Discussion questions

4.1 The New Imperialism

The industrialization of the last quarter of the 19th century coincided with an era of expansion during which European nations and Japan extended and consolidated their empires. Known as the new imperialism, and lasting into the first decades of the 20th century, it was a time marked by the relentless pursuit of overseas territories. Established nations used new technologies to make their empires more valuable through territorial conquest and the exploitation of natural resources. Despite many Americans’ objections that imperialism was incompatible with the nation’s values, the United States also established an empire in this era by annexing Hawaii, establishing a permanent presence in Cuba, and taking control of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

World Grab for Colonies

Americans watched as one European nation after another expanded its empire. Portugal and Spain had amassed large empires as early as the 15th and 16th centuries, but by the mid-19th century Great Britain was the dominant colonial power. The possessor of the world’s largest navy, Britain also had a long history of colonization, beginning with Ireland and America in the 16th century. After losing its 13 American colonies, Britain turned toward colonizing parts of Asia, particularly India, and in the late 19th century its empire expanded across the African continent as well. In what became known as the “scramble for Africa” other European nations—including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Portugal—joined the British in carving up the continent between 1881 and 1914

The French also expanded into Southeast Asia, gaining control of nations such as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The Russians pushed out from their existing borders to extend their influence in the Middle East and Far East. Even the Japanese, who had historically shied away from relations with the outside world, began to aggressively pursue the extension of their borders. Beginning by conquering nearby islands such as Okinawa and the Kurils, by 1894 Japan waged war against China for control of Korea and Taiwan.

The imperial thrust of European and Asian nations reflected patterns and rivalries established centuries before, such as the many historical conflicts between France and Great Britain. But there was a novel and urgent dimension to the new imperialism as well, including a turn toward modernity and especially industrialization. Economic growth and industrial production created dual demands for raw materials and new markets for manufactured goods and agricultural products. Capitalists invested surplus funds in developing nations and expected their business interests to be protected there in return. Technology and capital thus contributed to bigger and more effective navies, which in turn required colonial outposts to serve as fueling stations and bases of operation.

The period’s revival of evangelical religion also drove overseas expansion by Europeans and Americans. Missionaries often preceded imperial expansion. Seeking to spread Christianity and to bring education, medical care, and other important services to the people of Asia and Africa, missionary groups established schools such as the one Liliuokalani attended as a girl in Hawaii. Missionaries believed their own cultures and ways of life were superior, and most showed little interest or respect for the institutions and cultures of indigenous people. In some cases, such as in Hawaii, they criticized existing religions and cultural practices and encouraged Christian converts to abandon indigenous means of worship, dance, and even food preparation (Chaudhuri & Strobel, 1992).

Race, Gender, and the Ideology of Expansion

The insensitivity of imperialists spread beyond a disregard for native peoples’ practices and cultures. Some viewed the darker skinned inhabitants of Asia and Africa as racially and intellectually inferior to Whites, arguing that colonizing less developed areas of the world was justified because the native inhabitants were weaker and unfit to survive. This inferiority supposedly made it acceptable to seize land and natural resources and to take political control without consultation. Ideologies like Social Darwinism (see Chapter 2), which played a role in exacerbating racial tensions in the United States during the late 19th century, were also linked to worldwide imperialist expansion.

In 1899 British author Rudyard Kipling penned “The White Man’s Burden,” a poem that reflected on European imperialism and offered an important message to Americans who were just then embarking on their own expansionist agenda:

Take up the White Man’s burden, Send forth the best ye breed

Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need;

To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild—

Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.

(Kipling, 1899, lns. 1-8)

Originally penned for another occasion, upon the U.S. annexation of the Philippines, Kipling reworked the seven-stanza poem to align with current events. The poem suggests that providing noble service to the inhabitants of the developing world justified the desire for empire. Viewed as a benevolent enterprise, imperialism also made the domination of another nation’s economic and political structure seem necessary and helpful (Love, 2004).

Notions of race and Social Darwinism fueled the opponents of expansion, or anti-imperialists, in the United States as well. Many argued that annexing foreign territories, thus adding large numbers of non-Whites to the nation, would degrade the country’s Anglo-Saxon heritage. In the late 19th century, the nation was already struggling to assimilate eastern and southern European immigrants arriving in waves to fill industrial jobs. Jim Crow laws restricted the rights of African Americans in the South, and customary segregation policies separated the races in other parts of the country. The anti-imperialists believed that, rather than the nation lifting colonized people up, these non-White masses would drag the nation down.

Other anti-imperialists, such as those who formed the American Anti-Imperialist League in 1899, decried the forcible subjugation of any nation or people as a violation of American democratic principles. Among league members were prominent Americans from politics, business, and the arts, including Grover Cleveland, Samuel Gompers, Andrew Carnegie, and Mark Twain (Manning & Wyatt, 2011). The organization formally protested American imperialistic ideology and actions, and it planned to oppose politically “all who in the White House or in Congress betray American liberty in pursuit of un-American ends” (American Anti-Imperialist League, 1899, p. 7). The league demanded that American politicians “support and defend the Declaration of Independence” (American Anti-Imperialist League, 1899, p. 7), which it believed imperialism disgraced.

The complex ideologies surrounding American expansion also included an important gender component. Imperialists drew on gender and conceptions of American masculinity to build a strong political coalition that supported expansion. The idea that imperialism followed a manly course of action to increase American strength around the globe attracted men from disparate parts of society despite their economic, political, and regional divisions (Hoganson, 1998).

Many also associated anti-imperialism with militarism and war, long the domain of men. The American Anti-Imperialist League, for example, welcomed membership, donations, and other forms of support from women but did not encourage their access to leadership positions. Strong male personalities dominated the ideology of both imperialism and its opposition. Chicago settlement house worker Jane Addams, for example, was the only woman associated with the Central Anti-Imperialist League, one of three groups that combined to create the national league. Later, though, women did lead in gender integrated and all-female peace and anti-imperial organizations. More localized bodies—such as the Northampton, New Hampshire, league—even encouraged female officers on its executive committee (Cullinane, 2012).

4.2 The American Empire

Manifest Destiny, the idea that the United States had a divine responsibility and right to spread democratic settlement, temporarily lost momentum once the American frontier filled in with American settlement. Between 1865 and roughly 1880, the United States took a largely isolationist, or uninvolved, approach toward the rest of the world. Most American citizens and policy makers focused inward as the nation industrialized and moved toward the development of modern institutions.

But in the late 19th century, as they watched their own frontier fade and European nations and Japan build ever-growing empires, many Americans again clamored for U.S. expansion, with special emphasis on the Western Hemisphere. A new form of Manifest Destiny with an undefined frontier came to shape their views.

Business and the Monroe Doctrine

Fluctuations in the American economy led many to rethink the nation’s isolationist position. Overproduction of manufactured goods and foodstuffs were blamed for the major economic downturn in 1873 and the depression of the 1890s. Exports formed a small but growing part of the economy, and U.S. businessmen wanted to expand into new overseas markets. Industrialists such as John D. Rockefeller, the head of Standard Oil, expected the government to support their expansionist agenda.

In the following decades business interests and government agents worked closely to reform U.S. foreign policy. Rockefeller later fondly remembered, “Our ambassadors and ministers and consuls have aided to push our way into new markets to the utmost corners of the world” (as cited in Chernow, 1998, p. 246). Their cooperative efforts began in the Western Hemisphere, where U.S. foreign policy was already well defined.

Since 1823, when President James Monroe first outlined it in his annual message to Congress, the Monroe Doctrine had dominated U.S. foreign policy. Simultaneously proclaiming a disinterest in European affairs and the leadership of the United States in the Americas, the doctrine warned European powers against future political interventions or colonization efforts in the Western Hemisphere (Johnson, 1990).

Advocates of the new imperialism in the United States began to demand that the nation take a more active role in its hemisphere. Their agenda included a buildup of the navy, the negotiation or annexation of bases in the Pacific and Caribbean, a canal through the Central American isthmus, and recognition of the United States as the supreme political and economic power in the Western Hemisphere (Blake, 1960).

The Buildup to Expansion

Shortly after the Civil War, in 1867 Secretary of State William H. Seward foreshadowed the importance of international trade and expansion when he negotiated the purchase of the Alaska territory from Russia for $7.2 million. At the time, Seward believed that American settlers in the Pacific Northwest faced competition from Russian explorers and traders. Purchase of the territory thus aimed to protect U.S. interests in the region. Opponents of the purchase noted Alaska’s isolation and distance from continental America and the lack of real competition from a weakened Russia, and they derided the purchase as “Seward’s Folly.” But Seward’s move reflected the imperialist principles that were just then beginning to take hold in Europe.

The Economics of Imperialism

The involvement of U.S. economic interests in the Caribbean, Pacific, and Latin America grew stronger in the last decades of the 19th century, and America came to dominate the economic activities of a number of nations. As noted at the beginning of the chapter, American businessmen gained important economic and political interests in sugar production on the Hawaiian Islands. In 1887 the United States negotiated the location of a naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, one of many needed to make American influence felt across the region. In the early 1880s discussion surrounded a potential canal across Nicaragua or some other location in Central American, a project that would greatly facilitate America’s international trade and its naval operations.

Indeed, U.S. expansion in these regions depended heavily on the creation of a stronger naval force. Policing the Western Hemisphere and protecting it from European encroachment required significant investments in new technologies and ships. As the major European powers began their conquests of Asia, Africa, and other points far from their native lands, they experimented with steam power, armored ships, and rifled guns. Barely considering the need for a navy following the Civil War, the United States found itself woefully behind. Politicians and expansionists argued that a modern naval fleet was essential to keep America competitive in a rapidly changing world (Blake, 1960).

Gilded Age Diplomacy

Naval officer Alfred T. Mahan strongly influenced advocates of a naval buildup and expansion. In his book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (1890), Mahan argued that national success rested on both control of colonies and market participation. Claiming that a powerful navy was key to the United States protecting its merchant fleet, he advocated annexing bases in the Caribbean and Pacific. With established refueling or coaling stations, the U.S. Navy’s ability to defend the Western Hemisphere, and to wage war if necessary, would be greatly enhanced.

When the European expansion drive began, the U.S. Navy had fewer than 50 ships actively in commission. With the press of imperialism, Congress finally authorized the construction of a New Navy to consist of multiple small vessels and the first two battleships of the modern era, the USS Texas and the USS Maine. Following the publication of Mahan’s book, the Navy Act of 1890 provided for the construction of three additional warships.

Mahan’s book also influenced James G. Blaine, secretary of state during the Garfield (1881) and Harrison (1889–1893) administrations. Blaine urged Harrison to annex Hawaii, Cuba, and Puerto Rico because their locations were ideal for naval bases (Healy, 2001). In 1881 Blaine developed a diplomatic plan to defend the Monroe Doctrine and increase U.S. involvement in the Western Hemisphere.

U.S. policy makers viewed American involvement in Mexico, Central America, and South America as natural extensions of the Monroe Doctrine. Even those who opposed annexing new territory supported a strong and active presence in the Western Hemisphere. Under Blaine’s leadership, the United States opposed allowing Europeans access to any future isthmus canal. The United States supported a potential confederation of Central American states and helped to negotiate a boundary dispute between Guatemala and Mexico. The United States even intervened diplomatically in a war waged in South America. Trade agreements reached with Brazil, Cuba, and several Central American states that produced sugar and other valuable agricultural commodities also helped cement U.S. relations and dominance in the region (Healy, 2001).

Hawaii and Pacific Dreams

Blaine, Mahan, and other expansionists saw Hawaii as a stepping-stone to markets in China, Japan, and Korea. Economic, political, and cultural connections between the United States and the Hawaiian Islands stretched back decades. After a naval base was established at Pearl Harbor in 1887, expansionists campaigned for annexation, but President Grover Cleveland rejected the notion—partly because he objected to the overthrow of Liliuokalani as illegal. These policies would change after expansionist forces triumphed in the election of 1896.

4.3 The Spanish–American War

The 1896 presidential election brought a new political alignment into play and saw the anti-imperialists lose ground. William McKinley’s victory initiated a stronger central government that supported industrialization, protective tariffs, and territorial expansion. In 1898 this posture carried the United States to war with Spain. The conflict began as a humanitarian intervention to dissolve the brutal control of the Spanish in Cuba. It ended with the United States gaining political and economic control of Cuba, fighting a war in the Philippines, and acquiring territories in Guam and Puerto Rico. The Spanish–American War allowed America to flex its muscles in the Caribbean and the Pacific and to demonstrate its dominant role in the Western Hemisphere.

The Cuban Independence Struggle

The problems with Spain began on the island of Cuba, which lies just 90 miles south of the Florida Keys. Cuba had been a territory of Spain since the 16th century. It was one of the last remnants of the once mighty Spanish empire in the New World, and the Cuban people had struggled for independence for many years. The United States supported a free Cuba in principle because it would eliminate the presence of a European power so close to its shores. During the 1890s alone the Cubans made three separate bids for independence, finally achieving success with the aid of their American neighbor.

José Martí (1853–1895), one of the Cuban revolutionaries, traveled to America to gather money, weapons, and troops to support Cuban independence. A noted author and journalist, Martí’s essays and poetry gained an international reputation, and he traveled widely throughout Europe, South America, and the United States to press the Cuban cause. Through his writings and his organization of an international Cuban revolutionary committee, Marti became one of the most visible spokesmen for freedom. He returned to Cuba in 1895 to continue the struggle for independence in his homeland.

The Cuban situation was made more difficult in 1894 when the Wilson–Gorman Tariff established a 40% duty on all Cuban sugar entering the United States, causing an immediate crisis in the Cuban economy and increasing Cubans’ resolve to win independence from Spain. Sugar had long been exempted from import duties, but the Panic of 1893 and continuing economic depression led to a decline in tax revenue. Removing sugar from the exempt list had been an effort to bolster government income, but it had the inadvertent result of sparking the uprising in Cuba.

One year later the revolution commenced under Martí’s leadership. Spain sent 100,000 soldiers to quell the insurgency. Many in the United States were outraged, and support for the Cuban cause gained strength (Perez, 1998). American investors in Cuba also clamored for support and protection of their investments. Martí became one of the first martyrs to the Cuban cause, as a Spanish bullet killed him in one of the war’s early skirmishes (Hoganson, 1998).

Public support for American involvement in the Cuban independence struggle was rooted in humanitarian and business concerns. In his first annual message to Congress in December 1897, McKinley detailed the inhumane treatment of the Cuban people by the Spanish military. Thousands of Cubans were “herded in and about the garrison towns, their lands laid waste and their dwellings destroyed” (McKinley, 1897, p. 6). Innocent villagers held in concentration camps faced unsanitary conditions and were provided with few provisions. As much as a quarter of the Cuban population died of disease or starvation (Miller, 1970).

Business interests in the United States also encouraged aid for the Cubans. During a downturn in the Cuban economy in the 1880s, American investors had gained control of its vast sugar estates and sugar mills. Cuba grew economically dependent on the U.S. market, sending as much as 90% of its exports to America. Investors had a vested interest in the outcome of the Cuban conflict.

Yellow Journalism

American newspapers spread the word about atrocities in Cuba. Competition between New York City newspaper publishers William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer fed Americans’ outrage with what came to be known as yellow journalism. The papers printed sensational stories about Cuban atrocities in their bids to boost sales and circulation. Both Hearst and Pulitzer owned dozens of competing newspapers and benefited heavily from exposing the Cuban news.

The genre had several important characteristics, including large multicolumn headlines, diverse front-page topics from politics to society, heavy use of photographs and charts to accompany the text, experimental page layouts and some attempts at color, reliance on anonymous sources, and self-promotion for the newspapers. Most important were the reporters and their crusades against the corruption they saw in government and business (Campbell, 2001).

