256 WWI Homefront

Hello and welcome everybody, this is Dr. Tully for History 256. And today we're going to be talking about the domestic side of World War I. Primarily in terms of progressive reform. When you have the boosters for World War I, you know, when you have the United States get into World War I, there's a lot of justification of getting in saying, "Hey, we're going to do something bigger, we're going to use this war as a catalyst to make the entire society better, to make the country better, to make it domestically better." And it very much gets linked early on to a lot of progressive reformers. Now, is it long term progressive reform? Well, we'll get into that. It was mainly people using it as justification, but still it's very much within the progressive moment, which we've been talking about quite a while this class. Now just reminding you, if you go over one side, you'll see the four major goals of progressive reformers. If you remember them, we talked about it a couple classes ago. Aid victims of the new society to promote democracy, bring order to efficiency of the government and business, and finally to impose morality. Now, what do they do to aid victims of the new society? Not too much in World War I. I'm not going to lie. There's not that much for World War I. Now however, for promoting democracy, yes, something very big comes out right after World War I. That is giving women the right to vote. Then we're given the right to vote. The amendment passes in 1919, fully ratified by the states of 1920. But even during World War I, you have more of a push, more states pushing for this idea that we are going to give women the right to vote. This has been going on for a while, particularly in Western states like Wyoming. But this starts coming over to the West, starting to the East in one of this time period. Now, there's two main arguments that people say to give women the right to vote in this time period, and there are two very effective arguments that they use. Number one is that women are equal to men. They said that women are equal to men, and since men and women are equal, they should have the same right to vote. For those, another one who said that maybe men and women are different, basically it was thought that women might have a different/special viewpoint or ability when it comes to morality, when it comes to morality or things like the home and family. And basically, it can cover the blind spots that men might have in their politics. Particularly when it comes to morality. It was believed that women were more moral than men, and basically they could be a balance of the country doesn't go completely off-kilter. As you can see right now in this picture, you will see some of the suffragettes. You know, President Wilson says it's time to support women's suffrage. Absolutely, this is done in this time period. Very large movement. You have all the different suffragettes. You cover one more slide. You'll see them marching in New York. As you can see, it's definitely during the war because you can see Liberty bonds being advertised. And so this idea being, "Hey, we're going to give women the right to vote." It's done in this time period, and it's something that is fairly accepted and is a definite boon to the country. Now to bring order to efficiency, the government in business, yes, they do that quite a bit. They do bring order to efficiency. This one actually expands dramatically. A lot more railroad tracks are moved. A lot more railroad tracks are put over throughout the country. Or how vital the railroad was. There were still some parts of the country. Some rural areas that didn't have railroads yet. Because of the war effort, because of the need to get supplies from farms and places to the manufacturing centers, a lot more railroad track is laid. A considerable more railroad track is laid in this time period. You also have the government trying to ban different industries together to do it more efficiently. Particularly, some government groups that are going to be grouping together fuel and food. The idea being, is basically, like, "Hey, we're going to get all of our food together, get all the fuel together. It's going to be best for the troops and best for our soldiers to get this done." To get this done, give this time this time period. Another one in this, in the same vein, is the war industry's board. The war industry's board basically takes over certain parts of the industrialization of the war. It literally takes over companies that were associated with the defense industry. Generally, the things you make in war are not things you make year round. You don't make all the time. For instance, you're not going to need to make that many tanks or guns or uniforms if you're not in time of war. And you may not need other businesses in that time period. But you have a lot of businesses that are normally making one thing, switching over to a different product. For instance, let's say your company normally makes cars. Not many people need cars. You're going to start making tanks. You don't make tanks year round. You just need to make them when you need them. Also, make sure certain companies are doing what