off the coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 passengers, 128 of whom were Americans. Though many posters incorporated this visual language and it was frequently cited as a precipitating factor in American involvement and entry into the war, the sinking of the Lusitania occurred a full two years prior to Wilson's declaration of war. Nevertheless, the powerful imagery of women and children dying at the hands of the Germans, as seen in W.A. Rogers' When You Fire Remember This (1917), resonated deeply with the American public.

Enlistment posters emphasized different branches of the military, including the Marine Corps, the Navy, and branches that technology only recently incorporated, such as the Army Air Service, the precursor to the Air Force.

The most iconic image proliferated during the war is James Montgomery Flagg's I Want YOU for U.S. Army - Nearest Recruiting Station (1917). Uncle Sam's finger is directed at each individual American citizen, expecting their enlistment for the United States Army. With its proliferation as an enlistment poster again in World War II and its incorporation into satire throughout the 20th-century, this image continued to reverberate strongly in American cultural memory.

Laura Brey's Enlist, On Which Side of the Window Are You? (1917) conveys a distinct class dynamic between those who chose to enlist and those who elected to remain at home. The well-dressed man behind the window watches as his fellow Americans are marching to serve, evoking shame and melancholy at not joining the war effort. It's clear that the man in this poster is contemplating joining the throngs of marching soldiers on the other side of the window.

Technological innovations initiated a new wave of military branches, with the inauguration of the Tank Corps and the Army Air Service. August William Hutaf's Treat 'Em Rough! Join the Tanks (1918) incorporates vivid greens and oranges in the backdrop of a startled cat, clearly responsive to the modernist language permeating art in Europe in the early 20th century.

This reaction and use of a modern color scheme coordinates strongly with the first "modern war." Join the Army Air Service, Be an American Eagle (1917) pits German vulture against American eagle in an airborne showdown, while imploring the American citizenry to enlist and support the nascent Army Air Service. World War I was the first war to utilize the airplane in battle; the opportunity to participate with this new technology resonated strongly with enlisting soldiers.

While the Tank Corps offered technological innovation and the army implored the average American male citizen to enlist rather than be drafted, the Navy often incorporated a message of adventure and excitement. Flagg's The Navy Needs You! (1917) appeals to its audience to "make" American history instead of reading it. Liberty holds the American flag over the sailor approaching a businessman reading a newspaper, imploring him to participate in the action rather than simply reading about it. Like many other Navy posters, this image incorporates a landscape that is more tropical, suggesting the ability for the sailor to see the world and experience adventure while serving the country.

While atrocities were often depicted as a primary reason to enlist in the Armed Forces, the Marine Corps advertised their own brutality when fighting against German forces. In the infamous Battle of Belleau Wood, one of the deadliest battles of the war, German soldiers reportedly referred to the onslaught of United States Marines as "Devil Dogs" ( Teufel Hunden in German) due to the ferocity with which they fought.

In this poster by an unidentified artist, the Marine Corps proudly appropriated this nickname, which is still used today. In a similar vein, James Montgomery Flagg's Tell That to the Marines! (ca. 1918) conveys the Marine Corps' intolerance of the atrocities occurring in Europe. Throwing the newspaper to the ground, the man has ripped off his tie, trading in his business attire to join the ranks of the United States Marine Corps, solidifying the Corps as a distinct branch. As the Marine Corps depended on enlistments and accepted no draftees, they designated themselves as distinct among the other branches of the military through this elite rhetoric of their performance on the front line.

When curating and selecting posters for this portion of the exhibition, significant care was made to represent all branches of the Armed Forces and emphasize the nuances of each respective branch. The adventurous sailor, the rugged soldier, the technologically savvy tank operator, and the steadfast Marine all participated on the front lines, and these images serve as reminders of the sacrifices all soldiers made in World War I and beyond.
Sources

Borkan, Gary. World War I Posters. Atglen: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2002

James, Pearl. The New Death: American Modernism and World War I. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013.

James, Pearl, ed. Picturing This: World War I Posters and Visual Culture. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Kingsbury, Celia Malone. For Home and Country: World War I Propaganda on the Home Front. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010.

Lubin, David. Grand Illusions: American Art and the First World War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

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Mobilizing the Military: Enlistment Posters in World War I | Behind The Scenes

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Before America's entry into World War I in 1917, citizens significantly debated whether the United States should remain neutral. Artists contributed to this national conversation through their artwork. Consequently, the government depended on these artists in a variety of ways.

