2. The War Industries Board  Aka (WIB) established in 1917 organized in 1918 by Bernard M. Baruch  Used to help regulate the economy  Encouraged companies to use mass production techniques  Encouraged companies to eliminate waste  Ex. (5 typewriter colors instead of 150)  Industrial production increased 20%  Could not regulate retail prices so they went up really high  Railroad Administration also attempted to control economy (w/ RR’s0)  Fuel Administration monitored coal supplies and rationed gas and heating oil  “gasless Sundays” and “lightless nights”

3. Economy in War  Wages went up 20% in some areas (metal, shipbuilding, and meatpacking)  Household income suffered still because of rise in prices of goods  Corporations were still making a ton of money  Inequality between owners and employees, child labor, and long working hours led to an increase in Unions again  Wilson est. National War Labor Board in 1918  Anyone who disobeyed the boards decisions would lose their draft exemptions (work of fight)  Board does improve work hours, enacted safety inspections, and enforced child labor ban

4. Food Administration  Need to preserve resources  Rations were not given, instead government asked the people to take part in “Meatless Mondays, Sweetless Saturdays, Wheatless Wednesdays, Porkless Tuesdays”  Restaurants no longer provide sugar, and bread only after the 1 st course  “Victory Gardens” in peoples backyards  Food shipments to Allies triple  Farmers increase their income as well

5. War Financing  U.S. spent $35.5 billion on the war effort  1/3 rd of this amount came from taxes  Progressive income tax  War Profits tax  Excise tax (tax on luxuries)  War bonds were sold  Guilted into buying them, “only a friend of Germany wouldn’t buy a bond”

6. Propaganda  Committee on Public Information (CPI), countries first propaganda agency  George Creel, muckraker was the head of the agency  Paintings, posters, cartoons, and sculptures  “Four Minute Men” summed up support of the war  Boy Scouts helped spread propaganda  Promoted patriotism  Also violated civil liberties of those involved in the war

7. Anti-Immigrant Hysteria  Germans lost their jobs  Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms were not played  German named towns changed their names  German authors pulled from libraries  German language no longer taught in schools  Hamburger (named after German town) called Salisbury steak/ liberty sandwich  Sauerkraut becomes liberty cabbages

8. Espionage and Sedition Acts  Person could be fined $10,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for interfering with the war efforts, being disloyal, saying anything bad on war  Violate the 1 st amendment  Over 2000 were prosecuted  Newspapers and Magazines lost their mailing subscriptions

9. African Americans and the Great Migration  W.E.B. Du Bois believed in supporting the war  Believed support in war would call for racial justice  Eugene V. Debbs against war  Others like him said those who are victims of racism should not support a racist country  Great Migration: Southern Blacks moving to the cities in the North for work  Started to escape the Jim Crow South  Escape racial discrimination  Cotton fields were ruined  More job opportunities  Increased racial tensions

10. Women in the War  Became RR workers, cooks, bricklayers, ship builders, coal miners  Traditional roles played as well (nurses, teachers, and clerks)  Volunteered at Red Cross centers  No equal pay  Did support public opinion of women suffrage

11. Flu Epidemic  1/4 th of the U.S. got the flu  Terrible effect on the economy  Schools and businesses shut down  Ran short on coffins, some would lay unburied for a week +  Soldiers caught it as well even in Germany  500,000 Americans die by 1919