they're asked. It's not that just a company decides, "Oh, they're out of here. Here's what we're going to make. Much of what we're going to make. The government's going to tell you, "Hey, we need you to make tanks. We need you to make 300 tanks. Here's the contract." They get these big government contracts. We'll talk about this more when we get into World War II. Government contracts are very good contracts because the government generally pays what they say. The government's going to print the money. They can usually, they're usually good for whatever they say. There's also some rationing that comes into play. If you go over one slide, you will see some of these World War I style propaganda pieces. Don't waste paper. Paper is essential. A pound of paper waste is a pound of fuel waste. It's as ideas like you know, throw it away. They also have various rules for jobs and things. If you're a company that gets this type of contract for a government contract, you're specifically your workers a certain wage. But also the workers were not allowed to strike. Also, they were very much highly encouraged not to switch jobs. If you go over one slide, this is actually one from World War II. It's one from World War II. However, I do like the sentiment of it. It's a Walt Disney one that don't be a job hopper stick to your job. This idea being that if you're a worker, don't try to go where there's better contracts or more money. Stay where you are. It's more important for the war effort. If you don't have a job, you can see right there for the American Red Cross. Our boys need socks. Knit your bit. The idea being that if you're a woman or somebody doesn't have a job. Knit makes socks. You can use it for the war effort. It'll also help you save money. This is something that's done pretty well. The main thing I want you to know about this is that output goes way up after this. When we get into the roaring tronies on the Great Depression, you need to know that a lot of it is based upon the fact that they're just building a lot more stuff. Because this is a more streamlined process, because these factors are getting big fat garment contracts and they could use to improve their infrastructure, use to improve their factories, their ability to make stuff goes up. By the time we get into the 20s productivity in the United States, almost doubles, which has its own problems as we're going to talk about next class. Now the thing that goes up the most is the idea of imposing morality. Imposing morality goes up the most during war one. This idea being that the way that people act in public is something that they're going to push very much and they use the wars and excuse to do that. A phrase you definitely want to know is, "Men must live straight to shoot straight." Video that soldiers need to be good, clean, decent people, live good lives in order to shoot straight. Be a good soldier, you have to do things. Now what does this mean? In particular, one thing that they don't care for is red light districts and prostitution. How do I say this politely? As long as we've had soldiers, not just in America, but in human history. There have been ladies who hang around the camps of the soldiers and provide services, shall we say. And basically the fear is that in this time period, these soldiers who might be going to prostitutes near a military base that catch a venereal disease, a VD. That's the name they use back then for STD, as a VD, venereal disease. They might be too hungover. They might be like, you know, I don't really have too many drugs in this time here, but this type of thing. And so basically the military starts closing down a lot of these red light districts. Really kills most of the red light districts is the military. Probably the most famous of these red light districts. Oh, wait, wait, sorry, before that we have some fun propaganda. For instance, look at this one. You keep fit and defeated the Hun. The Hun is another word that they used for the Austrian Hungarians and also the Germans as well. This idea being that they are this subhuman person. We'll talk about it later. Now set a high standard for a clean America, stamp out the venereal disease and they guys got a bald eagle in their shoulder. And that was real. That bald eagle would tear up their shoulder. Bald eagle claws are no joke. Let me tell you. But this idea being that, you know, to be a good soldier, don't mess around with STDs, don't mess around with prostitutes, live clean, you're going to be a better person. Now as I've mentioned before, the most famous red light district in all of America was Storyville. If you can see that right there, that is New Orleans's zone. I think it's like a 40 block area. It's like eight streets, my five streets. It's just one area in New Orleans where all the prostitutes are, all the red light districts, all the houses of ill repute. It is literally bulldoze down by the Navy. The Navy literally, because there's a big port in New Orleans, they're afraid of soldiers and other sailors. It's a big port of departure as well. So they don't want soldiers before they go over to Europe messing around with these loose women down in Storyville and catching