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Yet the government sponsored massive propaganda campaigns-the best-known being the Creel Commission-to convince the public that war was both right and inevitable. The government also took steps to repress antiwar activity once war was declared in 1917 by passing the Espionage Act, which made any "disloyal" statements illegal.

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Socialist leader Eugene Debs jailed for anti-war speech

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Socialist leader Eugene Debs jailed for anti-war speech

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After winning 6 percent of the vote in the 1912 presidential election, Eugene Debs ran afoul of the nation's new anti-sedition laws

smithsonian.com

Eugene Debs had led historic strikes and run for president four times on the Socialist Party ticket, But the renowned orator had never given a speech so risky or consequential as the one he delivered in a Canton, Ohio, park on June 16, 1918.

As 1,200 people watched, Debs stepped to the front of a wooden bandstand. Nearly bald, he wore a tweed jacket and buttoned vest despite the summer swelter. Justice Department agents sifted through the audience, asking to see men's draft cards. As Debs spoke, a stenographer hired by a federal prosecutor took frantic notes of the lines that struck him as especially subversive. Sweat dripped down Debs' face, and his arms reached over the bandstand's rail toward the crowd.

"The working class have never yet had a voice in declaring war," Debs declared. "If war is right, let it be declared by the people - you, who have your lives to lose."

Those were dangerous words in June 1918. World War I was nearing its climax, with American soldiers fighting their first major battles, resisting Germany's all-out drive toward Paris. The U.S. government, armed with repressive new laws, had jailed anti-war protesters across the country. And Debs, 62 years old and recovering from illness, had emerged from near-seclusion to rejoin the fight against the war.

"Debs Wakes Up Howling At War; U.S. May Get Him," a Chicago Tribune headline announced the next day. "Debs Invites Arrest," the Washington Post declared. Soon Debs would be in jail for his speech that day. His trial and incarceration would captivate the tense, conflicted nation. After the war, Americans debated whether he was a traitor or a martyr for free expression. Debs' Canton speech, delivered 100 years ago this week, became the era's most infamous example of how dissent can become a casualty of war.

Debs' journey to that stage in Canton began in 1870, when he left his hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana, at age 14 to work in train factories. "From my very boyhood I was made to feel the wrongs of labor," he wrote in the New York Comrade in 1904: the dangers, uncertainty of work, and scant wages common to working men. After years in the labor movement, he became president of the new American Railway Union in 1893.

Sentenced to jail for helping to lead the 1894 Pullman railroad strike, he spent six months behind bars educating himself with the works of Karl Marx, among others. He declared himself a socialist in 1897, helped found the Socialist Party of America in 1901, and ran for U.S. president on Socialist tickets in four straight elections, starting in 1900.

An inspiring speaker, he drew thousands of fervent supporters to rallies in major cities, while inspiring equally fervent denunciations by mainstream politicians and newspapers. Theodore Roosevelt called Debs one of the nation's most "undesirable citizens" and accused him of fomenting "bloodshed, anarchy, and riot." Debs' argument that workers should own the products of their labor was too radical for most Americans. Yet Debs presented socialism in ways that appealed to Americans' cultural and religious values. He shocked the political system by winning 900,000 votes, or 6 percent of the vote, in the 1912 presidential election, more than Ralph Nader in 200 or Gary Johnson and Jill Stein in 2016. Debs had a "profoundly intuitive understanding of the American people," wrote historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. "Men and women loved Debs even when they hated his doctrine."

When World War I broke out in Europe in August 1914, Debs joined the movement to preserve American neutrality. Early in the war, most of the nation, from conservative isolationists in the Midwest to liberals in the East, wanted to stay out of Europe's war. Although many Americans agreed with Debs on the merits, fewer aligned with his socialist critique of entering the war. It was a battle between the ruling classes of the warring nations, he argued - and in fact, an economic critique of the war, which notes that the U.S. profited from trade with Britain and wartime loans to the Allied powers, persists among historians today. "I know of no reason why the workers should fight for what the capitalists own," Debs wrote to novelist Upton Sinclair, "or slaughter one another for countries that belong to their masters."