Hearst and Pulitzer perfected yellow journalism with their depictions of cruel Spaniards acting against the freedom-seeking people of Cuba, helping spur American resolve for war (Gilderhus, 2000). Although some stories were completely fabricated, there was truth to some of the inflammatory stories—like Spanish military leaders forcing women, children, the old, and the sick into concentration camps, where they quickly died from disease and starvation.

The newspapers used salient quotes from public figures to enhance their position on the war. Theodore Roosevelt, assistant secretary of the navy and a strong advocate of the coming war, was quoted saying, “It was a dreadful thing for us to sit supinely and watch her death agony. It was our duty, even more from the standpoint of National interest, to stop the devastation and destruction” (as cited in Cirillo, 2004, p. 6).

The “Splendid Little War”

McKinley dispatched the USS Maine, one of the navy’s battleships, to Cuba to reinforce the rebels’ cause and also to show support for American interests on the island. On February 15, 1898, while anchored in Havana Harbor, the Maine suffered a devastating explosion in which 266 of its 354-member crew died. Americans immediately blamed Spain for the apparent attack. In the U.S. press, the headline “Remember the Maine!” screamed for military retaliation and spurred support for the war. McKinley attempted a diplomatic resolution, but it quickly failed, and on April 11 he sought congressional authorization to go to war with Spain and establish an independent, stable government in Cuba.

Seven days later the United States announced that it regarded Cuba as a free nation, and Congress gave McKinley the power to remove the Spanish from the island. However, Congress appended its joint resolution supporting war with the Teller Amendment, which assured the Cuban revolutionaries that America would support their independence and did not intend to colonize the island. Crucially, the amendment made no mention of Spain’s other colonial possessions. On April 22, 1898, Spain issued its own declaration of war against the United States. The Spanish–American War had commenced.

The U.S. Army controlled fighting in Cuba. Though it was a strong fighting force, some referred to the preparation for war as a “comic opera” (Gilderhus, 2000, p. 20). For example, many of the soldiers sent to the hot Cuban climate were outfitted with gear suited for the cold and snow. Rations were poor and medical services inadequate. Many soldiers became seriously ill or died as the result of tainted meat and other rations. Because the army failed to change rations to meet the tropical conditions of Cuba and lacked refrigeration, much food spoiled. In other cases rations were of poor quality and led to much complaint. Despite these obstacles, the United States dominated.

Theodore Roosevelt left his position as assistant secretary of the navy to serve as second in command of the First Volunteer Cavalry, known as the Rough Riders. Roosevelt believed that the western fighters and cowboys that filled the unit’s ranks were the best type of men to take into battle, and there was no doubt that he sought the most intense action for himself. In his account of the war, Roosevelt said, “I had determined that, if a war came, somehow or other, I was going to the front” (Roosevelt, 1899, p. 5).

He got his wish when his storming of the Spanish troops at San Juan and Kettle Hills became one of the war’s turning points. In August 1898 Spain surrendered, and Roosevelt’s actions made the front pages of newspapers in the United States. Overnight, he became the war’s hero and among the most famous men in America.

Secretary of State John Hay called the conflict “a splendid little war” (as cited in Thayer, 1915, p. 337) because it removed Spanish presence from the Western Hemisphere and marked the emergence of the United States as a power on the world stage. Beyond the struggle in Cuba, Hay, Roosevelt, and other expansionists saw the conflict as an opportunity to gain a foothold outside the Western Hemisphere. As a result, fighting quickly spread to other areas of the globe where Spain claimed colonial possessions. A few days into the conflict, the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet, commanded by Commodore George Dewey, destroyed the Spanish Pacific Squadron off the coast of the Philippines. Like Roosevelt, Dewey quickly became a national hero.

The Hawaiian Islands, annexed to the United States by the McKinley administration just a few months before, played a vital role in the attacks on the Philippines, providing the United States an important outpost in the Pacific for resupply and fueling. Control of the Philippines, in turn, gave America better access to China and its vast markets.

American Experience: Buffalo Soldiers and the Battle of San Juan Hill

One of the most decisive actions of the Spanish–American War, the Battle of San Juan Hill, occurred July 1, 1898 on the San Juan Heights east of Santiago, Cuba. The U.S. Fifth Army Corps was charged with overtaking the Spanish troops’ fortified position. Charging into the face of incoming fire, many fell before the ranks split. The Rough Riders charged Kettle Hill, bravely making it to the top of the hill first. Other troops took San Juan Hill soon after.

The American press published sensational reports and widely credited the Rough Riders under the command of Theodore Roosevelt for the victory. The future president quickly became a national hero. Press reports at the time also assigned recognition to members of other U.S. units that fought alongside the Rough Riders, but their service has slipped from the nation’s collective memory. Soldiers from the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments belonged to units of African American troops known as Buffalo Soldiers, who fought bravely alongside their White counterparts in Cuba.

During the fighting at San Juan Hill and nearby Kettle Hill, Buffalo Soldiers intermixed with Rough Riders to make the famous but uncoordinated charge. American casualties were greater than those of the Spanish, but at the end of the day, the U.S. forces gained the position. Immediately after the war Roosevelt told an African American journalist that he could wish for “no better men beside me in battle than these colored troops showed themselves to be” (as cited in Nalty, 1986, p. 77). He later remarked, “no one can tell whether it was the Rough Riders or the men of the 9th who came forward with the greater courage to offer their lives in service of their country” (as cited in Buckley, 2001, p. 152).

Despite Roosevelt’s early praise, it was a very difficult war for African Americans, who not only had to endure challenging battlefield conditions but also faced intense racial hatred from their White commanding officers. Even Roosevelt later changed his story to say that the African Americans only demonstrated bravery because White officers led them. He wrote an article for Scribner’s Monthly in 1899 in which he said that the only way he could convince some of the African American troops to fight was through coercion with his pistol (Astor, 2001). It was another example of the hope and despair that African Americans faced—hope in fighting valiantly for their country and despair at returning to racism once home.

Although African Americans fought in every American war, they were not enlisted in the regular army until after the Civil War. Congress then created four units that came to be known as the Buffalo Soldiers. The troops were dispatched to the Great Plains and the Southwest, where they kept peace among the Native Americans and American settlers. Buffalo Soldiers also acted as the nation’s first park rangers at Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks. Their units were segregated and in almost all cases governed by White officers. In the humid Cuban summer, the soldiers dealt with intense heat, rain, and an outbreak of yellow fever. Some soldiers from the 24th Infantry acted as nurses tending to ill soldiers, but the others saw combat action (Sutherland, 2004).

African American soldiers continued to serve the U.S. military proudly, but their units remained segregated and their opportunities for promotion remained limited. African American troops finally gained equal footing in the military after President Harry S. Truman signed an executive order in 1948, banning segregation in the military.

America’s Instant Empire

As a result of the Spanish–American War, Cuba gained independence and the United States eliminated Spain’s influence in the Western Hemisphere. The United States also expanded its empire. Under the terms of the December 1898 Treaty of Paris, America annexed Puerto Rico and Guam and, in a clause that the Spanish initially regarded with shock, claimed the Philippines. Spain reluctantly accepted the terms—and $20 million in compensation.

This instant empire was met with a great deal of opposition in the United States. Opponents decried Philippine annexation for reasons as varied as the economic costs, Republican ideals about liberty, and racist fears of social and cultural amalgamation. Although public response to the victory over Spain and the new American empire was not universally negative, it did “inaugurate two decades of public debate in the United States about the proper relationship between liberty and power” (Anderson & Cayton, 2005, p. 339).

American forces remained in Cuba until 1902, where they attempted to build an infrastructure of roads and educational and medical facilities. With the Platt Amendment, named for Republican senator Orville Platt from Connecticut, the United States also attempted to force its economic will on the Cubans. The measure prevented Cuba from signing treaties with other nations, restricted its national debt, and formally gave the United States the right to intervene in Cuba to preserve its independence. It also forced Cuba to lease the land at Guantánamo Bay to the United States for use as a naval base. Grateful for help in overthrowing Spanish rule, and under immense pressure from the Americans, the Cubans reluctantly agreed to these terms (Suri, 2010).

Guerilla War in the Philippines

McKinley quickly overcame any ambivalence over acquiring the Philippines, which he later described as “being dropped in our laps” (as cited in Shirmer & Shalom, 1987, p. 22). In his mind there was no alternative to annexation. He believed returning the islands to Spain would be “cowardly and dishonorable” (as cited in Shirmer & Shalom, 1987, p. 22), but at the same time he argued the Filipinos were not ready for independence. He argued that annexation was necessary to bring Filipinos into the fold of Christianity and civilization, but he neglected to note that many residents of the islands were already Christians and that many were members of the Roman Catholic Church. Left without protection, he worried that America’s imperial rivals, namely France or Germany, would intervene and claim the country. McKinley’s assumption that Filipinos were not Christian reflected imperialistic ideology that “natives” must be brought into the modern era through colonization.

McKinley and other advocates of expansion also saw China as the next trading frontier, and the location of the Philippines positioned the United States well to enter Asian markets. McKinley rarely spoke so openly about U.S. motives, however. Instead, he publicly proclaimed it was America’s duty to “uplift and civilize and Christianize” (as cited in Rusling, 1903, p. 17) the Filipinos.

The expansion of the American empire into the Philippines came at a heavy cost. American imperialists, eager for a foothold near the Asian continent, soon found the Filipino people unhappy with the results of the Spanish–American War. Even before it started, they had been fighting for their own independence against the Spanish, and many fought alongside Americans; when the Treaty of Paris gave Americans control of their island nation, their hatred readily transferred.

In their attempt to push the Americans from their shores, the Filipinos initially waged a guerilla war, using raids, ambushes, and mobile tactics to simultaneously fight and elude the stronger U.S. military force. In their efforts to end the resistance and avoid high casualties, American troops engaged in ruthless warfare. American brutality in the Philippine–American War compared to Spanish treatment of the Cubans, sparking cries of hypocrisy among anti-imperialists. American soldiers even used a form of water torture known as water cure, in which individuals were forced to ingest large quantities of water in a short period of time. African American soldiers among the U.S. forces were particularly conflicted about the mistreatment of Filipinos because many identified with the plight of these dark-skinned people who fought so hard for their freedom. The African American press railed against African American soldiers fighting other people of color. The Kansas City American Citizen urged against imperialism, calling it a “blight on the manhood of the darker races” (as cited in Mitchell, 2004, p. 64).

Anti-imperialists hoped for a public outcry, but they were disappointed. Despite some prominent voices among the opposition, most Americans strongly favored annexing the Philippines. Prospects for trade easily overcame fears of the burden of maintaining and incorporating an empire. The war for control of the Asian nation lasted until 1902 and resulted in the deaths of 4,325 U.S. soldiers. The losses of the Filipino people were dramatic. They suffered the deaths of 16,000 soldiers in battle and as many as 200,000 civilians due to disease and violence (Tucker, 2009).

For the American military leaders, one thing became clear from these interventions: The United States needed to improve its military. McKinley gave this job to Elihu Root, who, as a well-known corporate lawyer and trust regulator, had an unusual background for this position. But Root brought his skills in reforming organizations to the military (Rossini, 1995). By 1903 Root had increased the size of the military fourfold, established the National Guard as a reserve force, and created the Joint Chiefs of Staff to advise the president. This staff arrangement was better suited to coordinate efforts among the several branches of the military, all of which now reported to the Secretary of War (today’s Secretary of Defense).

4.4 On the World Stage

The United States emerged from the brief war with Spain with an enhanced reputation on the world stage. The nation stood alongside imperial Europe in possession of an empire, albeit a small one, that stretched around the globe. As the new century approached, attention turned to expanding trade and managing the empire.

The McKinley Assassination

The presidential election of 1900 pitted incumbent William McKinley against Democrat William Jennings Bryan in a rematch of the previous contest. The Republican convention chose New York governor Theodore Roosevelt, the larger-than-life hero from the Spanish–American War, as McKinley’s running mate. Roosevelt’s popularity had catapulted him into the New York governor’s office, and McKinley’s advisors found placing him on the ticket preferable to worrying if he would make a run for the presidential nomination himself.

Bryan made anti-imperialism the focus of his campaign, but the issue failed to gain him much traction because most Americans supported Philippine annexation. Economic prosperity and the new American empire made the contest an easy win for McKinley and Roosevelt, whose campaign posters advertised the humanitarian nature of territorial expansion.

The American presidency was forever transformed on September 6, 1901, when an anarchist’s bullet struck McKinley. As the president greeted visitors at the Pan American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, Leon Czolgosz stood waiting in the receiving line, extending a hand wrapped in a bandage. Beneath the cloth was a pistol, which he discharged twice at very close range into McKinley’s stomach and chest.

In the mayhem that ensued, McKinley staggered and fell while the Secret Service apprehended Czolgosz. McKinley weakly shouted, “Be easy with him, boys,” and Czolgosz responded, “I done my duty” (as cited in Rauchway, 2007, p. 3). Six days later, McKinley died. Czolgosz, an anarchist sympathizer, believed that capitalism was a flawed economic system because it bestowed great wealth on a few and left the multitudes in poverty. By attacking the president, he believed he was attacking the heart of the political structure that controlled American capitalism (Rauchway, 2004).

After McKinley’s death, Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency. Roosevelt fundamentally transformed the nature of the office and the direction of the nation, especially its domestic policies (see Chapter 5). Holding office from 1901 until 1909, his influence on foreign policy defined the path for the United States to emerge as a world power in succeeding years.

Writing to New York politician Henry L. Sprague in 1900, Roosevelt used the phrase that would come to characterize his brand of American diplomacy: “Speak softly and carry a big stick” (as cited in Morgan, 1919, p. 216). The implication was that although the United States promised peaceful negotiation to settle disputes, it was always willing to use force if necessary. The bold policies and actions his phrase suggests affected Latin America, eastern Asia, and Europe and resulted in an important revision to the long-standing Monroe Doctrine.

Managing the Empire and Defining Manhood

As president, Roosevelt embarked on an activist foreign policy. He also led the effort to determine the place of America’s new colonial subjects, whom he believed to be racially and culturally inferior to White Americans, in U.S. society.

Roosevelt went even further by linking American nationalism and imperialism to ideas of racial dominance and the definition of manhood. Asserting control over the Filipinos, Puerto Ricans, and other non-Whites, according to Roosevelt’s thinking, allowed American men to establish their superior manhood (Bederman, 2008). These conceptions fell in line with the thinking of Social Darwinists, who saw in America’s imperial thrust evidence of the nation’s superiority. These conceptions influenced the management of America’s new possessions

Because the U.S. political system had no provisions for governing permanent colonies, each of the territories was considered separately. Hawaii became a territory in the standard tradition of U.S. western expansion. Already home to many American missionaries and businesspeople, most of its population was eventually granted citizenship (it became a state in 1959).

Congressional debate over Puerto Rico and the Philippines brought general agreement that neither was capable of self-government because their populations were largely non-White (Basson, 2008). The United States maintained control in the Philippines until 1946 and administered Guam until 1950, when it was extended limited self-government. It remains an unincorporated territory of the United States. Puerto Rico remains a territory of the United States, and its residents now enjoy citizenship rights but may not vote in presidential elections because it is not a state.

A Global Power

At the turn of the 20th century, the United States was quickly moving toward becoming the world’s dominant industrial producer. Abundant deposits of natural minerals, including coal and iron ore, and natural resources such as timber meant the nation’s industrial capacity could steadily increase, leading the United States to seek out foreign markets for its mass-produced products. The nation’s foreign policy shifted to focus on expanding trade networks in the Western Hemisphere, especially Latin America, and also in the Far East (Marks, 1979).