all sorts of venereal diseases. So that, you know, right before they go to war, they can't fight. I actually have some pictures of Storyville in this time period. If you have one slide, you'll see the bars. A lot of times people are going to start with Storyville not even for the women, but just to have a drink. They are climbed to have some of the best bars when Storyville. This is where jazz music gets it's start. In fact, that's one of the reasons why jazz music is viewed as so dirty during the 1920s. It's that it's got its start as the music played in various brothels around New Orleans. So then when people left New Orleans they play that same type of music. For instance, Lewis Armstrong, he was born in Storyville and his mother worked in this sort of thing sometimes. Now if you notice in that picture of all the dudes in the bar, there's a cop there. Yes, it was a very open secret that this is a red light district. Even though it's theoretically illegal, the cops in New Orleans were. They were definitely known for going to get something to drink, maybe listening to some music, and possibly hanging out with the ladies. So on this slide you will see. there's one of these old-timey jazz bands playing in Storyville brothel. They go over one slide. They're the ladies of Storyville. As you can tell they're very covered up, shall we say. That's the thing in this time period. They didn't necessarily. I mean they dress provocatively for the 19 teens, but it's not what we would consider overtly uncovered, shall we say. If you go over one more, there's another one of the ladies. There's kind of a more casual moment. I don't know why I like this picture. I think I like the dog. The dog's just a fun picture. That's a very happy looking dog. Storyville, however, is completely closed. Storyville is completely closed. They literally bulldoze. The Navy literally comes in and bulldozes all of Storyville. Under the guise protecting the soldiers from prostitution and STDs, or venerio, which is what they say at the time period. One that gets even bigger than that is prohibition. Prohibition really comes into play even before they pass the amendment for prohibition. Even before they make it illegal throughout the entire country, it really gets its push. The reason it becomes an amendment is mainly because of the war effort. This idea of that men, soldiers who drink too much, they might be hung over. If you're hung over, you can't be a good soldier. It bans the manufacturer, sale, and transport of alcohol throughout the country. You cannot manufacture it. You cannot sell it. You cannot transport it. There are some, you know, you know, you didn't say consumption is not illegal. They do allow some alcohol for medical purposes and also for religious rights. So for instance, in your Catholic, you can have your communion wine. That's about it. That's about it. And like I said, they really lean upon this idea for soldiers based on the war effort to really push prohibition and the amendment through. For instance, if you see that first picture there, will you back me or back booze? Vote yes on prohibition. The idea being that, you know, if you love America, if you love our troops, you're going to hate alcohol. Well, who are you supporting? Give her one more picture. You're supporting the Huns. You're supporting all this because remember a lot of the beer companies are of German families in the United States. You know, Budweiser is a very German name and heiser Bush, very German names. That's a Budweiser as well. Well, coolers, pretty much all the beer manufacturers in the United States come from German families. And you can see these, you know, these hung, these hung booze kegs. They're against progress. They rob women and children. We waste grain. We cause crime and poverty. We make people poor. You know, these are some of the old arguments against alcohol, but now they're linking it to the enemy. Now they're linking it to the World War. And basically this idea that by supporting alcohol, you support your enemies. One more. I have all these, there's a lot of propaganda in this one today, which I just think is fun. Wet or dry, you know, if you support alcohol, you're called a wet. You support the fat cat brewer. Look at him. He's wearing a spats. He's got his belly hanging out. Vote wet for my sake. But if you hate alcohol, if you're dry, you love whipping and children. Look at this poor children and that poor wife. You know, shout out the mothers and children to be sacrificed to the financial greed of liquor traffic. It's up to you, voter to decide. Vote dry. This idea that, you know, alcohol is something that, oh, it affects the entire country and affects everybody. Now you also have propaganda in this time period. And when I say propaganda, don't automatically think it's bad. Propaganda is just advertisements designed change the way you think. Designed to change the way you think. That's very much part of this whole bill. You, and you know, there is one thing that the United States government, particularly the committee on public information, the CPI, was basically the convinced the country that going to the war war. And then going to the war