The document summarizes the key events around US involvement in World War I, including initial neutrality, the shift to joining the Allies in 1917, and the consequences of American participation in helping end the war. At home, the US mobilized its economy and society through conscription, taxes, propaganda, and coercive policies towards dissenters. The outcome established the US as a world power but also inflamed social tensions and set the stage for continued conflicts.

1. The US and
World War I

2. Key Questions for this Unit
• Why did the U.S. get involved with WWI?
• Why did it take so long? Why were
Americans opposed to the war?
• How did being at war affect Americans at
home?
• What did the government do?
• What did people do?

3. Review:
How did Progressive
Presidents envision the US role
in the world?

4. • Roosevelt: U.S. as “police
power” in Western
Hemisphere
• Taft:“Dollar Diplomacy” -
U.S. investment in the
hemisphere
• Wilson: moral
imperialism - in theory,
not an interventionist; but
wants to teach others the
blessings of democracy
Progressive Imperialism

5. Empires: 1900
http://users.humboldt.edu/ogayle/hist111/WWI.html
Global rivalries led to WWI, as European powers colonized the world. The
countries in gray are the only ones not involved in imperial ventures. Who
has the biggest empire? Can you tell from the key?

6. Russia
Austria-Hungary
Bulgaria
Greece
Serbia
Albania
Montenegro
Persia
Ottoman Empire
Norway
Finland
Sweden
Ireland
ItalySpain
France
Portugal
Belgium
Romania
Netherlands
Switzerland
Denmark
Germany
Lybia
Egypt
Arabia
United
Kingdom
Russia
Austria-Hungary
Bulgaria
Greece
Serbia
Albania
Montenegro
Persia
Ottoman Empire
Atlantic Ocean
Mediterranean Sea
Black Sea
North Sea
Caspian
Sea
Baltic
Sea
Norway
Finland
(Russia)
Sweden
Ireland
ItalySpain
France
Portugal
Belgium
Romania
Netherlands
Switzerland
Denmark
Germany
Arabia
United
Kingdom
Morocco
(France)
Algeria
(France)
TunisiaTunisia
(France)
Spanish Morocco (Spain)Spanish Morocco (Spain)
Libya
(Italy)
Cyprus
(Great Britain)
Egypt (Great Britian)
Iceland
(Denmark)
Malta
(Great Britain)
l
Luxembourg
l
Europe Before World War One (1914)
Note: Boundaries were constantly changing and are approximate for this year.
0 300 600 miles
Arizona Geographic Alliance http://geoalliance.asu.edu/azga
School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning
Arizona State University
Cartographer Becky L. Eden EU_BeforeWW1.PDF10
Courtesy:
Source: http://alliance.la.asu.edu/maps/EU_BeforeWW1.pdf
WWI changed the map of Europe and the Middle East. This is what the map
looked like before the war. How is it different from the map today?

7. • 1896: Ethiopia defeats
Italy
• 1905: Japan defeats
Russia
• Nationalist
movements in China,
Russia, and Mexico
• All are threats to U.S.
business and
investments
• Some conflicts
increase immigration
to U.S.
Global Instability
and the U.S.

8. World War I
• War breaks out in 1914:
assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, heir to throne of
Austro-Hungarian empire
• Allies: Britain, France, Russia, and
Japan; vs. Central Powers:
Germany,Austria-Hungary, and
Ottoman Empire
• Huge casualties: 21 million +

9. American Neutrality
• Profits: exports and loans
• Terrifying industrial
violence
• Immigrant America was
not united in who they
should support in the war

10. Trench warfare was a characteristic of WWI.
Check out all the men crammed down in these trenches!

11. Industrial warfare made WWI especially terrifying

12. Limits to Neutrality
• Cultural and linguistic ties to England, esp.
among elites
• Economic interests - loaned 85 times as
much money to Allied as Central Powers
• Corporations benefited from trade with
Britain and France, workers got decent
wages because of wartime demand
• Eastern war preparedness: Teddy Roosevelt

13. Lead-up to American
Involvement
• German submarine
warfare and sinking of
Lusitania (1915) - 1,198
passengers die
• “Preparedness” - expand
army and navy
• Wilson runs on keeping
U.S. out of war in 1916
• 1917: Zimmerman
Telegram

14. U.S. in WWI
• Russia drops out of war bc of
revolution in late 1917
• But US shifts balance when it joins
in April 1917; numbers in 1918
• US involvement a surprise:
isolationism
• The war ends quickly after the US
gets involved: US participation is
decisive

15. Consequences of WWI

18. The Fourteen
Points
• Wilson: war is fought for
moral cause
• self-determination
• freedom of seas
• free trade
• open diplomacy (no secret
treaties)
• readjustment of colonial
claims
• “general association of
nations”

19. Wilson and Peace
• Idea of self-
determination makes
Wilson a hero,
worldwide
• But he’s racist and
unconsciously imperialist
• And Britain and France
have no plans to give up
empires

20. Seeds of War
• Versailles Treaty - secret;
redraws Europe’s map;
harsh toward Germany
• Resentment in colonial
world at continued status
quo; Example:Vietnam
• German resentment sets up
for WWII
This young man would grow up to fight
against the US inVietnam. After WWI, he
wants Wilson’s help, but doesn’t get it.

21. Treaty Debate
• League of Nations was
Wilson’s favorite thing
from Treaty ofVersailles
• Made Senate nervous
• He refused to negotiate
• Senate rejected treaty

22. WWI at Home
• Progressives
support the war
• Excited about
opportunities to
reform American
society; the world

23. The Wartime State
• National state with huge powers:
• Selective Service Act (1917): 24
million men to register with the draft
• War Industries Board regulates
economy
• War Labor Board: increase wages, 8-
hour day, right to form unions
• Taxes up: rich pay 60% of income in
taxes

24. The Propaganda War
• American opposition to the War:
Socialists and IWW
• Committee on Public
Information: government
propaganda machine

26. Liberty in Wartime
• Espionage Act (1917):“false
statements”
• Sedition Act (1918): crime to
say or write things that cast
“contempt, scorn, or disrepute”
on “form of government”
• EugeneV. Debs convicted 1918;
in jail until 1921 (1920: 900,000
votes for president!)

27. Coercive Patriotism
• patriotism = support for
war, government,
American economic
system
• IWW crushed by the
government: arrests and
raids in 1917
This cartoon suggests the IWW is against the US - by putting the IWW on the German Kaiser’s face

28. Society and War
• Conflict over women’s
rights:Alice Paul and
radical feminists
Arrested feminists were force
fed, which is bad PR for the
government, and good for them!

29. Society and
War
• Wilson
administration
and racism

30. Society and War
• Concerns about
American identity:
Americanization
campaigns
• Germans: 9 million
German-Americans, 1914
• 1919: laws against
teaching foreign
languages
• hamburger = liberty
sandwich

31. Society and War
• Great migrations -
African Americans
from south to north
• Mexicans to
agricultural/mining
jobs in SW, and
Mexican Americans
increasingly to cities -
boom in Los Angeles

32. World War I and the US
• World War I makes the US a first-tier world power,
even though Americans didn’t want to join the war.
• At home, the war:
• leads to expanded government activity with the
economy
• heightens animosity toward immigrants, leads to
forced Americanization
• but it opens factory jobs to previously excluded
groups, including blacks and Latinos - mass
migrations to northern and western cities