Taking the Panama Canal

American dominance in the Western Hemisphere and its strong desire for expanded trade networks reignited calls for a canal to cross the isthmus of Central America. A canal would allow ships to cross easily from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, instead of unloading their cargo to be carried by rail or sailing completely around South America. Early efforts supported construction across Nicaragua, but when engineers rejected the Nicaraguan route in favor of a shorter Panama path begun by the French in the 1880s, Panama became the central focus of Roosevelt’s efforts.

There were a number of obstacles blocking the way to the construction of the canal. The United States was obligated under an 1850 treaty with Great Britain to jointly pursue the construction of a Central American canal. In 1901 Britain resolved this issue by nullifying the treaty under the condition that all nations would be able to access the canal. A more difficult problem was that Panama was not independent, but a province under the control of Colombia.

When Colombia rejected U.S. offers to purchase the necessary rights, Roosevelt encouraged a rebellion in favor of Panamanian independence, insinuating that the United States would support the rebels. The American warship USS Nashville anchored in the region in support of Panama’s declaration of independence on November 3, 1903, making it clear to the Colombians that the force of the U.S. Navy stood behind the rebellion.

Later the same month, the United States acquired the rights owned by the French to construct the canal and maintain control over a 10-mile-wide Canal Zone. The Panamanians objected, but Roosevelt prevailed, proclaiming that he “took the canal” (as cited in Bishop, 1920, p. 308). After further negotiations, the United States agreed to pay Panama $10 million, and then $250,000 each year for continued use of the zone. The agreement persisted until 1977, when Panama gained full control. The canal was the largest engineering project in American history and cost more than $375 million, at least $8.6 billion in today’s dollars. Construction was completed in 1914, and Roosevelt considered the Panama Canal one of his greatest achievements as president.

The Open Door

The annexation of Hawaii in 1898 and the Philippines in 1899 placed the United States in a position to access trade with Asia, and especially China. War between Japan and China in 1895 demonstrated China’s weakness, and many Americans feared Japan would affect a takeover before the United States was able to secure a trade agreement. Several European nations—including Great Britain, France, Germany, and Russia—had already established agreements granting their nations special trading relationships in various Chinese ports and regions.

A growing number of Americans believed the United States should pursue a similar strategy, although anti-imperialists cautioned against exploiting the weakened and crumbling Manchu dynasty in China. The relationship between the two nations was cloaked in distrust and suspicion. Most Americans viewed the Chinese as mysterious and racially inferior, a stereotype reflected in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Although some Chinese admired American business sense, it is not surprising that U.S. attitudes sparked bitterness and contempt.

Secretary of State John Hay sought a policy that would overcome these attitudes and allow for a vigorous trade relationship. Known as the Open Door, the policy guided U.S.–east Asian interactions for the following 50 years.

Issued as a series of notes to major European nations in 1899 and 1900, Hay first demanded that China’s markets be open to U.S. as well as European trade. In a second note, he declared the United States would join other nations in a protective role to preserve China’s administrative autonomy, moving clearly outside the boundaries of the Monroe Doctrine. In July 1900 Hay announced that Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, and Japan would all respect this Open Door policy in principle, although none of the nations had explicitly agreed to do so.

A challenge to the Open Door came just a month later, when a conservative Chinese society rebelled against both the ruling Manchu dynasty and the growing influence of Westerners in the country (Hodge & Nolan, 2007). During the Boxer Rebellion, activists killed more than 200 foreigners and missionaries and seized a segment of Peking (known today as Beijing).

Standing true to the new policy, an international force, including 2,500 or more U.S. troops, stopped the rebellion and restored order (Silbey, 2012). U.S.–China trade remained meager, never developing into a major outlet for American mass-produced goods, but the Open Door remained in place and guided the relationship between the two nations through the first half of the 20th century.

The Roosevelt Corollary

Actions within and outside the Western Hemisphere in the age of imperialism prompted an evolution of U.S. foreign policy. At the era’s beginning the Monroe Doctrine guided the nation away from conflicts involving European nations and focused U.S. diplomatic actions on the Western Hemisphere. In his annual message to Congress in 1904, Roosevelt enunciated a new policy, which modified and expanded the role of the United States on the world stage. Known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, it shifted national foreign policy from an isolationist to an activist principle. Under this policy the United States would carry its “big stick” to act as the police force of the Western Hemisphere.

By the time Roosevelt ran for election in his own right in 1904, the United States was well established as an important presence on the world stage. Possessing great agricultural and industrial might, America’s status continued to grow after the conclusion of the Spanish–American War and its annexation of new territories. U.S. significance and authority demanded a matching foreign policy. The Roosevelt Corollary repudiated tolerance for European intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean and would continue to shape international relations through much of the 20th century (Hodge, 2008).

For Roosevelt and supporters of an expanded U.S. role on the world stage, the corollary represented a natural progression of policy. One early assertion of its principles came when the British and Germans enacted a naval blockade of Venezuela in an attempt to force repayment of European bank loans. Roosevelt intervened to secure their withdrawal. The policy also justified U.S. intervention in the region’s domestic politics. In 1906 Roosevelt sent forces to oversee a disputed election in Cuba, but fearing potential instability, the troops remained on the island until 1909.

Roosevelt’s reputation as an expansionist and his contribution to changing the shape of foreign policy also gave him the ability to intervene in international disputes beyond America’s backyard. In 1906 he became the first U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating an end to the Russo–Japanese War. This first major international conflict of the 20th century erupted in 1904 from rival claims of both nations to areas of China and Korea. Roosevelt invited the Russians and Japanese to negotiations at a New Hampshire naval base and eventually became the chief arbitrator fashioning a lasting agreement. By the end of his presidency, the United States was a respected member of the growing global community.

American Lives: Rose Rosenfeld Freedman

Late in the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, 1911, a fire started on the 8th floor of a 10-story building in the Greenwich Village area of New York. It quickly spread to the 9th floor, where Rose Rosenfeld Freedman and her coworkers at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which occupied the building’s top three floors, were trapped by both flames and locked doors (Ryan, 2006).

In rooms filled with cloth, scraps, and oiled machinery, they found little means to escape. The elevator did not reach the 9th floor, and the one accessible stairway quickly became jammed with panicked young women. To the horror of those watching from the street, many women jumped from the windows with their skirts on fire, hoping to reach the safety of a fire department net or perhaps preferring the impact to burning to death.

Freedman was one of the lucky few who made it to the crowded staircase. Instead of trying to fight her way down, she went up to the 10th floor, where the factory managers worked, and then out onto the roof. From there a fireman lifted her to the safety of the building next door, and she descended safely to the street (Martin, 2001). Many of her coworkers were not as fortunate; the fire claimed the lives of 146 people, including 23 men and 123 women.

Rose Rosenfeld Freedman was born in 1893 in a small town north of Vienna, Austria. Her father ran a successful dried foods business and chose to bring the entire Rosenfeld family to New York City in 1909. Representing larger patterns of immigration, the Rosenfelds were drawn to better opportunities in America. Although her family was wealthier than most immigrants, as a teenager she chose to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where she was given the high responsibility of attaching buttons to the shirts. In choosing factory work, Freedman joined countless other young women who worked in crowded and dangerous industrial conditions.

The company’s 500 garment workers spent 8 to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, sewing ladies’ blouses, known as shirtwaists. The rooms were small, with little ventilation, and the managers often locked the workers inside to keep them on task. The building had no sprinklers, and there had never been a fire drill. Smoking was forbidden, but a number of the men who worked in the factory were known to light a cigar or pipe while on the job. Fire marshals later speculated that a match or improperly extinguished cigar or cigarette started the blaze.

In the tragedy’s aftermath, an outraged public demanded reform. Within a few years of the fire, New York adopted strict worker safety protection laws that formed a model for laws passed in numerous states. Freedman never returned to factory work. She married, had three children, and later worked for an insurance company, but she never stopped speaking out about the events of that fateful day. She refuted the company’s denial that the doors had been locked, and when company officials were later acquitted of manslaughter, she decried the meager $75 paid to the families of the deceased. For the remainder of her life, she appeared at labor rallies and told her story in hopes of avoiding another workplace tragedy. She died at her California home in 2001 at age 107 (Martin, 2001).

In demanding reform, Freedman joined a chorus of voices seeking to curb the excesses and inhumanity of the industrial system in the Progressive era. In this period, lasting from the late 19th century through the end of World War I in 1918, workers, immigrants, middle-class men and women, and politicians sought answers to the many problems rapid industrialization and urbanization caused.

5.1 Defining Progressivism

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire dramatically exposed the early 20th century’s unsafe working conditions, one of a growing number of significant social problems motivating a new generation of activists who struggled to improve the cities, make politics more democratic, and regulate the behavior of immigrants and the working class. They sought to inspire new levels of activism by organizing at the local, state, and national levels to bring about social, political, and economic change.

They were known as the Progressives because they sought to change society, improve conditions, and increase efficiency. They shared a belief in science and social science, organization, the ability of education to overcome personal barriers, and the power of the government to effect social change. In opposition to the Social Darwinists, who believed some people and races were naturally inferior, Progressives argued that education and science could help individuals improve themselves and their society.

Who Were the Progressives?

Progressivism was not one single, easily defined movement. Some have even suggested that it encompassed so many ideas, goals, and causes that it is impossible to define at all. Segments of the movement often worked together out of different motives. Progressive reformers might narrowly come together to protest conditions found in a shirtwaist factory or more broadly to improve safety conditions in an entire industry.

Journalists writing for Collier’s and McClure’s magazines and photographers such as Jacob Riis provided evidence for the Progressives and were as driven as the reformers to expose corruption. Theodore Roosevelt called them the muckrakers because they were dredging up the worst muck and filth that they could find in society. Some of these investigative journalists were personally committed to their causes, and many of them took jobs in factories or lived in slums to try to truly understand and empathize with the struggling poor. They exposed these issues to a middle class that was growing larger and more politically powerful (Cooper, 1990).

One of the earliest investigative muckrakers was Elizabeth Cochrane, who wrote under the name Nellie Bly. Her earliest work exposed the horrid working conditions young women faced in textile factories, where they endured long workdays squinting to see their work in poorly lit conditions.

One of Bly’s most sensational exposés appeared in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World in 1887. Bly faked insanity to research and expose conditions inside New York’s Bellevue Hospital, one of the most notorious insane asylums in the United States. She reported that the rat-infested facility practiced little in the way of sanitation and tied supposedly dangerous patients together with ropes. The newspaper secured her release after she spent 10 days in the asylum, and she published a lengthy account of the experience. Public outcry and a grand jury investigation led to increased state funding and better care for the mentally ill.

Although Progressives all shared the common theme of activism that aimed to bring positive change to society through science, technology, and increased democracy, they had many different faces and interests. Industrial workers like Rose Rosenfeld Freedman rallied to demand safe working conditions and regulation of child labor. Working-class and middle-class women suffragists came together and marched in the street to get the right to vote. Other Progressives believed that the nation would be better off if alcoholic beverages were illegal. In addition, there were the settlement house workers who tried to ease the struggles of new immigrants in America (see Chapter 3).

Although the movement attracted individuals from all classes of society, most Progressives were middle class, especially professional men and women. Although their causes were diverse, common to all of them were an adherence and commitment to ideals of democracy, efficiency, regulation, and social justice (Diner, 1998).

The Progressive Movement

In one aspect of the movement, Progressives strove to examine every aspect of life itself and determine, often through new scientific principles, how to do more work with less energy, or how to make society run more effectively. For example, careful study of municipal affairs prompted Progressives to urge structural reforms in city governments, such as replacing elected mayors with professional city managers and instituting local civil service commissions. This was part of a broader trend in America supported by a new bureaucratic-minded middle class that was, for the most part, college educated because of the expansion of higher education in the 19th century.

This new middle class was urban and included professional men and women who saw government as an ally in the struggle to improve life, and bureaucratic administration as a path to achieve it. They viewed themselves as experts in implementing and overseeing a new scientific style of administration. Middle-class Progressives believed that scientific study could provide the answer to most of society’s problems.

Struggles for Justice

At a time when few government welfare systems were in place, those who were sick, injured, or unable to work for any number of reasons often found themselves destitute and homeless. Progressives committed themselves to improving and uplifting these unfortunate souls through social justice channels. Many Progressives were proponents of the Social Gospel (see Chapter 3). They believed that they had a special responsibility to improve society. By coordinating technological and governmental initiatives, Progressives believed that it was possible to fundamentally improve the lives of the poorest Americans through better education and housing.

With this goal in mind, leaders adopted scientific terms and applied them to “social experiments” designed to achieve important results (Feffer, 1993). Progressives collected “data,” analyzed their findings in social or economic “laboratories,” and used quantitative statistical analysis to predict trends and events (Recchiuti, 2007). This approach had many proponents—including the Rockefeller Foundation, which donated millions of dollars to urban activists who improved health conditions in cities; churches that espoused the Social Gospel and engaged in charity work directed toward those in need; and politicians, who used the tools of government

In many ways social justice unified the diverse goals of all the Progressives because, despite their differences, they “shared a belief in society, a common good, and social justice, and that society could be changed into a better place” (Nugent, 2010). These goals were also present at the foundations of society, and reform was often initiated by those who stood to benefit from it most.

5.2 Urban and State-Level Reform

Progressive reform often began at the grassroots level when various segments of society expressed concern over one or more of the multiplying problems emerging as the United States became a modern, industrial nation. Local and regional needs and concerns then amplified toward state and national politics as reformers grappled with similar issues across the nation.

Historians have long associated three important developments with Progressive reform: industrialization, immigration, and urbanization. American industries attracted millions of immigrant workers but also forced such rapid growth in major cities that basic services were unable to keep pace. More than 16,000 souls crowded each square mile in New York City in 1900, and the growth of the automobile industry tripled the population of Detroit in under 10 years until its population approached a million in 1910 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1998). Table 5.1 illustrates the growth of some of the largest cities, but others not listed here experienced significant changes as well.

Table 5.1: Urban growth in major U.S. cities, 1880–1920

Progressives and Civilizing the City

Although Progressives focused on multiple issues in many venues across the country, much of their effort concentrated on urban settings. There some reformers focused on relieving overcrowded tenement housing, integrating immigrants into American society, and ensuring adequate city services such as clean water and waste disposal. Others were concerned with making city government more efficient, creating green spaces and parks, or waging campaigns to eradicate vice. Urban crusaders came from multiple segments of society, but women were critical to the success of many Progressive reforms.

The settlement house movement that started in the Gilded Age with the efforts of Jane Addams and others (see Chapter 3) was expanded and professionalized in the Progressive era. The model established at Chicago’s Hull House in 1889 inspired more than 400 similar homes by the early 20th century. Addams (1909) wrote that we often “forget how new the modern city is,” and argued for the need to “step back and analyze it” (p. 5). Offering settlement workers room and board, the houses provided on-the-job training for female Progressives. Most were college-educated young women from middle-class families who chose to dedicate their time to reform.

The houses served as laboratories in which Progressives could learn about urban problems firsthand. In addition, they offered classrooms in which to teach adult immigrants the English language and domestic skills like home canning, preserving, and proper housecleaning techniques. They also provided a new form of early childhood education—the kindergarten—that offered early training in middle-class American values to immigrant youth (Spain, 2001). Some immigrants readily embraced the reformers’ efforts, but others saw their attempts at Americanization or improvement intrusive and at odds with their traditional culture.