was a good thing. Remember, the, you know, Woodrow Wilson was elected under the promise he kept us out of the war. Most of the country is very isolationist. And so George Creole, the man in charge of the committee of public information, is pretty much charged with convincing Americans minds through advertisements. You can call propaganda if you want. I don't mind. This sort of thing. This sort of thing, basically, to convince Americans that the war is a good thing. It's a patriotic duty to support it. Now he does it through some advertisements. He does it through some advertisements, some fairly, for instance, if you go over one slide, you will see Uncle Sam. Very famous ad. I want you for the US Army. It's a war war one ad. This is the first time that America has been portrayed as a male. The idea that countries have personifications as a human being. That's something that's then for a while. Up into this point, however, the United States had pretty much been shown as a female, but they're in a Columbia. But now they're saying that America is a man. His name is Uncle Sam. He wants you to join the US Army. It's like the country is asking you to come to it. If you want to see a picture of Columbia, go over one slide. This is very much a. When I say they dehumanize the enemy, this is definitely one of it. This is an depiction of Columbia. That's the lady. Remember I said that up until Uncle Sam, most of the time, the United States, if it's portrayed as a human, was portrayed as a woman by the name of Columbia. There she is right there. She can tell she is exposed. This monkey person, the hunn, this mad brute, he's writing the German style spike tellment. Destroy this mad brute enlist. He's got a club that says culture. The German word for culture on it, which means culture in English because English and German share a lot of hands-street. He's got Kaiser Wilhelm's mustache. The idea of being that, look, a lady, sorry, Columbia has been molested, if not raped, by this monkey person. You have the same sort of thing with the Spanish American war by depicting the Spanish. The people who are fighting against are less than human. These hunns are less than human. They're a mad brute, this type of king-cong style. I'm pretty sure this predates king-cong. This monkey person is holding on to the lady liberty, holding on to Columbia, and you need to enlist. If you can enlist, another way you can help it is with war bonds. Basically, the country can raise money through taxes, but if they want to get more money in addition to taxes, you can buy bonds. Remember, wars cost money. One way that countries raise money during war is to sell bonds to the population, basically they can give more money than their taxes. Basically, it's a way to earn money. Are you 100% American? Prove it by US government bonds, third-liberty loan. Also, this idea of being 100% American really gets pushed in this time period. This idea of being 100% American, you're no longer immigrant, you're not a German American, or an Italian American, or an Irish American, you're 100% American, you love America. You're not really showing affinity towards your old country. Remember, most immigrant population, which is a very sizable population of the United States, is of German ancestry. This idea of being 100% American, and how do you do it by war bonds? I'll give everyone a slide, another famous ad, "G.I.S.R.A. Man, I join the Navy, be a man and do it in the United States Navy recruiting station." This idea of being that, "Hey, it's appealing to men, but also a little bit of sex appeal that we're going to respect a man in uniform." Another one of Columbia, another one of Columbia, and I'm going to say them together. It's actually, it's up to you to protect the nation's honor and listen now. This is from the Associated Motion Picture Advertisers, so basically the movie business is getting involved as well. Once again, you see Columbia, she's in a state of undress, Uncle Sam is pointing at you like, "Hey, Columbia's honor has been besmirched, you should fight for America." Now remember, America gets involved in this for a lot of different reasons. It wasn't like the Germans ever directly attacked America. Yes, the U.B.O.D.s thing happened, but that's a bit more complicated as we talked about last class. The United States is not the only country that does propaganda. If you go one slide, you will see Sun from Great Britain. The Empire needs men, the overseas states, and so the call. Help out the young lions, the old lion defies his foes. The idea of being that Britain is the old lion. If in all the foreign colonies of Britain, the places that they imperialize, your India, your Egypt, your all the places, England conquered a lot of places. They're going to come together, help out the old lion. As you can see, it kind of looks like Pride Rock from the Lion King, which is kind of fun because it predates it. Don't go over to the next slide yet because I got to set this one up. This is probably the most over the top propaganda I've ever seen. It comes from Germany. It is so over the top, it goes wow. It goes to a place where most propaganda wouldn't go, but you got to hand it to the