In March 1917, as news of the Zimmermann Telegram pushed the U.S. toward war, Debs toured the Northeast, arguing for peace to crowds of thousands. "I will never go to war for a capitalist government," Debs declared. "I will never go to war for a capitalist government," Debs declared. Congress' declaration of war against Germany in April did not deter him. "Debs doesn't believe that government is really representative of the people," says Nancy Unger, a historian at Santa Clara University and author of several books on 1910s America. "It's controlled by money and issues of power."

Meanwhile, President Woodrow Wilson's Democratic administration launched an intense propaganda effort to bolster support for the war, along with one of the most aggressive campaigns of political repression in U.S. history. Empowered by the Espionage Act, passed by Congress in June 1917, the government blocked the mailing of anti-war newspapers and arrested 2,000 protesters on charges of inspiring resistance to military recruitment. States passed sedition laws and arrested dissenters. The American Defense Society, a right-wing vigilante group, pulled anti-war speakers off soapboxes in New York City. The American Protective League, a national group of 250,000 volunteers acting with the blessing of U.S. Attorney General Thomas Gregory, searched their neighbors' homes and mail and reported the allegedly disloyal.

"Wilson couches it in Progressive-style terms: a war to make the world safe for democracy," says Unger. "If you're against that, you're un-American, you're selfish, you're wrong. The same statements Eugene Debs has been making his whole life are now not just on the left of the political spectrum. He's now presented as dangerous, un-American, a saboteur."

Debs protested censorship in his opinion columns in socialist newspapers such as Social Revolution, but as the war continued, the government shut down many papers that printed his writing. Illness slowed Debs for several months after war was declared; he mostly stayed home in Terre Haute, resting under doctor's orders, sick with back pain, digestion problems, and a weak heart. But in December, his friend Kate O'Hare, the nation's most prominent female socialist, was convicted under the Espionage Act for a July 1917 anti-war speech and sentenced to five years in prison. "I shall feel guilty to be at large," Debs wrote her in solidarity. In May 1918, Congress passed the Sedition Act, further tightening restrictions on dissent.

Enraged, Debs set out in June on a new speaking tour of the Midwest. He knew he was courting prosecution, and maybe even welcomed it. "I'll take about two jumps and they'll nail me, but that's all right," he told a friend. He barnstormed Illinois and Indiana, speaking against the war without incident, before he headed to Ohio for the state Socialist convention in Canton.

Before speaking at the convention picnic, Debs visited the nearby Stark County Workhouse, where three Ohio Socialist leaders were serving one-year sentences for opposing the draft.

"Three of our most loyal comrades are paying the penalty of their devotion to the cause of the working class," Debs told the crowd. "They have come to realize," he added, "that it is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world."

For two hours on the bandstand in Canton, Debs defended imprisoned anti-war activists from accusations of disloyalty. He praised Russia's Bolsheviks, claiming they'd founded "the first real democracy" when they'd taken power in the Russian Revolution eight months earlier. Denouncing the U.S. Supreme Court for striking down a law against child labor, he declared that socialism would triumph over capitalism. "Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters," Debs said. "Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth."

Two weeks later, Debs was walking into a Socialist picnic in Cleveland when U.S. marshals arrested him. He was charged with ten counts of violating the Espionage and Sedition acts during his Canton speech.

At Debs' trial in Cleveland in September 1918, the prosecutor argued that Debs' speech was "calculated to promote insubordination" and "propagate obstruction to the draft." Debs' lawyers conceded the facts of the case, and Debs spoke on his own behalf.

"I have been accused of having obstructed the war," Debs told the jury. "I admit it. I abhor war. I would oppose the war if I stood alone." He defended socialism as a moral movement, like the abolition of slavery decades before. "I believe in free speech, in war as well as in peace," Debs declared. "If the Espionage Law stands, then the Constitution of the United States is dead."

The jury found Debs guilty on three counts, and the judge sentenced him to ten years in prison. Newspaper editorials across the nation cheered his conviction. "His activities in opposition to the war preparation were dangerous," the Washington Post declared. "His conviction... serves notice to all that disloyalty and sedition, even though masquerading under the guise of free speech, will not be tolerated."

Debs' case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1919 that expressing sympathy for men who resisted the draft made Debs himself guilty of the same offense. Debs reported to prison in Moundsville, West Virginia, in April 1919. "I enter the prison doors a flaming revolutionist," he telegraphed his supporters, "my head erect, my spirit untamed and my soul unconquerable."