Settlement workers such as Addams embraced the cause of social justice. They worked hard to characterize urban poverty as a systemic problem and a public issue that required institutional reform, rather than the fault of the individual. Their efforts evolved into the profession of social work and helped establish a place for women’s work outside the home (Spain, 2001).

Indeed, many came to see women settlement house workers as fulfilling a public role that was a natural extension of the domestic sphere and thereby a proper part of their domain. They were emblematic of the New Woman—college-educated, independent career women who pushed the limits of male-dominated society.

The needs of the urban community grew so large that universities developed degree programs in social work. By the 1920s settlement house workers were more like professional social workers than reformers. Their profession remained dominantly female and took on new authority as they redefined a scientific basis for their work (Davis, 1984).

Municipal Housekeeping and Moral Reform

Female settlement house workers joined with other women’s organizations and their male allies to take their newfound public role a step further and criticize the corrupt political establishments operating in many urban areas. Collectively, they argued that their experiences as household managers and mothers made them uniquely qualified as municipal housekeepers who could speak out publicly on issues of moral and physical cleanliness in the cities as well as in their own homes.

Some demanded food inspection, workplace safety, inspection of urban housing, and improved working conditions for women and children. Others established pilot programs in education and public health and then petitioned for government funding and support for them. For instance, the Women’s Health Protective Association of Philadelphia engaged an engineer to design a water delivery system to provide cleaner water and then lobbied for passage of a city bond to fund it. The Chicago Women’s Club organized and initially financially supported the nation’s first juvenile court (Jaycox, 2005).

Alcohol

Municipal housekeeping linked with the reform agendas of other Progressives, including churches that advocated the Social Gospel. Seeking to improve society as well as the individual, these reformers advocated social purity and attacked vice, especially alcoholism. In addition to middle-class women and Protestant clergy, the movement attracted nativists and racists, who argued that immigrants and African Americans were more likely to drink and engage in prostitution or other immoral behavior.

The antidrinking organizations that formed in the late 19th century, including the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League, did little to curb alcohol consumption. The amount Americans drank rose dramatically after 1900, and many attributed the increase to the moral depravity of urban society and to the rising numbers of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe whose cultures incorporated beer and liquor consumption.

Although most Progressive reformers worked within established organizations and channels, the era’s most colorful temperance (moderation) advocate, Carrie Nation, did not. Taking up a hatchet, she smashed and vandalized saloons across Kansas and surrounding states and was jailed some 30 times. Her followers, known as Home Defenders, expanded the campaign to cities across the country, but more moderate reformers condemned their efforts (Jaycox, 2005).

Prostitution

Prostitution was another target for Progressives aiming to clean up the nation’s cities. Prostitution was hardly new, but reformers believed it was increasing rapidly, bringing with it increased incidences of venereal disease, a taboo subject in the era. Like the settlement house workers, most Progressives argued that vice was rooted in environmental causes, especially urban poverty, and they identified a link between prostitution and low wages for women workers. Many Progressive era studies clearly showed that young women could not survive on the wages they earned in any industry and so turned to prostitution to earn more (Jaycox, 2005).

Despite understanding the cause of the problem, the reformers did not agree on the solution. The American Social Hygiene Association sought to educate the public and warned men to avoid prostitutes for the sake of their own health. The association created posters for boys and girls promoting character and sex education as a preventative measure. Others feared that unfaithful husbands would spread venereal disease to their wives and thus launched focused campaigns on the importance of remaining monogamous. Without the ability to address the underlying economic problem, however, concern and action from various groups did little to curb prostitution.

In 1909 muckraking journalist George Kibbe Turner ignited national debate with an article about organized prostitution in New York City. In “Daughters of the Poor,” he declared that rings in the city forced women into prostitution or “White slavery.” As the sensational reports continued, many Americans came to incorrectly believe that all prostitutes were acting against their will (Applegate, 2008). Public outcry forced Congress to act. It passed the Mann Act in 1910, making it a federal crime to transport across state lines “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose” (Ditmore, 2011, p. 164).

Although this law was rooted in a desire to protect women, some authorities misused it. African American boxer Jack Johnson, who won the world heavyweight championship in 1908 and held it until 1915, was twice arrested under the Mann Act. In the first racially charged case, Johnson was accused of taking a White woman, Lucille Cameron, across state lines for purposes of prostitution. Occurring at the height of Jim Crow segregation, authorities almost certainly used the law to lash out at Johnson for both claiming the championship title and for having a relationship across the color line. Cameron refused to testify against him, but when he was arrested again with another White woman, he was convicted and eventually served a year in prison.

Good Government

Municipal government occupied another segment of Progressive reformers. Prompted by fears of both rapid growth and the changing ethnic composition of American cities, many mostly middle-class activists sought to regulate city government, reduce corruption, and especially curb the influence of urban political bosses and their immigrant allies. City governments were in charge of sanitation, utilities, and other services vital to urban reform. Progressives sought to put the cities in the hands of experts such as city planners, city managers, and others who could improve urban life and increase the efficiency of government. Each city’s reforms took different shapes, but all aimed to make city government more democratic and to increase efficiency.

In Chicago, Jane Addams and other prominent Progressives were elected to a league of concerned citizens, a local nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that favored municipal ownership of utilities and streetcar lines and conducted inspections of industrial worksites (Davis, 1984). In Toledo, Ohio, Mayor Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones spearheaded his own reform campaign, establishing a civil service system for hiring city workers. He also established parks and public playgrounds and tried unsuccessfully to bring utilities and public transit under the city’s ownership (Jaycox, 2005). Reformers in other cities—including Louisville, Kentucky; Memphis, Tennessee; and Jersey City, New Jersey—had more success in their campaigns for public ownership of utilities. Nationally, one in three municipalities eventually gained some form of city-owned public services.

Other cities abandoned or altered the traditional mayoral style of administration. Dayton, Ohio, was one of the first to replace its mayor with a professionally educated city manager. This model was adopted fairly widely and included the election of a commission that in turn hired the city manager. After a massive hurricane in 1900 killed hundreds in Galveston, Texas, the inability of city officials to cope with relief efforts led business leaders and reformers there to adopt a nonpartisan commission to run the city. At least 500 cities adopted the commission model, with 167 hiring a city manager in addition to their commission by 1924 (Perry & Smith, 2006).

In addition to municipal government reforms, some Progressives took inspiration from the European movement to improve cities by engaging in the city beautiful movement, which aimed to make the urban environment more attractive and to enhance civic pride. Professional city planners emerged. Following their proposals, many cities constructed elaborate public libraries, union stations, concert halls, banks, and monumental city halls, all designed to enhance civic pride, advance public morals, and promote an efficient hygienic city (Spain, 2001).

In some cities such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the city beautiful movement mixed goals of beautification with sanitation needs, focusing on street paving and the construction of public parks as well as cleaning up the Susquehanna River, which had long been a dumping ground for trash and raw sewage (Peterson, 2003).

State-Level Reform

Most states responded to pressures for reform by passing laws aimed at increasing democratic participation, including the initiative and referendum, which empowered voters to initiate legislation or to overturn unpopular laws. Recall legislation established a process through which voters could replace ineffective elected officials.

Some states also sought to regulate commerce and control business monopolies within their borders. Ohio passed the Valentine Anti-Trust Act in an effort to eliminate price fixing, product limitation, and controlled sales. Protection for those injured at work was another popular Progressive era reform. Maryland enacted the nation’s first workers’ compensation law, and by 1920, 44 states adopted similar laws providing injured workers with varying benefits to cover wages and medical expenses (Goldin & Libecap, 1994).

Wisconsin was among states with the strongest Progressive reform agendas. Republican Robert M. La Follette embraced Progressivism at the beginning of his long political career. During his governorship (1901–1906), he adopted a scientific approach to governance and filled his cabinet and administration with experts, university professors, and scientists to study the state’s problems and help him make informed decisions.

He also reformed railroad rates and taxes, established a workers’ compensation system, and passed conservation laws. He implemented the first direct primary, allowing the state’s voters to choose the parties’ nominees for office, and he initiated the first state income tax to pay for new services. La Follette’s far-reaching Progressive reforms gained him a national reputation that earned him a seat in the U.S. Senate, which he held from 1906 until 1925. One of the governor’s supporters proclaimed, “With Roosevelt for our national leader and La Follette bearing our state banner, we of the ranks can fight with courage for the victory of right principle and honest government” (as cited in Thelen, 1976, p. 35).

Progressive reformers made government more responsible and receptive to the needs of citizens, and many saw a need to extend reform to government and politics at the national level.

5.3 Progressive Politics and the Nation

In the Progressive era, state-level reforms expanded democracy for some Americans and contracted it for others. New policies, including direct primaries and initiative and referendum systems, varied by locality but generally increased the power of those who enjoyed the franchise. In the South, however, African Americans found their ability to cast a ballot increasingly denied (see Chapter 3). Women made some gains at the state and territorial level but still struggled to win the universal right to vote.

At the national level, Progressive politics struggled to tackle some of the era’s major problems, also with limited success. Progressives expressed concern over the lack of government regulation of the economy, the lack of democracy in the electoral process, and the need to regulate certain businesses and industries, such as meatpacking and drug manufacturing.

Presidents serving in the Progressive era each had their own legislative agenda and plan to enact it. Theodore Roosevelt regularly sent special messages to Congress and set staff in the executive departments to drafting bills that expressed his legislative goals. William Howard Taft hoped to expand federal regulatory power but insisted on controlling that power himself. Woodrow Wilson, the only Democrat to hold the office in the Progressive era, advocated an expansive reform agenda (Harrison, 2004).

Theodore Roosevelt and Progressive Reform

Theodore Roosevelt became a strong advocate for a number of Progressive reforms and challenged the power of large corporations. He used his personality and charisma to win votes and drum up support for his agenda, and he never shied away from taking public credit for popular reforms. After completing William McKinley’s second term, he easily won election in his own right in 1904. During the campaign, he promised a Square Deal for everyone, which included natural resource conservation and preservation and regulation of the railroads and food and drug industries. Through close cooperation with both Republicans and Democrats, he was able to enact much of his reform agenda.

Trust-Busting

When he came into office in 1901, Roosevelt inherited the debate over business consolidation and regulation. The growth of corporations that began in the Gilded Age continued well into the Progressive era and raised the ire of many Americans, who decried their almost monopolistic control over multiple sectors of the economy.

Seeking to reign in business to at least some degree, even dividing big businesses into categories of “good trusts” and “bad trusts,” Roosevelt supported the Justice Department’s prosecution of several cases under the Sherman Antitrust Act, which forbade raising prices through restricting trade or the supply of a commodity. The Interstate Commerce Commission also regulated transport between two or more states, and both the Sherman Act and the ICC informed the prosecution of the cases.

Among the targets was the Northern Securities Company, a massive consolidation of railroad lines controlled by J. P. Morgan. The industrialist’s defense team argued that as a holding company and not the primary railroad carrier, Northern Securities was not subject to the ICC’s governance, but a federal court found that the Northern Sectaries Company was an illegal monopoly and ordered it dissolved.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the widely publicized case in 1903, earning Roosevelt a reputation as what became known as a trustbuster. Historians have debated the accuracy of that reputation, noting that McKinley actually appointed the attorneys and federal officials involved and planned the antitrust prosecutions. The main difference between the two presidents was that Roosevelt publicized his involvement, whereas McKinley remained more circumspect.

Regulation of Industry

Roosevelt further enhanced his reputation as a reformer by following the antitrust cases with a move to regulate several industries. Railroad reform had its roots in the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act, which had created the ICC. Over the years, the courts had limited the commission’s power, and Roosevelt wanted to reinstate it.

By pushing through the Hepburn Act in 1906, Roosevelt enhanced the ICC’s ability to inspect the financial records of any railroad company it chose. The act also set a maximum rate the railroads could charge. Roosevelt’s active role increased the powers of the chief executive to regulate business and control the economy. It also showcased his ability to compromise and work with members of the opposing party. Before the act’s final passage, he agreed to a Democratic-proposed amendment that would allow judicial review of the ICC’s rate decisions (Cooper, 1990).

Roosevelt also oversaw regulation of the nation’s food and drug providers. Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle (1906) brought nationwide attention to the unsanitary conditions in Chicago’s meatpacking industry. Graphically depicting industry practices, the book called into question the safety of the nation’s meats. For example, Sinclair described a conversation with a government inspector whose job it was to inspect all hogs for deadly tuberculosis. Sinclair (1906) noted that while the inspector explained the “deadly nature of the ptomaines which are found in tubercular pork” (p. 42), dozens of carcasses passed by him on the conveyor belt completely uninspected.

At first Roosevelt found the novel hard to believe, but to be sure he ordered an investigation. He discovered the reality was even worse. Roosevelt moved quickly; in 1906 Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act (establishing more stringent governmental oversight of this industry) and the Pure Food and Drug Act (banning the sale and transport of impure products).

The Conservation Movement

An avid outdoorsman, Roosevelt also became an important advocate for the conservation movement that sought to manage the use of America’s natural resources and preserve them for future generations. He held White House conferences that brought business leaders and academics together to discuss issues such as irrigation, grazing, timberland, and waterway management.

Roosevelt’s interest in the environment and the need for conservation reform was influenced by his friendship with naturalist John Muir. Born in Scotland, Muir came to the United States as a youth and studied botany at the University of Wisconsin before becoming a widely read essayist. He devoted most of his attention to preserving western forest lands from timbering and mining, and he formed the Sierra Club in 1892. Roosevelt traveled with Muir in California, where the naturalist shared with him the wonders of the Yosemite Valley and the great Sequoia redwood forests. Taking his cue from Muir, Roosevelt expanded the nation’s national park system by establishing five important new parks: Crater Lake in Oregon, Wind Cave in South Dakota, Mesa Verde in Colorado, Sully’s Hill in North Dakota (now a game preserve) and Platt National Park in Oklahoma (now part of the Chickasaw National Recreation Area).

Roosevelt also appointed his friend Gifford Pinchot, a professionally trained forester, as chief of the newly created U.S. Forest Service. Pinchot recruited a force of forest rangers, and under his leadership, the Forest Service tripled the nation’s forest reserves to more than 172 million acres.

Among Roosevelt’s legislative achievements in conservation are the Newlands Act of 1902, which initiated irrigation projects funded from public land sales; the creation of an Inland Waterways Commission to explore waterpower development and water transportation; and the National Conservation Commission, which established long-range plans for natural resource usage (Miller, 2013).

Taft’s Presidency

Roosevelt announced his intention not to seek reelection in 1908, a decision he later regretted. Instead, he supported his secretary of war, William Howard Taft, to succeed him. With Roosevelt’s endorsement, Taft won easily, but he failed to continue the former president’s agenda. Roosevelt was soon deeply disappointed in his handpicked successor.

Many of Taft’s policies ran counter to the usual Republican agenda. For example, he lowered the McKinley tariff that many industrialists supported and showed disinterest in continuing Roosevelt’s conservation agenda. Taft approved the transfer of a million acres of protected national park service land to private industry. In 1910 he again earned Roosevelt’s anger when he fired Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot over disputed coal claims in the Alaskan wilderness.

Roosevelt had gained a reputation as a trustbuster, but Taft actually held responsibility for dissolving more trusts and monopolies. He urged a suit against the American Tobacco Company that resulted in an end to the price fixing that harmed small cigarette manufacturers. He also supported a Supreme Court action against the Standard Oil Company declaring it to be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and ordering its vertical organization to be split into separate companies. Taft also supported the push for a graduated income tax, which would affect those with higher incomes most.

Taft stressed economic individualism and the need for government and business to work together to solve society’s problems, but he so alienated party Progressives that a movement to form a third party to express their goals emerged to challenge his reelection in 1912. Although Taft secured the Republican nomination by courting the party’s conservative wing, he put very little effort into the campaign.