Germans and World War I. They went there. Who's somebody you might say would be a good person to endorse your war. Well, if you go over, you'll see Jesus Christ coming down the cross to go like, "How's it going, Germany? We support you." There's Jesus, a giant Jesus that looks like. Well, maybe he's just a deaf thing because of the hill. Anyway, he's hopped down off the cross to give, you know, kind of wave at the Germans, say he supports him. And I don't know if you know German, but I can read a little German here. Go soldier and do the great duty. Christ, the great shepherd watches over his flock. That's not the important part. The most important part is the final two lines. You might recognize this one. "O Lord, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, and earth as it is in heaven." If that sounds familiar, it should. They're using part of the Lord's prayer or their our Father as part of their propaganda. That is ridiculous. Now George Creel, if you go over one slide, didn't just do propaganda, didn't just do like, you know, picture propaganda, didn't just do ads. He also tried to get young people. He actually hired an army, quote unquote, "a public speaker," called the four-minute men. And the four-minute men, their whole stick was they were trained to give a four-minute speech justifying why the U.S. needs to be in the war and why you as a good American should buy war bonds. And they went everywhere with civic associations, churches, a lot of college classrooms. So for instance, if we were in person, like all of a sudden you'd hear a knock on the door, Dr. Telly, my name is Kevin McDaniel from the Committee of Public Information. May I give a four-minute speech to your class? It'll be like, "Yes, I am," because I don't want to be accused of being a bad American. We'll click on that in a second. And then basically gives a speech talking about why the war is good and why you need to buy war bonds. Tons of people get involved with this. Creole does this army of war bonds. If you have one side, you're going to see another one of these. This idea that war bonds are going to be what finishes a job gets us through World War One. Now there is also some big, there are attempts to regulate speech to get rid of dissent. For instance, espionage act is passed, which is basically you can't provide secrets to the enemy. But it also said you'd be put in jail for making statements against the war effort. So if it's like, "Hey, I'm not for the war, but I'm not for the Germans, I'm just going to keep quiet or maybe the US shouldn't be involved in the war," you can be arrested for that. Not just that, they literally pass the Sedition Act, which limits speech even further, makes it illegal to criticize the United States or the US military during this time of war. Remember, that is theoretically against the First Amendment. And there are some cases later on after the war is over that clearly shut this down because it's very much against the First Amendment. You can criticize the United States or the US military. But the idea that to do so in this time period was illegal. Like I said, there's an insistence on 100% Americanism, a general hysteria about that. They start renaming things. They start renaming things that are viewed as too un-American. So for instance, you ever heard of a Liberty Hound? Well, that's what they call "Dotsons for a Wild." That's what they call "Dotsons for a Wild." The term "Dotson" if you didn't know is German. It literally means "Badger Dog." They were bred to get badgers. That's why they have little short legs in long bodies so they can run through tunnels. My wife and I actually have a "Dotson." It was more of my wife's dog because my dog hates me. Because my wife had a dog before we ever got together. And so there we go, the dog hates me. Another German thing, you ever had some Liberty Cabbage? That's Sauerkraut. Sauerkraut is viewed as a two-dramon of a name. You know it goes really good with Liberty Cabbage? How about a big old juicy Liberty steak and some victory sausage? That's what they call hamburgers and hot dogs. Hamburgers, you know, that's from the town of hamburger Germany. Frankfurt, there's another name for the "Frankfurter," the sausage, the hot dog. This is something that happens in this time period. It pretty much ends after the war, but still for a while this is the idea that we need to be seen as a 100% American in this time period. Now after the war, I do want to get into this for a little bit before we get into the 1920s. There are some reactions after the war. In particular, there is some economic unrest. Even though the rest of the 1920s is an economic high, it does begin with a depression basically based upon all the troops that are coming back to town, coming back to the country. Also, there are limited jobs for these troops because the war was a really big boom time, but now companies aren't making all this stuff. They don't have these government contracts or not making all these things. And also production has increased so much. With production doubling, there just aren't as many customers for all this stuff. So there is a depression that happens immediately. The rest