The nation's most famous political prisoner, Debs spent two-and-a-half years at a federal penitentiary in Georgia. After the war, he became the symbol of a growing movement pushing for amnesty for imprisoned radicals. In newspapers and everyday conversation, Americans debated whether to free Debs. "For most Americans Debs embodied the entire controversy," wrote Ernest Freeberg in his 2008 book on the Debs case, Democracy's Prisoner. "He was the only prisoner who had a face and voice, the one who provoked citizens to either defend or oppose their government's prosecution of wartime dissenters."

In 1920, the Socialist Party nominated Debs for his fifth run for president. Campaigning from prison, Debs issued weekly campaign statements to the United Press wire service. Rather than debate Republican candidate Warren G. Harding or Democratic nominee James Cox, Debs denounced the lame-duck Wilson as "a tool of Wall Street" and "a college professor who isn't fit to be president because he doesn't know the lives of the people."

As Convict No. 9653, Debs attracted 3.5 percent of the vote for president. "Thousands upon thousands had cast their votes for the prisoner in order to protest the infringements of civil liberties," wrote Ray Ginger in The Bending Cross, his classic 1947 biography of Debs.

The Wilson administration, unmoved, rejected a recommendation to commute Debs' sentence in February 1921. "While the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man, Debs, stood behind the lines, sniping, attacking, and denouncing them," Wilson complained to his secretary. "This man was a traitor to his country."

Harding, who replaced Wilson in March 1921, was more receptive to the amnesty campaign. Freeing Debs and other radical prisoners fit his campaign promise of a "return to normalcy" after the war.

"For Wilson, it really was like a holy war," says Unger. "I think he really believed

it could be a war to end all war. I don't think he could ever forgive Debs." Harding, she says, "certainly did not have the same emotions and moral investment in that war. I just don't think for him Debs was a threat."

In December 1921, Harding commuted Debs' sentence, set his release for Christmas Day, and invited Debs to the White House. "I have heard so damned much about you, Mr. Debs, that I am now very glad to meet you personally," Harding greeted him on Dec. 26. Leaving the meeting, Debs called Harding "a kind gentleman" with "humane impulses," but declared that he'd told the president he would continue the fight for his "principles, conviction, and ideals." He took the train to home to Terre Haute and his wife, Kate, the next day.

Debs died in 1926 at age 70. His Canton speech remains a classic of American dissent -- the actor Mark Ruffalo gave a dramatic reading from it in 2007. He remains a hero to American socialists - including Senator Bernie Sanders, who directed a 1979 documentary about Debs and read his quotes in his distinctive Brooklyn accent. "The master class has always declared the wars," Sanders intoned in a two-minute excerpt from Debs' Canton speech. "The subject class has always fought the battles."

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When America's Most Prominent Socialist Was Jailed for Speaking Out Against World War I

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smithsonian.com Eugene Debs had led historic strikes and run for president four times on the Socialist Party ticket, But the renowned orator had never given a speech so risky or consequential as the one he delivered in a Canton, Ohio, park on June 16, 1918.

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Both pro-war and anti-war

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" Stonewall Wilson," a campaign song composed by Robert Mortimer praising Wilson for keeping the United States out of World War I during his first term (1916). Select the link to veiw the sheet music.

The in the years leading up to United States involvement in the first World War, a strong peace movement began, supported by President Woodrow Wilson. Among the most famous of these pacifist songs is " I Didn't Raise my Boy to be a Soldier," by Alfred Bryan and Albert Piantadosi published in 1915 (sheet music). " Let Us Have Peace," by George Graff and Ernest Ball and recorded by Reinald Werrenrath in 1917, takes a religions stance in protest of war (sound recording).

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson campaigned for his second term on the basis of having maintaining a position of non-involvement in the war. The song " Stonewall Wilson," by Robert Mortimer, portrays the President as a strong, picturing him in uniform and leading soldiers on the sheet music cover, while the point of the song is that he kept the country at peace. This mixed political message shows a president that can lead in war, but only if absolutely necessary.

There were voices of those who opposed the peace movement and saw frightening consequences if the United States did not enter the war. For example, a recording made in 1916 by Frederick Wheeler, " Wake Up America," demonstrated that many realized that the United States would have to send troops to Europe.