Roosevelt and New Nationalism

In 1910 Roosevelt embarked on a speaking tour through the United States, advocating a Progressive governing philosophy he called New Nationalism, which featured a strong president, regulation of corporations and natural resources, and support for the social legislation being championed by social workers and other Progressives. The enthusiasm with which many Americans greeted the tour helped convince Roosevelt to challenge Taft for the Republican nomination in 1912.

Roosevelt at first believed he could easily secure his party’s nomination, but the geographic odds were not in his favor. Although Republican candidates had little chance of winning electoral votes in the solidly Democratic South, that region controlled fully a quarter of the nominating delegates, and these stood firmly in Taft’s column. A divide between the Progressive and conservative delegates followed, creating a schism that threw the nomination to Taft.

Failing in his effort to secure the Republican nomination, Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate for the newly created Progressive Party. It was nicknamed the Bull Moose Party because Roosevelt reportedly told a reporter upon its founding that he felt as fit as a bull moose (Gable, 1978). In a four-way race for president, Taft and Roosevelt split the Republican vote and paved the way for the election of the Democratic contender, Woodrow Wilson. Socialist Eugene V. Debs, who represented the most radical reformers, won no electoral votes but did gain more popular votes than any Socialist Party candidate in U.S. history (see Table 5.2).

The election demonstrated the nation’s continuing commitment to Progressivism, since both Wilson and Roosevelt campaigned on reform platforms. Together, Wilson, the Progressive Democratic governor of New Jersey, and Roosevelt, the head of the new Progressive Party, accounted for almost 70% of the popular vote.

Table 5.2: Election of 1912

Woodrow Wilson and New Freedom

Wilson and Roosevelt were contemporaries just 2 years apart in age, yet despite this fact and their shared Progressive leanings, they were polar opposites in many of their political views. Though they each believed that the president should have vastly expanded powers, they put this belief into practice very differently.

In contrast to Roosevelt’s New Nationalism, Wilson campaigned on what he called his New Freedom platform. He used poetic phrases and called for all Democrats to “organize the forces of liberty in our time in order to make conquest of a new freedom in America” (as cited in Cooper, 1990, p. 182). The main components of the New Freedom agenda focused on the national level and included tariff reform, banking reform, and antitrust laws.

Wilson believed that a lower tariff would weaken the power of large trusts in the United States by allowing more competition from imported goods. The Underwood–Simmons Tariff, also known as the Revenue Act of 1913, lowered basic tariff rates from 40% to 25% and reinstated a graduated federal income tax at the rate of 5%. Unlike earlier income taxes, which had been declared unconstitutional, the recently ratified 16th Amendment protected the tax under the Revenue Act.

Wilson also hoped to eliminate the possibility of future bank failures. His plan was to create a Federal Reserve System of 12 regional banks. The banks were not for the public; instead, they were “bankers’ banks” that set the nation’s interest and currency rates. This became law with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and it is considered one of Wilson’s most important domestic achievements. With the law’s passage, Congress required all nationally chartered banks to become members of the Federal Reserve System. Under the system, Federal Reserve Notes (dollars) became the nation’s unifying and only currency.

A third key area of Wilson’s New Freedom was strengthening antitrust law, as outlined in his message to Congress in January 1914. Wilson felt strongly that government needed to intervene in the nation’s economy to prevent abuses by large corporations (Cooper, 1983). He outlined two goals: an antitrust statute and a new regulatory agency to enforce the law.

The first was the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, which passed rather easily. It strengthened the Sherman Antitrust Act by eliminating price discrimination, making the acquisition of stock in competing companies to control markets illegal, and restricting mergers of large companies with more than $1 million in capital. It remains today the nation’s basic law against the formation of large trusts. However, some have criticized the Clayton Act because corporate lawyers have been able to find ways around its central provisions.

The second part of Wilson’s plan was a regulatory agency called the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which further expanded the power of the federal government. This body heard complaints about trusts and scheduled hearings on unfair practices. Empowered to investigate and prohibit unfair business practices, it aimed to reduce monopolies and activities such as price fixing. Businesses generally supported both the FTC and the Federal Reserve because they leveled the playing field in the economic marketplace and avoided other, more radical, measures for reigning in out-of-control economic practices.

New Freedom for Whom?

Although Wilson expressed concern for social justice, this was one area of his presidency that was much less successful. His programs emphasized the needs of small businesses but did little to address the reform interests of women, workers, or even many middle-class professionals. Social justice concerns had been more readily addressed in Roosevelt’s Progressive Party platform than in the policies of the sitting president. Although he ultimately supported woman suffrage, initially Wilson disappointed women’s activists. Likewise, few of his first-term policies dealt with the persisting problems of the working class.

African Americans fared even worse—they remained disfranchised in the South, and the president paid little attention to the startling violence of lynchings and race riots (Cooper, 2009). Perhaps revealing sensibilities tied to his Virginia roots, Wilson ordered racial separation in government offices, even those that had been integrated since the Reconstruction era. More universally, Wilson preferred a segregated society, advising African Americans not to apply to elite universities but to enroll at African American colleges instead. So it was a New Freedom for some, but for many others, the Wilson years represented a status quo in society that many reformers fought valiantly against.

Constitutional Amendments

During the Progressive era the push to bring change at the national level resulted in changes to the U.S. Constitution. Although multiple amendments were proposed, including one banning alcohol production and consumption and another supporting woman suffrage, the states ratified only two major amendments before the entry of the United States into World War I in 1917.

The 16th Amendment, ratified in 1913 just before Wilson took office, provided the ability for the federal government to collect an income tax from all workers. Support for the income tax came from Progressive reformers who approved of its ability to raise revenue for future reforms. It also came from imperialists, including Theodore Roosevelt, who hoped to use the funds raised to enhance U.S. military capabilities. Earlier attempts to secure an income tax faced repeal, but this amendment ensured the endurance, for example, of the 5% graduated income tax imposed under the Revenue Act of 1913.

The 17th Amendment, ratified in April 1913, provided for the direct election of U.S. senators by the American voters. Previously, they had been appointed by state legislatures. This amendment gained wide support from those who saw the Progressive era as an important opportunity to increase democracy in America. Direct election of senators placed the election of all national legislators in the hands of the American electorate.

Global Exchange of Progressive Ideas

Progressivism touched almost every segment of American society, but the United States was not unique in its quest for reform. The social concerns and problems rapid urbanization and industrialization raised affected other areas of the world as well, and a global exchange of Progressive ideas took shape in the early 20th century. Critical thinkers and reformers in China, Europe, and other places were influenced by the writings of philosophers such as Edward Bellamy and Henry George (see Chapter 3). Many European nations more readily embraced their socialistic ideas by enacting minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, and other welfare reforms decades before the United States (Dawley, 2003). In fact, some U.S. Progressives looked to the social legislation enacted in Europe as a model for change in America.

Americans arguing in favor of woman suffrage, wage and working standards, and temperance joined international coalitions of reformers. Many of the shared ideas came from the left, a political viewpoint that blamed many of society’s inequalities and problems on the rise of the capitalist system. Although many Progressives did not blame capitalism for all social problems, they often borrowed solutions from socialism as needed. Movements for municipal ownership of utilities, social legislation, and wealth redistribution mingled with those for private ownership but also public regulation of business (Dawley, 2003).

As war loomed in 1914, however, many of the Progressive reforms took a backseat to military preparation. Following World War I, global philosophies and entities advocating socialism were viewed in a very different light.

5.4 Society in the New Century

At the turn of the 20th century, America was rapidly becoming a dominant industrial power, attracting millions seeking work and opportunity. However, significant problems lurked under the surface, most notably poor industrial working conditions, racism, gender inequality, and a growing tide of anti-immigrant sentiment. Women, workers, and African Americans fought for rights that would allow them to access political and social channels that might improve their situation.

The Campaign for Woman Suffrage

During the Progressive era, women gained ground in the workplace and in professions such as social work, but they still could not exercise the right to vote in most states. Gradually over the first two decades of the 20th century, the woman suffrage movement gained momentum. Much of this was due to the grassroots organization skills of Carrie Chapman Catt. In 1900 she became the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which had been founded by Susan B. Anthony in 1890, and devised what she called her “winning plan.”

The idea was to focus on winning the right to vote by promoting the issue at the state level. This way she could tailor her message more directly to the people. For example, there was much more tolerance for gender equality in the western states, in part because the hardships of life on the frontier required a greater partnership between men and women than was the case elsewhere. Therefore, the suffrage message to the western women was different than that conveyed to those in the South, who supported more traditional gender roles. By 1914 Catt’s plan was returning important victories; 10 western states allowed women to vote in state elections.

Women and Children in the Workplace

At the turn of the 20th century, while some American women filled increasingly public roles as settlement house workers, social workers, Progressive reformers, and suffrage activists, others faced a very different reality. Various cultural norms dictated a woman’s limitations and opportunities, such as where she could work, learn, and go for entertainment.

The typical life path for a middle-class or upper class White woman was marriage and family, where her responsibility was tending to a home and caring for the needs of her children and spouse. In the Progressive era this began to change as more unmarried middle-class women—not just the poor, immigrants, and non-Whites—entered the labor force, at least for a short period before marriage (Ryan, 2006). There were few professions for middle-class women other than teacher, nurse, or social worker, though.

Clerical work was another option for women. The introduction of the typewriter created the new position of typist, and this profession soon became gendered, or redefined as women’s work. Men slowly lost interest in clerical jobs, and as women filled them, employers began paying less money for the same work.

At the beginning of this transformation, middle-class, high school–educated, native-born White women were the ones who took advantage of these opportunities. Business schools began to emerge that taught women specific skills such as stenography, bookkeeping, and typewriting. In 1870 women accounted for just 3% of clerical workers; in 1890 this increased to 17%. By World War I, clerical work was almost completely feminized and by 1930 was dominated by working-class women (Davies, 1982).

The economic situations of African American, working-class, and immigrant families often demanded that married women, and even children, work outside the home. Many found jobs in tailors’ sweatshops, which were often dimly lit and unregulated workplaces, and in laundries, shoe factories, or other industrial shops. Rose Rosenfeld Freedman’s experience at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was common. Many similar employers preferred to hire teenagers or even younger children, who earned from pennies to 75 cents a day—much less than adult workers, who earned $1.50 to $2 a day (Perry & Smith, 2006). Others took sewing or other work into their homes, where they were generally paid by the piece completed rather than an hourly wage.

Progressive reformers, especially those engaged in settlement house work, took up the cause of women and children industrial workers. In 1903 Jane Addams joined with labor organizers from the American Federation of Labor to form the Women’s Trade Union League, which sought to organize women’s unions and restrict child labor. The league led a series of unions in a general strike in 1909. During what was known as the Uprising of the 20,000, New York’s female garment workers walked off the job demanding higher wages and safer conditions (Bender & Greenwald, 2003). Although the women at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were among the strikers and benefited from a wage increase and shortened workweek, the strike did little to improve working conditions, as evidenced by the 1911 fire.

Reformers were more successful in regulating child labor. As many as 1 in 6 children between ages 10 and 15 worked during the Progressive era, most of them because their families needed the income they could generate. In southern states the children of poor White and African American families picked cotton, while other White children worked alongside their parents in textile mills. In the Northeast, children of immigrant families labored in sweatshops and factories, and many assembled hats or shoes as piecework from their homes. Children experienced the same dangerous conditions as adults and also missed out on education (Perry & Smith, 2006).

A group of reformers and politicians responded to this growing phenomenon by forming the National Child Labor Committee in 1904. Engaging in a national public relations campaign, members joined forces with other reformers to encourage the federal government to create a children’s bureau within the Department of Labor. Congress passed child labor protection with the 1916 Keating–Owen Act, which established national standards of protection for child workers and prohibited those under 14 from working in most industries. It also outlawed employment of those under 16 in mines or quarries.

Congress also allocated $150,000 for the bill’s enforcement, hiring settlement house worker Grace Abbott to direct a new Child Labor Division within the Department of Labor (Frankel & Dye, 1991). Although the law covered only certain segments of the youth workforce, the movement for child protection spread. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional less than 2 years after its enactment, forcing advocates to continue fighting for fair labor standards for children in many industries through state channels. By 1920 most states had passed laws limiting children’s employment and making school attendance compulsory up to age 14.

Margaret Sanger and Family Planning

Another reformer, Margaret Sanger, championed family planning after spending time working as a nurse among working-class families. There she witnessed the aftermath of botched back-alley abortions that desperate women sought because they lacked effective contraceptives. In the early 20th century, before many of the advances of modern medicine, pregnancy and childbirth were still dangerous health conditions and could often result in death.

Married women were expected to fulfill their husbands’ sexual needs, and marital rape was not considered a crime. As one of 11 children born to an Irish American working-class family, Sanger witnessed firsthand the strains of motherhood on women. When she was just 19, her own mother, weakened from 11 live births and 7 miscarriages, died of tuberculosis at age 50.

Economics also figured into demands for family planning. The increased number of women in the workforce made birth control a central issue for Sanger and other reformers. Sanger, who coined the term birth control, argued that controlling the number of children born to working-class mothers could improve the quality of their lives. It would also give all women, including working-class women, more control over their bodies. More importantly, Sanger sought to provide women with access to basic information about how their bodies worked so they might better understand the female cycle and be able to more carefully control their family growth.

The desire to reduce family size was common, and men and women had practiced methods of birth control throughout history. Condoms were available early in the 19th century, and methods such as coitus interruptus were commonly practiced to limit family size. Sanger’s advocacy of artificial means such as douches and rubber diaphragms to prevent pregnancy, however, was radical and illegal.

Federal law prohibited the mailing of contraceptive devices or even information about contraception. The U.S. Post Office confiscated copies of Sanger’s journal, The Woman Rebel, and charged her with obscenity, forcing her to temporarily flee the country. The movement gained popularity in her absence, though, and in 1916 she returned to New York and opened the nation’s first birth control clinic. She was promptly arrested, gaining national notoriety for herself and additional support for the movement (Baker, 2011).

Race and the Challenges of Reform

Women were not the only Americans struggling for rights in the Progressive era. African Americans’ hopes for full equality and civil rights, kindled during Reconstruction, had dissipated by the end of the 19th century. In both the North and the South, race relations continued to deteriorate. With the onset of Jim Crow laws across the South (see Chapter 3), the steady migration of African Americans to the northern states accelerated. The result was greater discrimination in public accommodations and segregated schools in northern communities with growing African American populations. For the majority of African Americans who remained in the South, meanwhile, segregation laws tightened, and by 1910 very few African American southerners were able to vote. All African American elected officials were voted out of office.

The Republican Party, once seen as the champion of African American civil rights, largely demurred on race issues. Hoping to continue courting the African American vote for the Republican Party, in 1901 Roosevelt invited African American leader Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House, an act condemned by White southerners. Facing election in 1904, though, he made no effort to condemn the disfranchisement of African Americans and remained silent following a race riot that rocked Atlanta in 1906. In his public statements, Roosevelt blamed lynching on African American rapists and argued “race purity must be maintained” (as cited in Klarman, 2004, p. 66).

American Experience: The Birth of a Nation

D. W. Griffith’s 1915 silent film The Birth of a Nation, widely recognized as a cinematic masterpiece, is also one of the most controversial films of all time. Based on Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansman (1905), it tells the story of the Civil War and Reconstruction through family drama and sweeping scenes depicting battles and the eventual triumph of the White South, represented by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Griffith spent more than $100,000 to make the 3-hour film, which featured complex edits, jump cuts, pans, and zooms. It was the first American blockbuster, the first film screened at the White House and before the Supreme Court, and the first moviegoing experience for millions of Americans (Stokes, 2007).