of the 1920s is a high before it gets really bad in this time period. There's also a lot of racial unrest. A lot of racial unrest that comes in this time period. There's a new outbreak of lynchings. There's a rise of a new Ku Klux Klan. We'll talk about that in just a second, shall we? No, we're talking about that right now. Okay, so in 1915, a movie came out called The Birth of a Nation, which basically glorified the clan. I remember after Reconstruction, the clan was gone, like gone gone, like completely gone. However, after this movie called Birth of a Nation comes out, it makes the clan look really good, even though it's a history movie. And then on November 25, 1915, I basically Walter J. Simmons, who was a. He was fairly young when the war was going on. I want to say he was like very young. I don't think he was ever involved in the original clan, like not at all. Basically, he was some others go to Stone Mountain, Georgia, and they lied across. The original clan never lit crosses. It was more of a thing from Birth of a Nation. Still, it signifies that a new clan was in play. And this new clan, it's around during the war, definitely is. It's biggest in the 1920s. It's much bigger than the 1920s. This new clan comes in. It doesn't just hate black people. It's very anti-immigrant, anti-catholic, anti-Jew. It calls itself the protectors of womanhood. It's this. Basically, we are against giving women the right to vote. We support traditional womanhood. This type of thing. Much. It hates way more people. It claims it's a more pro-white organization. It's also anti-immigrant, and it's really big on being quote-unquote pro-American. But a certain type of American, a very white American. Now, the original clan is just in the Democratic Party of the South. This clan is everywhere. The state it has the most influence in is Indiana, which is not a Southern state. The second biggest state it has influence in is New Jersey. It's also fairly big in Texas, but that's a Southern state. And it crosses party lines. You have Republicans and Democrats in the clan of this time period. And it's. They try to market themselves as a more respectable organization. In fact, they literally hire a PR firm to try to revamp the clan's image. So one of the things they do to help revamp the clan's image, go over one slide. You will see at the Texas State Fair, Ku Klux Klan Day on October 24th. You can see Kflang Fireworks, watch the Commettabitent Drills by the Ku Klux Klan, the Women of the Clan, Drill Teams, Reception Decoration, the Richell Klan's Manor of the 60s, the largest class in history of Klan Dome, and the last line, "Unior Friends are invited to a Tidness Day, the most wonderful day of your lives." I never thought that Ku Klux Klan Day would be the most wonderful day of anybody's lives. That sounds terrifying, frankly. It gets very big. Like, throughout the 20s, the clan is a very, very, very, very large organization. It's viewed as a socially acceptable organization in this time period. It's like, "Oh, no, I'm not, you know, I'm not racist. I just love America." Join the Ku Klux Klan. We don't have any presidents in this time. I mean, we have some who have clan sympathies in this time. For instance, Werenji Harding, who's going to be president in the 1920s. He's never a member of the clan. He has strong clan sympathies. However, Harry Truman, who does like to become president, he, okay, he goes to a clan meeting and stays for a little while. He never actually pays dues or anything. He quits whenever he finds out that they're anti-Jewish because his biggest political benefactor is Jewish. So he's like, "Ah, I'm not cool with that." But he was encouraged to join because it was viewed to help his political prospects because the clan is very large in the 19 teens, and particularly in the 1920s. If you go over one side, you'll see this very large clan rally that they have. You can see that they're marching unmask. The city of that, you know, you're going to be a cloud proud clansman, march unmask. If you can't tell what set it is, go over one more side, you will see, "Oh, yes, they are definitely in Washington, DC." The largest clan march ever happens in Washington, DC during the 1920s. Now, ultimately, it does fade after a while in the 1920s. Mainly when some of the older members are like, "Hey, we need to get more violent. We need to start, you know, lynching folks." And some people are like, "Oh, we thought we were just a nice clean organization." Once the older members want to get more violence, some people do leave. Also, there are a lot of incidents with misappropriation of funds. For instance, in Indiana where like the lieutenant governor of the clan was like a very high member. He wasn't the grand-size-clops, so he was like, "Very high member of the clan." It turns out that like the leader of the clan, the grand-size-clops in Indiana was caught with a 14-year-old girl, and that doesn't really mesh too well. The whole word, the defenders of womanhood, stick. So you definitely need to keep that going on. Also, something which is much more relevant nowadays, and I don't have a slide about, but I really should. There is a massive flu