When the United States declared war with Germany in 1917, partly in response to German attacks on United States shipping, it was realized that the popular attitudes about the war needed to be turned around. Songs were one means of changing people's minds. There were some familiar types of patriotic songs, of course. Perhaps the most famous is " Over There!" recorded by Nora Bayes shortly after war was declared in 1917. But, in this unusual situation, other methods of pursuasion were also tried. " Lafayette," recorded by Reinald Werrenrath, asserts that the spirit of the Marquis de Lafayette, who came to the aid of the United States during the American Revolution, is calling Americans to pay their debt to France. While the song " Americans Come!" performed by Reinald Werrenrath, tells of war-weary Europeans heartened by the arrival of the Americans, " The Worst is Yet to Come," sung by Billy Murray, takes a comic approach as it explains that the worst is yet to come for Germany, once the United States forces arrive. The charismatic Scottish composer and performer Harry Lauder appeared in shows in the United States and sang songs such as his " The Laddies Who Fought and Won," recorded in 1917, in order to help sway public sentiment in support of the war effort.

When the United States entered the war, many who voted for Wilson on the basis of his non-interventionist stance were profoundly disillusioned, in spite of the campaign to inspire support for the war. Some songs of the period do celebrate victory, but others reflect the emotional consequences of this unpopular swing from peace to war and a sense of the ways that this war was different. As the war was ending and the terrible consequences were being realized, there were songs that expressed the sense of loss. " The Boys Who Won't Come Home," sung by Henry Burr is about the soldiers who gave their lives in the war and were buried overseas. " After the War is Over, Will There be a Home Sweet Home?" published in 1918, expresses concern about a future without the "brave heroes" who were lost and a Europe forever changed. The next presidential campaign was also affected by the disillusionment with Wilson. A song of the newly formed Labor Party of the United States (also known as the Farmer-Labor Party) for the next presidential election in 1920, " I'll Never Vote Like Daddy Anymore," by Arch McDowell, expresses a sense of betrayal in the lyrics through the character of a war veteran who voted for the peace candidate but then had to go to war.

Resources

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Songs of the Peace Movement of World War I

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" Stonewall Wilson," a campaign song composed by Robert Mortimer praising Wilson for keeping the United States out of World War I during his first term (1916). Select the link to veiw the sheet music. The in the years leading up to United States involvement in the first World War, a strong peace movement began, supported by President Woodrow Wilson.

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A terrible testimony to extreme racism in the WWI era

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This might give you a new view of the famous American lady

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Strike Against War Helen Keller American author and public speaker

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African Americans fighting at home and in WWI

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African Americans fighting at home and in WWI

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African American Odyssey Introduction |Overview |Object List | Search Part 1: Fighting at Home and Abroad
Part 2

World War I galvanized the black community in their effort to make America truly democratic by ensuring full citizenship for all its people. Black soldiers, who continued to serve in segregated units, were involved in protest against racial injustice o n the home front and abroad.

Blacks and whites in the newly-formed NAACP and other organizations led the onslaught against discrimination and segregation in the United States. Numerous NAACP files labeled "Soldier Troubles" document the efforts made to prevent mistreatment of African Americans in the military. The NAACP also pursued voting rights and worked to dismantle various forms of segregation through the courts. Painstakingly, one case at a time, one law at a time, they confronted the racial inequities in the legal system. The Library's extensive civil rights collections document the efforts during this period on the part of blacks and whites to erase the legacy of slavery.

African American artists, actors, and writers led the battle against intellectual and artistic bias. Between the wars, and even during the deprivations of the Great Depression, there was a great crescendo of African American artistic expression in the period known as the "Harlem Renaissance." Paintings, drawings, classical music, jazz, blues, poetry, novels, plays, and dance abounded during this era and won world acclaim. But artistic and intellectual achievement did not win for blacks political, economic, and educational parity with whites. Racism remained a powerful force in American life.

Emmett J. Scott worked for eighteen years as the private secretary to Booker T. Washington. He became a Special Assistant to Secretary of War Newton Baker during World War I in order to oversee the recruitment, training, and morale of the African American soldiers.

Emmett J. Scott.

Scott's Official History of the American Negro in the World War, 1919.
New York: Arno Press, 1969.
Humanities and Social Sciences Division. (7-2)

This "profusely illustrated" 512-page volume gives a "complete and authentic narration . . . of the participation of American soldiers of the Negro race in the World War for democracy," and a "full account of the war work organizations of colored men and women." It also documents other civilian activities including the work of the Red Cross, the Young Men and Young Women's Christian Association, and the War Camp Community Service. Carter G. Woodson and Alice Dunbar Nelson collaborated with Scott in the preparation of this volume.