The plot follows the lives and relationships of two families, the northern Stonemans and the southern Camerons, through the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. The film’s controversy, then and since, lies in its depiction of African Americans, played by White actors in blackface, as alternatively ignorant, violent, and sexually aggressive toward White women. In contrast, the founding of the KKK appears as a heroic event, saving both White women and the South from race mixing and being overtaken by African Americans. Although offensive to 21st-century viewers, the film reflects the state of race relations in the United States at the time and shows the immense barriers to equality African Americans faced daily.

When it first premiered, there were quite different reviews of the film from White and African American audiences. The Crisis, edited by W. E. B. Du Bois, declared:

The Birth of a Nation is not history; it is travesty. It is not realism; it is an abomination. . . . Some of us have wondered that Negroes of New York and other cities have been patient enough to permit this vile spectacle to be presented day to day without being roused to some act of violence. (Opinions, 1916, p. 175)

White reviewers reacted differently. The Moving Picture World reported, “The drama critics of all of the New York newspapers attended the premiere, and in almost every instance the picture was reported at length and in glowing terms” (as cited in Stokes, 2007, p. 117).

American Lives: Eugene V. Debs

Earning nearly a million votes—6% of the total cast—in his fourth run for the presidency in 1912, Socialist Eugene V. Debs mistakenly believed that the Socialist Party of America (SPA) stood on the edge of an impending electoral revolution. Known as a radical advocate for the working class, Debs and other Socialists shared a vision for a new America in which workers would stand united and solve many of the ills of industrial society.

Under ideal socialism, collective or government ownership of utilities, services, and businesses would in theory equalize the social classes and evenly distribute wealth among the population. Poverty would be reduced, and all citizens would share in the nation’s prosperity. In the Progressive era more than 100 local and state officials and two congressmen were elected under the SPA. Although Progressives were not Socialists, they expressed similar ideals such as making capitalism more responsive to the needs of the average citizen and regulating businesses to level the playing field in major industries.

Ailing health prevented Debs from challenging incumbent Woodrow Wilson in the 1916 presidential election, but as Wilson prepared the country to enter the world war a year later, Debs returned to public life and delivered a series of scathing antiwar speeches. Debs argued that workingmen were disproportionately affected when the nation went to war. They were, he said, exploited as a fighting force for the capitalists who controlled the country. He often told crowds:

The working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. (Debs, 1918)

World War I (1914–1918) posed a more immediate threat to Debs as well. The war sparked Americans’ fears of radicalism from both domestic and international sources, and the Communist victory in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia only added to the hysteria (Goldberg, 1999). Together, these events destroyed the hopes of the country’s growing Socialist movement. The U.S. government directed a campaign to repress Socialists, radical unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World, and other dissidents who dared speak out against the war and the triumph of industrial capitalism.

After a speech in Canton, Ohio, Debs was arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917, which outlawed antiwar activities or anything that might be seen to aid the enemy. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. In 1920 he campaigned from his jail cell for president for a fifth time, again gaining nearly a million votes.

Debs and the Socialist movement continued to lose support in the 1920s, however. Those who applauded Russian bolshevism abandoned socialism for communism (see Table 6.1 later in the chapter). Meanwhile, the currents of conservatism that sparked anti-Socialist and antiforeign hysteria during the war continued, leading to immigration restriction, support for Prohibition, and a diminished tolerance for radicalism.

President Warren G. Harding pardoned Debs in 1921. Unlike many Socialists at the time, Debs did not join the Communist movement (Goldberg, 1999). He never wanted to overthrow the American capitalist system; he only wanted to make it more equitable for the workers who generated the nation’s industrial wealth. He returned to Indiana, and in his remaining years he dwelled on the failure of his brand of socialism and Progressive reform. He died in a convalescent sanitarium outside Chicago in 1926 (Salvatore, 1984).

6.1 Latin American Concerns

Debs opposed war because he believed it exploited the working classes of America and the world, but his position found waning support as the United States expanded its influence internationally. Victory in the Spanish–American War (1898) established the United States as the dominant force in the Western Hemisphere. The territories and protectorates it claimed, and the opening of the Panama Canal in August 1914, gave the United States important reasons to become involved in the region.

Wilson and the Challenge of Spreading Democracy

Woodrow Wilson came to the presidency with little foreign policy experience. His 1912 campaign had focused on domestic issues, especially his agenda for Progressive reform. He appointed pacifist and anti-imperialist William Jennings Bryan as secretary of state and announced that the United States would avoid conflicts in Latin America and respect its movements toward economic development.

Despite his pacifist and isolationist rhetoric, however, international developments such as French and German incursions into Haiti and the eruption of war in Europe forced Wilson to militarily intervene more than any previous president. He promoted the idea that Americans had a responsibility to ensure the spread of democracy, but he limited his idealized democratic vision largely to the White residents of the United States, Canada, and Europe. His interventions in Latin America, for example, suggest Wilson had little confidence in the ability of Haitians and Dominicans to govern themselves.

Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Practical economic concerns fueled Wilson’s interventions into Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Monroe Doctrine proclaimed U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, and the Roosevelt Corollary (see Chapter 4) forewarned European nations against involvement in the region. But growing global interconnections made Latin American nations tempting sources of trade and natural resources.

Haiti was formerly a French colony, and German merchants increased their presence by establishing trading posts in the nation. The country was also wracked with political instability, including the assassination or overthrow of seven presidents in 4 years. Wilson grew concerned that the French and Germans would take advantage of the country’s chaotic political system and jeopardize U.S. economic interests and control of the Western Hemisphere. In 1915 he ordered a military takeover of the nation’s operations, establishing a new constitution that put an American-controlled government in charge of Haitian affairs for the next decade. U.S. troops would occupy Haiti continuously until 1934.

Similar circumstances led to Wilson’s imposition of a military government in the Dominican Republic the following year. He sought to protect U.S. Naval interests and to prevent European nations from stepping into a political vacuum. The interventions in Haiti and the Dominican Republic asserted American dominance over Latin America and stabilized U.S. economic investments, but they did little to spread democracy (Clements, 1992). In fact, Wilson’s actions left Haiti with little say in its own governance and forced the election of a pro-American president in 1915. The Dominican Republic similarly fell under U.S. occupation until 1922, with free elections finally held in 1924.

The Mexican Revolution

More extensive U.S. intervention came in Mexico, where a revolution led by Francisco Madero deposed the dictatorial government of Porfirio Díaz in 1910. American business leaders, who were heavily invested in Mexico’s agriculture and industries, sought a fast resolution to the ensuing unrest and supported the bloody coup of military commander Victoriano Huerta, who assassinated Madero in 1912.

Most Mexicans despised Huerta. Most European nations recognized the new Mexican government, but Wilson, infuriated by Huerta’s actions, refused. After Mexican officials arrested a group of American sailors who intentionally entered a restricted area in Tampico, Wilson sent 800 marines south into Mexico to block arms shipped to Huerta’s forces and occupy the city of Veracruz. His power greatly weakened in the face of U.S. military power, Huerta relinquished control to Venustiano Carranza, whom Wilson recognized as the Mexican president.

Instead of a secure government during Carranza’s presidency, however, instability increased, as bands of workers and farmers demanded that the revolution’s goal of economic equality be upheld. The country’s northern border region became a hotbed of radicalism, with strikes, riots, and bandits attacking individuals and businesses.

Francisco “Pancho” Villa, a rebel commander, emerged as one of the movement’s leaders. He seized property for redistribution to small farmers and took supplies and valuables. During a January 1916 raid on a train carrying gold from an American-owned mine to Texas, Villa’s men killed 17 Americans on board. Two months later Villa and his men crossed into New Mexico to perpetrate another raid, killing more Americans. Wilson promptly sent more than 10,000 troops under control of Maj. Gen. John J. Pershing to pursue Villa, but he eluded capture. The conflict resulted in deaths on both sides and nearly sparked a war between Mexico and the United States.

For some Progressives, including Wilson, the Mexican Revolution, along with instability in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, reinforced their belief in the need for White Americans to manage the affairs of so-called lesser races. Others, such as Theodore Roosevelt, expressed concern that revolutionary chaos in Latin America posed a grave threat to economic investment and property. They believed that American interventions defended rather than undermined republican self-government in Latin America (Dawley, 2003). Some Americans, like Eugene V. Debs, believed that American involvement abroad—and war in general—resulted in unnecessary exploitation of the working class.

Divided reaction to these events reflected a diversity of opinion that would carry over to American involvement in the growing world conflict. The conflict in Europe would find America divided along ethnic lines as well, with many immigrants and newly naturalized U.S. citizens finding it necessary to choose sides between their new nation and their homeland.

6.2 To Make the World Safe for Democracy

In an instant on June 28, 1914, the world changed forever. Bullets fired by a Serbian terrorist killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro–Hungarian throne, and his wife in Sarajevo, Bosnia (see Figure 6.1). Six weeks later, the world was at war. The assassination was like the falling of a single domino that set into motion a chain of events leading to the largest conflict the world had ever seen.

Making up the Central Powers were Germany, Austria–Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey and the Middle East). Against them initially were the Triple Entente (Allies) of Great Britain, France, and Russia. These combatants in the Great War, which would later be called World War I, fought for 3 long and deadly years before the United States ended its isolation and joined the Allies in the conflict.

President Wilson signed a declaration of war against Germany on April 6, 1917, rapidly altering more than a century of American foreign policy (Morton, 1989). In hindsight most historians agree that global and regional developments and incidents in the years leading up to 1917 made American involvement in the Great War all but inevitable.

Figure 6.1: European military alliances of World War I

This map shows the European military alliances during World War I. Russia, the United Kingdom, France (which includes Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia), and Italy were the primary nations of the Allies, while the German Empire, Austria–Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria made up the Central Powers. Several other European nations, including Romania, Greece, and Portugal, joined the Allies as the war progressed.

The Causes of World War I

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was not the sole cause of the war. A decades-long series of diplomatic clashes involving Italy, France, Germany, Britain, Russia, and Austria–Hungary over colonial and European territory and political issues also lay behind the conflict. As these empires grew larger, the balance of power within Europe shifted and arguments over economic and political control flared around the globe.

Just before fighting began, an important dispute centered on territorial control of the Balkans, a geographic region in southeastern Europe claimed by both Austria–Hungary and Russia. Bickering over economic and territorial control in the Balkan region drew in other European nations due to the webs of treaties and alliances that had accumulated over time (Strachan, 1998). Ferdinand’s assassination prompted Austria–Hungary to declare war on Serbia, and the elaborate alliance system soon drew Germany into conflict against Russia, France, and Great Britain.

Growing nationalism—a sense of extreme patriotism that leads citizens to believe in the superiority of their nation’s culture, economy, and military—was another contributing factor. Citizens become more likely to engage in war when they believe that their nation’s leaders and governments are in the right and that their military can quickly win any conflict (Strachan, 1998). Most European leaders believed that the war would be brief, with decisive economic and political benefits to their own nations. Instead, this first major conflict of the modern industrial age proved to be long and vastly more destructive than any previous war.

A New Kind of War

The interconnections among modern and emerging nations made World War I as much an economic contest as a diplomatic or military one. Often called the first total, or modern, war, it quickly became a global conflict. The heaviest fighting occurred in Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Africa. But Europe’s global dominance reached across multiple continents; the colonial empires of Great Britain, Germany, France, and other nations meant that a European conflict had intercontinental implications. Because of the global economic reach of the Europeans, it was difficult for many nations of the world to maintain neutrality, especially when the combatants, or belligerents, could call on colonial subjects in far-flung areas of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to engage in fighting on their behalf (Strachan, 1998).

Modern War and Trench Warfare

Technological sophistication and industrial mobilization made World War I unlike any previous conflict. Technology outpaced war strategy as nations equipped their armies with new and more deadly artillery, hand grenades, machine guns, poison gas, airplanes, and armored tanks. Communication technology in the form of wireless radio transmission made it possible to better coordinate troop movements and transmit intelligence in real time. The belligerent nations combined these powerful technologies with vibrant propaganda campaigns that kept their citizens focused on the war. Britain, France, and Russia each used posters, films, literature, and photographs to mobilize public opinion against Germany, and the Germans similarly vilified their rivals through propaganda.

The advances in firepower in World War I were not accompanied by similar gains in troop mobility. Instead, armies used a defensive system of trench warfare, digging miles of trenches along a front often protected with barbed wire. Much of the war saw thousands of soldiers trapped in muddy trenches, dugouts, or craters as they simultaneously defended their positions and tried to flush the enemy from its facing trenches (Ellis, 1976). This system of underground encampment ensured that the war would drag on much longer than anyone could have imagined when it began.

6.3 The United States in the Great War

When World War I began, Wilson and most Americans favored a policy of neutrality. Separated from Europe by a vast ocean, most viewed the conflict as a calamity that was happening “over there.” Many Americans also believed the conflict demonstrated that a cultural, moral, and political dichotomy divided the warlike, feudalistic Old World and the peaceful, democratic New World.

Though aid organizations collected charitable relief in the form of food, clothing, and medical supplies for civilians in war-torn areas of Europe, for most Americans the outbreak of war was something to be watched from afar. Few believed that the United States would ever be drawn into the fight (Cooper, 1990). The global interconnections of the modern age, however, and especially America’s standing as the world’s major industrial producer, would severely test that belief in the years to come.

America Enters the War Over There

In its nearly 150-year history, the United States had never sent troops into Europe. There were, however, several reasons neutrality in the Great War did not and could not last. One of the most important ones was that by early 1917, Germany appeared to be winning (Mearsheimer, 2003). If in fact Germany did secure victory and rule over Europe, it would damage American economic interests, in part because Britain was a valued trading partner. Global business connections made it virtually impossible for the United States to remain completely neutral in the conflict; in fact, the United States continued to trade with Britain after the war began by sidestepping a German blockade around England.

While the British navy was extremely powerful, its strength was on the surface of the water. In contrast, Germany developed a new submarine technology called the Unterseeboot, or U-boat, which it used very effectively against the British fleet. On May 7, 1915, the world’s attention focused on this deadly weapon when a German U-boat fired on and sank the British luxury liner the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland (Cooper, 1990). Of the 1,198 passengers who died, 128 were Americans.

The American public’s reaction to the attack was initially one of outrage, but once it became known that the ship was in fact listed as an auxiliary warship, tempers cooled considerably. It was soon learned that the Lusitania carried more than 50 tons of munitions produced by a U.S. steel manufacturer.

Few people in the United States called for war even after the sinking of the Lusitania. Wilson worked through diplomatic channels to force Germany to apologize for the attack, compensate American victims, and avoid future strikes. Wilson refused to accept that the British were partly to blame for allowing civilian passengers aboard a ship carrying arms, however. His resolve on the subject led to a bitter disagreement with Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, who resigned over his belief that Wilson was leading the United States closer to the conflict.

In 1916 Americans reelected Wilson, who, despite his growing militancy, campaigned on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” The nation’s hopes for peace and continued isolation from war were soon to end, however. In early 1917 Germany increased its U-boat attacks and declared a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, which superseded the agreement it struck with Wilson after the sinking of the Lusitania. Germany also made a bold attempt to strike an alliance with Mexico, in clear violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Arthur Zimmermann, the German foreign secretary, telegrammed the German embassy in Mexico City and said that the submarines would once again be resuming their destruction.

