1. The Home Front
Chapter 16, Section 2

2. Wartime Agencies War Industries Board:
Coordinate production of war materials
Told manufacturers what they could make
Allocated raw materials
Ordered construction of factories
Set some prices
Wartime Agencies

3. Victory Gardens: increase production while decreasing consumption
Food Administration:
Victory Gardens: increase production while decreasing consumption
Wartime Agencies

4. Wartime Agencies Liberty and Victory Bonds: Government borrowing
Citizens bought bonds to be repaid a specified number of years later, with interest
Helped Allies
Was a symbol of patriotic duty
Wartime Agencies

5. Mobilizing the Workforce
National War Labor Board:
Mediated labor disputes to prevent strikes
Pressures on industry:
Improve wages
Adopt 8 hour workday
Right to collective bargaining
Pressures on labor:
No disruption of war production via strikes or other work stoppages
Mobilizing the Workforce

6. Mobilizing the Workforce
Women Support Industry:
1 million women joined workforce for first time in WWI
8 million switched to industrial jobs (higher wages)
Worked in shipyards, factories, postal work, etc.
Not permanent changes, but proved important point
Patriotic
Mobilizing the Workforce

7. Mobilizing the Workforce
The Great Migration:
Northern industrial companies recruited African-American workers in South
Massive population shift to northern cities (Chicago, D.C., Philadelphia, Detroit, etc.)
Able to vote
Mexican workers headed north to replace agricultural workers and supplement factory labor forces
Mobilizing the Workforce

8. Shaping Public Opinion
Committee on Public Information:
Needed to “sell” the war to the American people
Pamphlets, speeches, movie theaters
Actors, journalists, authors, business leaders, etc.
Shaping Public Opinion

9. Shaping Public Opinion
Civil Liberties Curtailed:
Espionage Act (1917):
Illegal to aid the enemy, give false reports, interfere with war effort
Prohibits military interference or recruitment interference
Prevents support of US enemies during wartime
Sedition Act (1918):
Extended Espionage Act
Illegal to speak against the war publicly/express negative opinions
Reality: officials arrested anyone who criticized the government
Shaping Public Opinion

10. Court Challenges Schenk v. United States Abrams v. United States
Distributed pamphlets encouraging protests of the draft to young men
Working against the war effort
Illegal to interfere with draft (Espionage Act)
Abrams v. United States
Distributed pamphlets criticizing war and the fact that the US wants to fight communist forces in Russia (Espionage Act)
Ruled: upheld conviction; not protected under 1st amendment right of Freedom of Speech
Government can limit free speech in times of war
Court Challenges

11. Building the Military Selective Service Act: Volunteers for War:
Required all men between 21 and 30 to register for the draft
Random lottery determined the order in which they’d be called before the draft board
Volunteers for War:
2 million volunteered
WWI was time to “fight for country”
Building the Military

12. Building the Military African Americans in the War: 400,000 drafted
42,000 served overseas in combat
Racially segregated units, white commanders
Building the Military

13. Women Join the Military
Women were officially part of the military for first time
Always noncombat positions
Clerical Workers
Radio operators, electricians, pharmacists, chemists, photographers
Army Nursing Corps
20,000+
Women Join the Military