"803rd Pioneer Infantry Band, No. 16"

803rd Pioneer Infantry to Battalion on the U.S.S. Philippines (troop ship) from Brest, France, July 18, 1919.
Photograph.
Gladstone Collection, Prints and Photographs Division.
Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-6163 (7-5)

During World War I many black troops were eager to fight but most provided support services. Only a small percentage were actually involved in combat. Yet, the African American presence in France--helping in any capacity--often elicited overwhelming gratitude from the French. Both the French and the American troops enjoyed listening to African American bands who sometimes introduced blues and jazz rhythms previously unknown to their listeners. This is a 1919 photograph of the 803rd Pioneer Infantry Band on board the U.S.S. Philippines in Brest Harbor, France.

African American regiments in World War I were usually accompanied by bands. The most famous was the band of the 369th Infantry, led by James Reese Europe, a prominent musician whose syncopated style animated the dancing of Vernon and Irene Castle, creating a craze for social dancing. These army bands became immensely popular in France, both among American troops and the French public, introducing many Europeans to jazz and ragtime rhythm and African American performance styles. Vaudeville star Noble Sissle, who belonged to Europe's band in war and peace, prepared this biography of Europe, who was murdered soon after the war by a crazed band member. The Memoirs include much information about the racial climate in the U.S. and France.

Noble Lee Sissle.

Memoirs of "Jim" Europe.
Carbon copy of typescript
ca. 1942.
Manuscript Division. (7-17)

Charles Gustrine.

"True Sons of Freedom."
Color-offset poster.
Chicago, 1918.
Prints and Photographs Division.
Reproduction Number: LC-USZC4-2426 (7-1)

More than 350,000 African Americans served in segregated units during World War I, mostly as support troops. Several units saw action alongside French soldiers fighting against the Germans, and 171 African Americans were awarded the French Legion of Honor. In response to protests of discrimination and mistreatment from the black community, several hundred African American men received officers' training in Des Moines, Iowa. By October 1917, over six hundred African Americans were commissioned as captains and first and second lieutenants.

One of the many methods used to keep African Americans from voting was the grandfather clause, which held that a man could only vote if his grandfather had voted. Poll taxes, literacy tests, voting fraud, violence, and intimidation also proved effective means of barring African Americans from the ballot box.

The NAACP successfully fought against grandfather clauses in court. In 1915, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Guinn v. United States that the grandfather clauses in the Maryland and Oklahoma constitutions were null and void, because they violated the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Guinn v. United States.
Board minutes, June 3, 1913.
Document. Typescript.
NAACP Collection, Manuscript Division. (7-19) Courtesy of the NAACP

In the Supreme Court of the United States, October Term, 1916 [No. 231]. Charles H. Buchanan v. William Warley.
Pamphlet.
NAACP Collection, Manuscript Division. (7-20)
Courtesy of the NAACP

In order to keep people of color out of their neighborhoods, cities called for racial restrictive covenants that segregated housing. The NAACP attacked this practice in the courts in the case of Charles Buchanan v. William Warley. In the 1916 decision, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional an ordinance mandating that African Americans live in certain sections of Louisville, Kentucky. As a result of this case, whites resorted to private restrictive covenants, in which individual residents agreed to sell or rent only to whites, and de facto housing segregation continued.

In this report Mary Church Terrell recounts her role as founding president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, a confederation of black women's service clubs dedicated to instilling racial pride. Founded in 1895, the group was intent upon improving social and moral conditions in the African American community. The organization founded settlement houses for migrant women, orphanages, day nurseries, kindergartens, evening schools for adults, clinics, and homes for the aged. The group advocated the abolition of sexism and racism, actively supported voting rights for all including women, and promoted the anti-lynching crusade.

Mary Church Terrell.

What the National Association [of Colored Women] Has Meant to Colored Women.
Transcript, undated.
Mary Church Terrell Papers, Manuscript Division. (7-6)

World War I and Postwar Society: Part 1 | Part 2
African American Odyssey Introduction |Overview |Object List | Search

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African American Odyssey Introduction |Overview |Object List | Search Part 1: Fighting at Home and Abroad Part 2 World War I galvanized the black community in their effort to make America truly democratic by ensuring full citizenship for all its people.

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Check out how they were received and spot places you recognize

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World War One Parade, Naugatuck, CT, July 4, 1919

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Nice database intro