The telegram also suggested that if Mexico entered the war, Germany would return New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas to Mexico when the Central Powers won. Britain intercepted and decoded the Zimmermann telegram on January 19, 1917, and several weeks later it was in the hands of Americans. Although it inflamed the American public, Mexico had little intention of accepting Germany’s offer. Mexican president Carranza had already experienced the strength of the U.S. military and harbored few illusions that his nation could win. Mexico would also have little ability to integrate and govern the large expanse of territory, especially since American citizens largely inhabited it. Despite these realities, the fact that U.S. territory had been threatened caused many Americans to quickly become prowar.

After the telegram was made public, there were quiet rumors that it was a British ruse aimed at gaining U.S. support. However, Zimmermann himself put such theories to rest when he admitted to sending the message. In April Wilson, hoping to bring a swift end to the conflict, asked Congress to declare war on Germany and commit troops and supplies (Cooper, 1990). In his war message, he mentioned democracy only twice and instead argued that America’s entrance into the war should be considered a necessary means of overthrowing what many came to see as the irresponsible government of Germany.

Mobilizing for War

Although the United States did not enter the war until 1917, the nation had begun preparing for conflict almost since the fighting started. In 1915 Wilson had endorsed a proposal to expand the military. The first step was the National Defense Act of 1916, which increased the size of the U.S. Army and the National Guard and allowed the president to federalize the National Guard, which had previously been under the control of state governors. The act also spurred the production of wartime weapons.

That same year, the Naval Appropriations Act strengthened the navy. Four battleships and eight cruisers were built in the first year (Herring, 2008). As part of a long-term plan of naval preparedness, the bill paved the way for a two-ocean fleet of 60 battleships, making the United States competitive on the high seas (Byrne & Sweeney, 2006).

Despite these efforts, in many ways the United States was unprepared for the hostilities. Assembling a large fighting force was a particular challenge for the nation. At the outbreak of war, the United States had an army that was smaller than the armies of even small European nations. When Wilson declared war, the U.S. Army was still only the 17th largest military in the world. The deadly trench warfare of World War I could deplete the American fighting force of 100,000 very quickly. Britain, for instance, had lost 60,000 men in one day at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 (Ciment, 2007).

Within 2 weeks of declaring war on Germany, Wilson endorsed the first military draft since the Civil War. Congress passed a conscription bill, and the president signed it into law on May 18, 1917. To make conscription more palatable, the bill also initiated a civilian-led Selective Service System to manage the draft and lead a public relations campaign to convince Americans that military service was necessary and their patriotic duty. The draft built a force of more than 2.7 million soldiers over the course of the war. Another 1.5 million volunteered for the army, and 520,000 joined the navy and marines (Cooper, 1990).

On July 4 the first contingent of the American Expeditionary Forces appeared in Paris. Their arrival provided a much-needed morale boost to the Allies. One French soldier observed the U.S. troops as they marched in: “As human beings and raw material, they’re the very best,” he commented to an American reporter. “But they need a deal of training. The hardest thing to teach them is not to be too brave” (as cited in Coffman, 1998, p. 4).

Enemy machine guns had a way of quickly silencing youthful bravado. Before long many suffered from shell shock in response to the trauma of battle. Akin to the post-traumatic stress disorder common in today’s soldiers, those who saw the horrors of battle that modern weapons made possible often experienced intense fear, ringing in the ears, and a sense of helplessness. Some World War I soldiers suffering shell shock were initially considered cowardly, and in 1917 the British army banned it as a medical diagnosis. As more soldiers exhibited symptoms, the military experimented with treatments, but the condition remained ill defined and ill treated throughout the war.

The American Soldier

The average American infantry soldier was 22 years old and leaving the United States for the first time in his life. Nearly 20% of soldiers were foreign born and 1 in 10 were African American. Many were working class and young, did not possess a high school diploma, and were linked to various ethnic groups.

Martin Hogan recalled joining the National Guard at 17, lying about his age and believing he could “go to France and grow up with war” (Hallas, 2000, p. 8). As an Irish American he chose to join the New York 69th Infantry Regiment because it included many Irish among its ranks. Joseph E. Rendinell from western Pennsylvania quit his job in a steel mill to join the U.S. Navy over the objections of his parents. Ranch hand Dan Edwards was already in the U.S. Army Reserve but reenlisted as soon as he heard of the declaration of war. Along with 32 of his coworkers, he caught a train to Waco, Texas, where they were processed and classified (Hallas, 2000).

Progressive era efficiency was applied to the military, with recruits classified through intellectual and psychological testing and assigned according to their abilities and aptitudes. Over the course of the American involvement in the war, almost 1.7 million intelligence tests were administered. An alpha test was administered to literate recruits, and a beta test to those who could not read or with poor English skills. Most recruits performed poorly because the tests were designed with literate high school graduates in mind, and many soldiers did not fit that background (Keene, 2006).

Clergymen, psychologists, social workers, and recreational specialists worked to provide recruits with a morally uplifting and sometimes repressive introduction to military life (Cooper, 1990). Organizations held soldiers’ dances but often imposed strict rules of conduct, including dress codes, control over lighting and music, and the types of dance allowed. Singing was another group activity for recruits and soldiers. Songs for group performance were carefully selected to promote patriotism and moral uplift (Keene, 2006).

African American Soldiers

Among the more than 4 million who served in the U.S. military during World War I were 367,710 African Americans, 96% of whom were conscripts (during the period when the military accepted volunteers, only 4,000 slots were opened for African Americans). African Americans constituted 13% of the military, but only 10% of the general population. Subjected to the same testing as White soldiers, African Americans were mustered into segregated regiments. African American leaders, including W. E. B. Du Bois, urged African Americans to support the war, arguing that their valiant service would help bring down some of the walls of prejudice. In the end, however, the war did little to advance civil rights.

Few African Americans saw combat. Many African American troops hoped that combat service would demonstrate their ability to fight alongside White soldiers and curb some of the virulent racism permeating American society. Instead, most who were sent to Europe, about half of those conscripted, worked as manual laborers, loading and unloading supplies and equipment under White supervision. Others served as drivers, personal aides, or porters for White officers (Lentz-Smith, 2009). The other half remained in the United States, serving out their conscription in manual labor positions on the home front. Overall, African Americans made up a third of the military’s laboring units (Keene, 2006).

Following complaints from the NAACP, the War Department finally established an African American officer candidate’s program in June 1917, and some 1,200 African American officers earned an officer’s commission by the war’s end (Cooper, 1990). Even those advancing to officer rank encountered discrimination that prevented their advancement in the military, however. Some White commanding officers routinely declared African American artillery officers inefficient, for example, and recommended that all of them be replaced.

African American recruits were also often hassled or attacked by southern Whites. In August 1917 a clash between Whites and African American soldiers in Houston, Texas, prompted the harassed soldiers to lash out against those imposing the laws that kept African Americans and Whites separate, known as Jim Crow laws. The riot was sparked when an African American soldier intervened to prevent a White policeman from beating an African American woman. The soldier was arrested and beaten, and a rumor spread among African American recruits that he had been murdered. The 2-day riot resulted in 19 deaths, including 2 African American soldiers and 17 White men, at least 4 of whom were police officers. More than 100 African American soldiers were court-martialed and 13 were hanged (Barbeau & Henry, 1996).

Industry and the War

While the war began to expose the cracks in America’s racist and discriminatory systems, it served to stimulate the U.S. economy. The United States was economically committed to the Allied effort long before declaring war in 1917. Soon after hostilities erupted, the British ordered 400,000 rifles from U.S. manufacturers. Under the advisement of Allied experts, many factories retooled their production lines to shift from producing consumer goods to military ones, and began mass-producing rifles, artillery, machine guns, cartridges, and gunpowder.

The House of Morgan, the large bank headed by J. P. Morgan, Jr., acted as commission broker for the Allies. Between January 1915 and April 1917, Morgan purchased a staggering $3 billion worth of munitions, foodstuffs, raw materials, chemicals, and machine tools. By the time the United States entered the war, American manufacturing plants were producing 15,000 rifles daily for shipment to the British and Russians.

The British and the Allies became dependent on the United States for the munitions, supplies, and financing needed to wage the war, and the economic benefit to American industrialists grew exponentially as the conflict continued. In order to pay for the needed supplies, the Allies liquidated their assets and overseas investments, sending gold and seeking credit from the United States (Zieger, 2000).

The Home Front

Military mobilization required a corresponding civilian mobilization. The conception of a total war meant that most of the nation’s resources were refocused on the war effort. The military had to be supplied with equipment and transported to the war zone. Americans also had to be convinced that the significant strains the war placed on the economy and individual lives were worth it. As young men moved from production occupations to the military, women stepped in to fill their roles in factories and mills across the nation. Conservation of food resources was also essential to the war effort.

Bureaucracy and the War

The United States had few centralized agencies that could be used to manage the massive mobilization the war effort required. The Selective Service System, for example, had no federal police force to enforce the draft. Instead, the government relied on people to voluntarily comply with many aspects of the war’s administration.

The creation of a War Industries Board (WIB) under the direction of Bernard M. Baruch, a Wall Street investment banker, aimed to coordinate a number of committees to oversee the production and distribution of war materials across a number of industries. For example, the WIB was charged with convincing the automobile industry to convert to production of tanks and trucks for the war effort.

Wilson put the nation’s railroads under the supervision of the U.S. Railroad Administration and funneled $500 million in federal funds for improvements and equipment. Wilson also recruited a number of academics and business experts to supervise various segments of the wartime economy. Many of the businessmen donated their time or received $1 in government salary, becoming known as “dollar-a-year men.” Among them, the president of the Aluminum Company of America oversaw the WIB’s aluminum needs, and a former executive of the John Deere Corporation headed the agricultural implements division.

Guaranteeing companies would recover the cost of retooling plus make a profit, the WIB convinced Black & Decker to manufacture gun sights and Akron Tire to retool for production of army cots. The Evinrude Company stopped making boat motors and instead turned out grenades. Future president Herbert Hoover managed the production and distribution of food to American troops and the Allies (Cooper, 1990).

While the United States did not experience food shortages, the Allied nations in Europe were in dire need of basic supplies such as flour. World War I interrupted the ability of Allied nations to plant food crops necessary to sustain their populations. Americans were urged to conserve wheat, corn, barley, meat, and vegetables in order to supply the citizens of Allied nations. U.S. Food Administration advertising campaigns reached out in multiple languages, ensuring that recent immigrants would receive the conservation message alongside native English speakers.

Management of the economy had the unexpected consequence of drumming up government support for labor organization. Wilson’s administration grew concerned that a tight labor market, in which there were more jobs than workers, would disrupt wartime production. Between 1914 and 1920 Americans witnessed an average of 3,000 significant strikes occur annually, as workers demanded workplace security and safety and a fair share of the growing fruits of consumer capitalism (Zieger, 2000).

In an effort to quell labor unrest, Wilson formed the National War Labor Board. Headed by former president Taft, the board affirmed workers’ rights to collective bargaining, set minimum wages and maximum work hours, and even guaranteed equal pay for female workers. In exchange, labor organizations agreed not to strike for the duration of the war. Never completely successful in preventing work stoppages, government support did help swell union membership. The nation’s largest trade union, the American Federation of Labor, grew from 2.7 million members in 1916 to more than 4 million a year later.

Women, African Americans, and Wartime Industry

America’s entrance into World War I brought issues of race, class and gender to a critical head at home. Mobilization created an urgent demand for workers, but the onset of war in 1914 had all but stopped the flow of European immigrants who had filled many of the industrial jobs during the Gilded Age and Progressive era. Immigration fell from 1.2 million in 1914 to less than 300,000 the following year. In many industries women and African Americans stepped into industrial occupations that had long been the domain of White men.

The number of women employed outside the home had increased after 1910, but most worked in gender-specific occupations such as office work, teaching, or textile manufacturing. Women’s work during the Great War represented a shift within the female labor force. Work in war industries provided opportunities for clerks, schoolteachers, and telephone operators to move into well-paying industrial jobs in the war industries (Greenwald, 1980).

Many of the women laboring in war industries were already part of the workforce at the onset of mobilization. Unlike middle-class women, who were generally able to remove their labor from the workforce after marriage, many working-class women continued to work even after marrying and having children. The war offered an opportunity for these women to earn higher wages and better contribute to the family economy.

The best opportunities were open to White women who labored as welders, operated heavy equipment, and worked in tire factories, and for the duration of the war they earned wages equivalent to those paid to men. African Americans found the war opened job opportunities to them as well. Labor agents for industry, railroads, and coal mines traveled south to recruit African American men and some women to fill the void left when more than 3 million entered military service.

Part of a massive migration of men and women from the South, called the Great Migration, that would continue into the next decade, African American workers were welcomed into many positions and industries previously denied to them. In the years surrounding World War I, between 450,000 and 500,000 reached the cities of the North.

For many African American men, migration during the war gave them their first foothold in solid industrial employment. African American men earned good wages in heavy industry, but African American women found their experiences very different from those of their White counterparts. Most remained concentrated in traditional forms of female employment, especially agricultural labor and domestic or personal service. Those who did enter industry found the best paying options in garment trades, government arsenals, or the railroad. African American women constituted only about 15% of female industrial employees during the war (Greenwald, 1980).

Although conditions were better in the North, few African American migrants found their new homes to be the “promised land” they sought. The war years were fraught with racial conflict in the labor market, and many faced hostility from Whites in the workplace as well as housing discrimination. At the conclusion of the war, the nation faced an economic downturn when wartime production suddenly stopped. African American populations came under attack in numerous cities, and race riots erupted in places such as Chicago during the so-called red summer of 1919. But despite the violence and discrimination, African Americans continued to migrate north and eventually west in search of better conditions and economic opportunities.

Patriotism and Loyalty

Patriotism was another issue that concerned the Wilson administration. Opposition to American intervention did not end once Congress declared war. A persistent peace contingent, which included a growing number of Socialist Party members, especially Eugene V. Debs, stood against U.S. involvement.

It might be expected that Socialists and other radicals would speak out against a war that they saw as a capitalist endeavor, but so too did important conservative voices, including industrialist Andrew Carnegie. He opposed the conflict on moral grounds, and since he had already sold his steel corporation, he was not concerned with the earnings to be made from production of armaments that might have kept some other industrialists from speaking out. Devoting many of his later years to the goal of world peace, Carnegie worked diligently to form a religiously oriented organization to bring an end to war for all time (Chambers, 1991).

To counter the objections of such diverse segments of society and to rally support for the war effort, Wilson embarked on a campaign to sell the war to the American public. In April 1917 the Committee on Public Information (Creel Committee) organized to guide public opinion. Headed by George Creel, a Progressive reformer and journalist, the committee hired journalists, scholars, moviemakers, and psychologists to publicize the war effort. The committee created poster campaigns, short videos, and, most effectively, recruited speakers known as Four Minute Men. Mostly local volunteers, these 75,000 speakers disseminated a new speech to their fellow community members each week on topics such as conserving food and why the nation was fighting.

The Creel Committee effectively sold the war, but at the expense of some segments of society. Portraying the Allies in a favorable light and the enemy, especially Germans and radicals, as evil or less than human took its toll on the ethnic and immigrant populations in the United States (Harries & Harries, 1997). As a result, many ethnic Americans, especially Germans, felt split between their heritage and their American identity.

One Hundred Percent Americanism and Civil Liberties

Patriotism also meant defining just what it meant to be American. This aspect of the war led to a measurable curtailing of civil liberties, the basic rights and freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution. The Creel Committee inspired ordinary citizens to be on the watch for disloyalty. German Americans, radical labor unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World, and members of the Socialist Party came under increasing suspicion.