outbreak that happens right after the war. Like, right after of the war. It's called the Spanish flu, which is. not a real name because it wasn't really from Spain. The Spanish called it like the French flu. Anyway, just the Spanish influence, it's a very problematic name. Okay, but it was it was a bird flu. It was an avian flu that came about. What was unusual about this flu was that it really affected young healthy people. Like people in their 20s and 30s, former soldiers, a lot where people died of this flu than died in the war. And it's something you've probably heard a lot about considering the whole pandemic thing we're in right now. The fact that you know, 100 years ago we had pretty much the same thing happening with a bird flu, not not a not a coronavirus. Also, the coronavirus tends to be have higher mortality rates and people who were older. This particular flu was really bad for people in their 20s and 30s. I wish you got to talk more about it, but we just don't have the time, but this is something that's very important. If you want to understand the 1920s, it's the double whammy of, you know, millions people dying in the war and then millions more dying in this flu, put in people who were never in the war. Now you also do have some race riots. One particular race ride that happens is in Chicago in 1919. Chicago is one of the cities that is really impacted by the great migration. Hold on, I guess better explain the great migration. So I'm going to do this point. Most African-Americans live in the south, being things like sharecroppers. Now because of all those big fat government contracts coming into World War One companies from the government, a lot of companies are looking for employees. And so basically, some of the traditional employees, your white man, which were the ages of 18 and 25 or 30 or whatever, are being drafters sent to the military. So now they need more people to serve as workers. So they go to the south, they go to the south, they go to these sharecroppers and say things like, "Hey, why did you come to a place like Chicago? Come to a place like Detroit. There is no Jim Crow, which is dubious. There are no laws against segregation. There's definitely segregation by practice." They say, "Still, it's a chance for you to, you know, you can own something, you're going to pay better wages. You get a little bit more freedom. So why don't you come to the north?" And so this is where you have African-Americans going from being a primarily southern rural phenomenon to a more urban phenomenon, not just in the south. Places like Chicago, Detroit, New York, have their African-American populations explode because of these jobs. Now after the war is over, and some soldiers come back there, it is racial unrest that happens in a lot of these areas. And it's mainly exasperated by economic competition for jobs. African-Americans are sought as workers because they tended not to be union, and also they tended to be cheaper. This drove down the price of labor, which is always a thing of the United States is upset about lowering the price of labor, but also lowering the price of goods. Now there's many race rights that happen around here. Probably the one I want you to know about is not probably. The one I want you to know about is the one in Chicago in 1919. This starts in Chicago. Chicago, if you don't know, has a massive beach because it's one like Michigan. And this beach was segregated, but not like officially segregated. That little political cartoon is a bit of a misnomer. It wasn't like if I had literal lines in the beach. It was just like by practice. Remember African-Americans hadn't been in Chicago to large number for that long. So basically you have a black swimmer who is swimming, you know, off of the Lake Michigan, and he swims over and he swims into a white area. Remember there are no lines or anything, he swims through in a white area. This gets some of the white people mad. They start throwing rocks, one of them throws a brick, hits them the head, the kid drowns. This in turn causes a riot that goes throughout the entire city of Chicago. Like I said, it's exasperated mainly by economic competition. White people are being resentful that black people are coming in and taking jobs for working lower wages. Eventually the National Guard is sent in. As you can see right there, there's National Guard members. A lot of times their former World War One soldiers, their World War One American soldiers, who make it back from Europe. And the first thing they have to do is they have to keep the peace in Chicago this sort of thing. Many different race rights going on in this time period. Also not helping labor issues is strikes. During the war strikes from AD legal because the war was going on, you can ask for higher wages. Now that the war is over, pretty much everybody wants to start striking. A lot of different workers decide to strike in this time period. And so they start striking because now they can. Now this in turn really results in hysteria. A lot of different hysteria that's going on this time period, particularly about communists. This is where we have our first what's called the red scare. Communism has