The Home FrontChapter 16, Section 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

Food Administration:• Victory Gardens: increase production while decreasing

consumption

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

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

• 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

• 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

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

• 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

Court Challenges

• Schenk 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

Building the Military

• Selective Service Act:• 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

• African Americans in the War:• 400,000 drafted• 42,000 served overseas in combat• Racially segregated units, white commanders

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+