Before the war, German was the most widely taught language in American schools, but it soon disappeared from the nation’s curriculum. Some states, such as Ohio, enacted laws forbidding the teaching of German language below the eighth grade in both public and private schools. The New York Times announced that any books or journals printed in German should be considered potentially suspicious. Pittsburgh banned Beethoven’s music, frankfurters became Liberty sausages, and hamburgers became Salisbury steak. More importantly, German Americans’ homes and businesses were attacked, and individuals were regularly harassed. Some were forced to salute the American flag in public, while others were beaten or even lynched (Harries & Harries, 1997).

The IWW and the Socialist Party of America both condemned American entrance into the war and urged the world’s workers to refuse to fight. Both the union and the SPA argued that war only exploited the working class and brought them no benefits. The government countered the outspoken behavior of the IWW and radical leaders such as Debs with a series of laws that restricted civil liberties and suppressed dissent. The 1917 Espionage Act prohibited spying and interfering with the draft and suppressed any false statements that might harm the war’s progress. Newspapers and magazines critical of the government were removed from the nation’s mail.

The following year Congress passed the Sedition Act, making it a crime to criticize the government in print or in speech. Over the duration of the U.S. involvement in the war, more than 2,000 people were arrested and about half of them convicted. The act gained strength after a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Schenck v. United States in 1919. Upholding the conviction of Socialist Charles T. Schenck for mailing antidraft flyers, the court argued that the First Amendment did not guarantee speech designated to provoke “clear and present danger” (as cited in Cooper, 1990, p, 300) and inspire criminal behavior.

Most famous among the applications of the Sedition Act was the 1919 conviction of Debs for delivering an antiwar speech at Canton, Ohio. His sentence of 10 years in prison was the most onerous of all those convicted, and President Wilson ignored the advice of his attorney general to free him on the grounds that his imprisonment would garner support for the Socialists’ cause (Cooper, 1990).

The new laws prompted an outcry from some Progressives. Roger Baldwin, a social worker who refused to register for the draft, formed an organization aimed at protecting civil liberties. Founded in 1917 as the National Civil Liberties Union, the organization was renamed the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Beginning as a coalition of pacifists and Progressives who were shocked at the repression of free speech during the war, the group actually found its own pamphlets supporting free speech banned. Persisting after the war, the ACLU grew into its modern role as the champion of traditional civil liberties. The organization remains the nation’s most prominent defender of the freedom of speech and the right to privacy (Cooper, 1990).

The War and Its Aftermath

American conscripts and volunteers mustered into units and were trained to be both good soldiers and men with high morals and civic values. Progressive reformers, including many settlement house workers, educated troops on proper etiquette and the necessity of abstaining from vice and drinking, but neither the military nor civic education fully prepared them for the reality of battle. Although American involvement in World War I was relatively short, between March 1918 and the war’s end in November of that year, more than 2 million U.S. troops served in combat areas and participated in four major engagements.

The largest contingent of the American Expeditionary Forces arrived in France, where they huddled alongside the Allies in trenches that stretched for miles across the Western Front (see Figure 6.2). This line stretched across France, marking the division between territory controlled by the Central Powers to the east and the Allies to the west. Separated from the enemy’s trenches by only a few hundred feet, when ordered “over the top,” they emerged to face the enemy, barbed wire, poison gas, and machine-gun fire (Zieger, 2000).

Figure 6.2: The Western Front, 1914–1918

The Western Front, geographically centered in France and Belgium, saw some of the heaviest fighting during World War I.

Bloodshed at Meuse–Argonne

U.S. troops were crucial in the final Allied offensive, which began on September 26, 1918, and lasted until the war’s end on November 11. More than a million U.S. soldiers, under the leadership of Gen. John J. Pershing, began an assault on German forces at Meuse–Argonne, a region of France. Though Pershing thought that he would only need 36 hours to break the German defenses, it required 6 weeks of some of the most fearsome and intense fighting—through hills, swamps, forests, and towns—that Americans had ever experienced. Using 324 tanks, 840 airplanes, and artillery that fired more than 4 million shells, it was America’s most important and costliest contribution to the war.

By the end of the campaign, 26,277 Americans lay dead and another 95,786 were wounded, making it one of the bloodiest battles in American history. Today the Meuse–Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial at Romagne is the resting place for 14,246 U.S. soldiers who died in this battle and is the largest American cemetery in Europe (Lengel, 2008).

The End of the Great War

The same month that the bloody battle of Meuse–Argonne began, the Germans retreated to the Hindenburg Line, their defensive position on the Western Front, where during one 24-hour period, Britain and France fired nearly a million shells. Allied commanders convinced the Germans that they could not win the war, and negotiations for an armistice, or end to the fighting, began. One by one, the Central Powers surrendered. German military leaders, watching as a quarter million of their troops deserted between August and September, knew that this was their only option as well.

At the end of the war, three great empires collapsed—the Austro–Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman. All of Europe was devastated, and the continent had changed drastically. Old countries were demolished and new boundaries drawn. Occurring a year before the armistice, the Russian Revolution resulted in significant additional casualties and the eventual creation of the Soviet Union. Revolutions spread through other European nations in the immediate postwar period. Militant nationalism split the Austro–Hungarian Empire into separate nations based on ethnicity and national alliance. Collapse of the Ottoman government at Constantinople paved the way for the shaping of the modern Middle East.

All of the empires and nations involved suffered substantial casualties. Among the Allies, Americans suffered the fewest military casualties, with 117,000 dead and 205,000 wounded. France lost 1.4 million military personnel and civilians, Russia lost 2.8 million military personnel and civilians, and the British Empire lost just over a million military personnel and civilians.

Fourteen Points and the League of Nations

The armistice that was signed on November 11, 1918—Armistice Day—ended the fighting, but it took another 6 months of negotiation in Paris to settle the necessary division of territory and responsibility for the conflict. Wilson traveled to the Paris conference, accompanied by a contingent of Progressive-minded experts and professionals, to press for acceptance of his Fourteen Points, which he believed would spread a lasting peace across Europe. His plan argued for freedom of the seas, free trade, arms reduction, and other measures aimed at specific nations. Perhaps idealistically expecting that the Allies shared his vision for world peace, Wilson was surprised to find that Britain, France, and Italy had little interest in his ideas. Ultimately, they rejected 13 of his 14 points. These European nations had faced serious physical devastation from the war and were most interested in regaining their territory and, especially, in punishing Germany.

The most important surviving point from Wilson’s Fourteen Points was the proposal for a League of Nations, an international government body to maintain world peace through collective security and disarmament. This portion of Wilson’s plan was popular with most of the Allies and earned him important diplomatic respect.

The Treaty of Versailles that finally emerged from the negotiations outlined the terms of peace between Germany, the main combatant among the Central Powers, and the Allies. Germany signed the treaty on June 28, 1919, precisely 5 years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Other members of the Central Powers signed additional treaties. Most striking and significant for the future, Germany was forced to accept responsibility for causing all loss and damage during the war. The treaty imposed territorial concessions and severe financial reparations on the Germans that left them angry and fostered discontent within German society (Andelman, 2008).

Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, but his peacemaking efforts received less approval in the United States than in Europe. Members of the U.S. Senate, which ratifies treaties, were reserved about accepting the results of the Paris conference, and especially about American membership in the League of Nations. Of particular concern was the league’s collective security clause, which required states to act, even against friendly states, in ways that might endanger their own national security and economic interests.

Isolationists feared further entanglement in European affairs and sought to limit and define the role of the United States under the treaty. Some Democrats sought to amend the league proposal to introduce some reservations on the collective security clause, but Wilson refused to consider any changes. Eventually, the senate rejected the treaty and U.S. membership in the League of Nations, citing American autonomy and fear of future wars (Cooper, 1990). Between 1919 and 1939, 63 nations joined the League of Nations, but the United States was not among them.

6.4 Unease and Unrest on the Home Front

In 1919 the American home front was a volatile place. There was peace because the fighting ended, but the atmosphere was in many ways savage: Demobilization after the war was chaotic; Americans grew hysterically fearful of communism, especially after a terrorist bomb exploded on the doorstep of the U.S. attorney general; J. Edgar Hoover established what would become the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to gather intelligence on “suspicious people”; labor unrest and conflict occurred daily; the League of Nations failed; and legislation restricted First Amendment rights and curbed governmental criticism.

To make matters even worse, the world suffered from an influenza pandemic, which brought misery and death to many families across the nation. There were even scandals in the national pastime, with the 1919 baseball World Series deliberately fixed by some of the players. In Boston the police went on strike. Finally, there was tremendous racial unrest. The most sadly symbolic story was of an African American man in northern Alabama who was hung from a tree on Armistice Day. He was one of 64 African American men and women lynched that year. It was indeed a tenuous peace (Hagedorn, 2007).

Demobilization and Labor on Strike

While in many ways the end of the war brought welcome relief, in others it created new and significant problems. The U.S. military had expected the war to last at least another year, so it had constructed a massive fighting force of 4 million men, half of whom were in France when the fighting ceased. Although much forethought accompanied the mobilization process, few preparations had been made for how to demobilize after the war. One of the immediate problems was employment for the returning veterans. There were suddenly 3 million young men looking for jobs. Along with the newly unemployed, the government also began canceling numerous wartime contracts with American businesses (Venzon, 1999).

As a result, most of labor’s wartime gains quickly eroded. Businesses attacked labor unions and rescinded the 8-hour workday and higher wartime wages. Strikes broke out throughout the nation as more than 3,600 small and large work stoppages occurred, involving as many as 4 million workers.

The most emblematic strike of the year affected the nation’s steel industry. Executives announced a return to 7-day workweeks with 12-hour shifts, all for lower wages (Brody, 1987). Leaders of the newly formed United Steelworkers called for a general strike across the industry, and in September more than 250,000 steel workers in 15 states walked off the job. Corporate executives hired 30,000 strikebreakers and embarked on a publicity campaign to convince the public that the strikers were Socialists bent on overthrowing the American capitalist system. After more than 3 months on the picket line, the strike collapsed, foreshadowing a major decline in the labor movement (Cooper, 1990).

Race Riots

Another challenge in 1919 was racial conflict; in several cities, this erupted into riots. Although African Americans fought brilliantly during World War I, they faced continual discrimination, which only intensified at the war’s end. The animosity reached its height during the summer of 1919 in Chicago.

The conflict started when an African American boy violated an unwritten law by visiting a “White beach” and entering the water in a raft. White boys began to throw rocks at him, eventually knocking him off the raft. The boy could not recover, and he drowned. Some nearby African Americans pleaded with the police to arrest the stone-throwing boys, but they would not.

From this epicenter, African Americans reacted violently to the failure to uphold justice, and the fighting spread throughout Chicago (Sandburg, 1919). Groups of armed Whites began heading toward the African American section of the city, where they shot their guns into crowds of gathering African Americans. One casualty was an African American soldier who was walking along the street, limping from a wound incurred fighting for the nation in the war just months before. Moments after he sarcastically remarked on the welcome home he was receiving, several Whites beat him to death (Painter, 2006).

The country had suffered similar violence for decades, but what was different this time was that African Americans fought back with a vengeance. One group of African Americans killed several Whites in the back of a pickup truck who were shooting a machine gun. The rioting lasted a week and resulted in 537 people injured, at least 1,000 houses burned, and 38 dead (23 African Americans and 15 Whites). The magnitude of the Chicago riot was duplicated in other cities in succeeding years, but the summer of 1919 became nationally known as the “red summer” due to the violence and bloodshed (Tuttle, 1996).

Red Scare

Coincidentally, it was the “red summer” for another reason as well—the fear of the spread of radical political ideology. Americans’ fears of radicalism expanded during the war and continued to spread after it ended. The Russian Revolution of 1917 put a new name on the radical threat emanating from Europe. Actually a series of revolutions that began in March 1917, by November the Bolshevik Party led by Vladimir Lenin emerged to control the Russian central government. As members of a Socialist-minded political organization, the Bolsheviks hoped to reshape Russia into a worker’s paradise. By 1919 Bolsheviks and the Socialist system they advocated had become the most dangerous threat to American life.

The Bolsheviks called for worldwide Communist revolution in the spring of 1919, leading many Americans to fear they would take over the United States. Although there were several thousand Communists in the nation, there was no plan to overthrow the government or the economic system. Nevertheless, fear of a radical takeover led to a full-fledged Red Scare (so called because a red star was the most recognized symbol of worldwide communism).

Not taking time to understand the subtle but important differences between communism and socialism (see Table 6.1), Americans applauded attacks on anyone or any organization deemed to be radical. After an anarchist’s bomb exploded outside his home, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer stepped up enforcement against radicals. He organized federal agents and local police departments, who executed a series of raids in November 1919. Agents rounded up more than 249 leftists, including the anarchist Emma Goldman, and sent them aboard a ship to Russia.

On the night of January 2, 1920, Palmer coordinated an even larger series of roundups, led by FBI head J. Edgar Hoover. Ignoring civil liberties, freedom of association, and restrictions on making arrests without cause, or habeas corpus, federal officers arrested more than 4,000. The raid represented what one historian has called “the greatest single assault on constitutional rights that had ever taken place in the United States” (Dawley, 2003, p. 269). Instead of being an anomaly, the Palmer raids punctuated the nature of a growing national divide that became more evident in the decade to come as the United States struggled with the tensions between tradition and modernity.

Table 6.1: Communism versus socialism

A Victory for Women

nother sign of advancing modernity came with the long-awaited victory for woman suffrage advocates. World War I presented new opportunities and offered new arguments for woman suffrage. Nearly 25,000 women had served as nurses and relief workers alongside American soldiers in France. Thousands more worked for war-related industries in the United States. Suffrage advocates found new allies during World War I and switched from a state-to-state approach to advocacy for a constitutional amendment that would give women the right to vote.

The more radical suffragist Alice Paul began advocating a more visible strategy, one quite different from the controlled and refined suffrage movement of the 19th century. Paul organized 5,000 women in 1913 to rally in Washington on the day before the inauguration of new president Woodrow Wilson because, at the time, he was not certain that women should be allowed to vote. One year later, Paul left the National American Woman Suffrage Association and formed the Congressional Union.

This organization strove to enact a constitutional amendment to grant women voting rights nationally. Paul also organized what she called the Silent Sentinels, who became the first group ever to picket in front of the White House. On January 1, 1917, they stood rigid and silent in front of the presidential home with banners that demanded the right to vote. Paul said that the strategy was to “visualize the movement to the man and woman on the street” to become “part of the vocabulary of the nation” (Keene & Adams, 2008, p. 162). Because of the White House demonstrations, Paul was arrested for obstructing traffic and sent to jail, where she went on a hunger strike and was subjected to force-feeding. Vociferous public protest eventually secured her release.

On January 10, 1918, almost a year after the Silent Sentinels began protesting, the suffragists won a major victory when the House of Representatives narrowly approved a woman suffrage amendment. The Senate required further convincing, but Wilson worked with those in favor of the amendment and privately tried to convince key Democrats not to block a vote. Wilson argued that women were crucial to the war effort at home and abroad. He asked, “Shall we admit [women] only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?” (as cited in Cooper, 1990, p. 308)

Though persuasive to some, Wilson’s efforts fell just short, and the amendment did not gain the necessary two thirds of the votes in the Senate. Suffrage organizations continued to fight, and in that fall’s election they campaigned against two Republican and two Democratic senators who had opposed woman suffrage. In a demonstration of their growing political power, three of those senators lost their reelection bids and the fourth barely held on to his seat. In the wake of this display of power, 1 year later the amendment passed both the House and the Senate. It was then ratified by the required number of states, and in August 1920, the 19th Amendment became a part of the U.S. Constitution. In November of that year, for the first time women across the nation voted in a presidential election (Cooper, 1990).