been a boogie man in the United States for quite a while. I mean, as you read in that thing with Samuel Gompers, even before the Soviet Union comes into existence, even before Russia is taken over by the communist. Communists and anarchists are seen as boogie man. They're seen as something to be afraid of. Now the sphere of communism resulted in a lot of increased oppression against quote unquote "unAmerican groups." It's a huge campaign. Only supposed communists, there are very few like uppercase C members of the communists are trying to subvert all this. Eventually the term red or communist comes to encompass anybody with a view against the government. That's something you still see sometimes in America, or basically if you're your opposition if they don't like what you like, that is viewed as communist. Now why is there fear? Well, four main reasons. Number one, the Russian Revolution. The Russian Revolution indeed, whatever the Bolsheviks take over, they did indeed amounts that they were going to encourage worldwide revolution. Worldwide revolution, global revolution, and purging revolution is all over the globe. So that is a fear. That's one fear. Number two, propaganda. There's a lot of propaganda that was put out against communist kind of pushing the country on age, on edge. In addition, the third reason there's a lot of strikes. There's a lot of massive strikes that go on, we talked about why. A lot of the leaders of these strikes were deemed to be communists. That's still something you see nowadays. This is the idea that unions are somehow tied to being communist or socialist. And the fourth reason, which is the smallest reason, but it is the reason nonetheless, there were some legitimate actions by anarchist and communists. Not too many, some, but still the fear of it manifested a much larger. If you go for one slide, you're going to see some of these propaganda, some of this propaganda against communist. For instance, the first one, you see how these strikes, so there's this link between communist and labor, it's the whole strip of the slope, like it starts with strikes and walkouts that are concerned with this order and riots. Then it goes to Bolsheviks, them in murders, finally chaos, and then oh my gosh, who knows what's going to happen after that. The next one, this is one of my favorite pieces of propaganda a long time. When I was in college, this was in my dorm room. I just think this picture is so funny in the guy's face. Is your washroom breeding Bolsheviks? This idea that employees lose respect for a company that fails to provide decent facilities for their comfort. This is from the Scott Paper Towel Company, people who make paper towels. Their logic is, hey, if you use, if you have cheap paper towels in the bathroom, employees are going to think that you don't care for their common good. If they don't think they care for you, maybe they'll organize, maybe they'll turn into a different labor organization. Then ultimately, they're going to go to Bolshevism and the country's gone communist because you cheaped out on your paper towels. If you Scott Paper Towels, your workers are going to know that they believe in you and you love them and you're spending money on them. That's just another funny one. Another political cartoon, basically, that Bolshevism is drowning civilization. This ultimately does manifest, though, in a lot of immigration restrictions. A lot of immigration restrictions. You have the Immigration Act of 1920. That puts quotas from certain countries about the number of people who can come in. The number of people who come in, they said that basically it's becoming less and less American. However, they still found a way to be racist about it because they found that 1920 census had too many of these bad people. So you need to go to the 1890 census, what America was the court-inquire right proportion. So basically, let's say if you have 12% of the population comes from Germany, that means 12% of the immigrants can come from Germany. The idea we're going to increase the size of America, but not the demographics. So you can see right there that political cartoon, the idea of that, it's a person who's a loaded bomb. Also, a Chinese person has a little head-tail thing. Even though China is not a communist country this time here, and actually China is about to come our friend because we're trying to catch that expect to come into power in World War II, but that's something for else. But the idea that with these immigration restrictions we're closing the gate, you also have things like the Palmer raids. The Palmer raids, basically done by the government to raid various labor groups, basically done, done in to see if they are communist or not. And I know it's a little bit turbulent, but that's kind of how the war ends for the home front. The war ends on the front, being a little bit turbulent. Like I said, we had a lot of different propaganda in this time period. Most Americans want to return to normality and security, and that's what you're going to get once we get into the 1920s, which we'll be talking about next week. So for that, this is Dr. Telly for History 256, Tonya Hay. That's World War I.