War and Prosperity

After the conclusion of the Great War, the world moved into the 1920s. The 1920s were a time of many changes in the economic and social aspects of life in the United States. Following World War I, the United States struggled to return to what President Warren G. Harding called "normalcy". However, the impact of the war, the new age of consumerism, the automobile, and the growth of the suburbs contributed to the creation of a different and new national lifestyle.

While transportation and communications technology served to unite the nation, a clash of values between the new urban-centered life and the legacy of the traditional rural life caused uneasiness and conflict. In addition, all Americans did not share in the good times. Beneath the surface was an economy with structural flaws that brought the Roaring Twenties to an abrupt end with the stock market crash in October 1929.


The Impact and Aftermath of War

World War I triggered a number of important changes in American society, most notably for some women and for many immigrants and African-Americans. Some changes were subtle and gradual while others were immediate and dramatic.

As many men went off to fight in Europe, the roles and responsibilities of women were affected. Their family responsibility increased. They contributed to the war effort as volunteers. Some women went to work in male-dominated fields, such as workers in weapons and munitions factories. Many women served overseas with the Red Cross and Salvation Army. Most, however, worked in traditionally female jobs, for which there was an increased demand. Contrary to popular belief, only about five percent of the women who entered the wartime workforce were new to working outside of the home. At war's end, with the return of male workers, women were expected to quit their jobs or to return to more traditional female work. Between 1910 and 1920, only 500,000 more women were added to the workforce.

The war had harsh consequences for immigrant families. Further immigration to the United States came to a screeching halt. About 18 percent of the American troops were foreign-born. However, many immigrant families already in the country faced fierce social and job discrimination in an antiforeign climate whipped up by the war.

Most African-American civil rights leaders supported World War I, and some 400,000 African-Americans served in the war. African-American soldiers were assigned to segregated units and often worked as laborers. Discrimination in the military was common during this time. Where African-Americans saw combat, they served with distinction. Several African-American regiments who fought alongside French troops were honored by the nation. Upon returning home, many African-American soldiers questioned why the liberties and freedoms they had fought to preserve in Europe were denied to them in their own country.

The Great Migration

After the Civil War, African-Americans began to migrate to the North, attempting to flee the racism and discrimination they faced in the agricultural South for what they imagined would be a better life in the industrial North. In the South, jobs were lost due to floods and crop damage, and in the North, workers were needed to meet war production goals beginning around 1910. The flow of immigrant labor was stopped due to the fighting in WWI, which created a need for workers to replace those in uniform.

After the war, this Great Migration continued. From 1910 through 1930, and even going into the 1940s, almost 2 million African-Americans had left the South. Although in the North they were usually able to improve their well being, they were still subject to racism and discrimination and it was fairly common for race riots to break out.

A Return to Normalcy

After WWI, disillusioned Americans wanted to return to the traditional foreign policy of isolationism. The 1920 landslide election of Republicans Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge represented the desire of many Americans to remove themselves from the pressures of world politics and the idealistic goals of the Progressives. While Progressivism continued, it was a slower pace largely at the state and local levels.

Next time here on The Half-Pint Historian Blog, we're going to examine the period of the Roaring 1920s. 

The Search for Peace

Hello readers! It's been quite a while since I last wrote here on the blog. I've been busy putting together my manuscript for The History Press, and I am happy to announce that my manuscript has been submitted for publication. It still amazes me that I was given this great opportunity to make my dream of becoming a historian come true. I will continue to keep you all updated as to the status of my book as it moves through the channels and will let you all know when it becomes available.

In the meantime, let's pick up where we left off...

World War I ended with an Allied victory in November 1918. The United States, particularly President Woodrow Wilson, played a role in the peacemaking process. Wilson had first suggested his own peacemaking proposals in January 1918, known as the Fourteen Points. To summarize, Wilson's Fourteen Points included: open, not secret, diplomacy; freedom of the seas; removal of trade barriers; arms reduction; self-determination of peoples (letting various national groups make their own political decisions); and the creation of an "association of nations" to guarantee political independence and territorial integrity.

Wilson's Fourteen Points became the basis for the peace negotiations that would be held in Versailles, France beginning in January 1919. Wilson led the American delegation, being the first president of the United States to leave American soil while in office.

Many of the Eurolean nations, who had suffered far greater than the United States, were not fully on board with Wilson's Fourteen Points. They wanted to be repaid for some of their losses they had suffered during the war, and some had even made secret wartime deals involving territorial changes and money settlements that contradicted provisions of the Fourteen Points.

The most important agreement reached at Versailles was the treaty with Germany, the Treaty of Versailles. According to its provisions, Germany had to do the following: accept complete responsibility for causing the Great War; pay huge reparations to the Allies; give up its military forces; cede lands to the new nations of Poland and Czechoslovakia; and give up its overseas colonies.

Wilson opposed many of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles and treaties with the other Central Powers; however, he was willing to compromise because the treaties provided for a new world organization, the League of Nations, a predecessor to the United Nations. Wilson believed that the League of Nations would correct any problems caused by the peace treaties.

The League of Nations

The United States Senate had to approve the Treaty of Versailles that included the League of Nations, and it was there that Wilson was truly met with opposition. Wilson had angered Republicans by excluding them from the American delegation to the Versailles Conference yet Republicans held a majority of seats in the Senate. Wilson and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Henry Cabot Lodge distrusted a d disliked one another. It was this hostility that was a major factor in the failure to compromise.

Isolationists in the Senate worried that joining the League of Nations would involve the United States in future foreign wars. They feared, for example, that the United States might be obligated to furnish troops to defend member nations.

Wilson stubbornly refused to allow any but the most minor of changes to the Treaty of Versailles, becoming increasingly moralistic and uncompromising.

When Wikson went on a speaking tour to gain popular support for the treaty, he collapsed and suffered a stroke. His illness thereafter prevented him from playing an active role in the treaty debate. The Senate voted several times on the Treaty of Versailles but always defeated it. The United States made a separate peace with Germany, and never did jojn the League of Nations. Fundamentally, the nation had voted to retain its traditional foreign policy of preferring non intervention and of acting alone when it did choose to play a role.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

Although the United States failed to join the League of Nations, there was still great concern in the United States about keeping the peace. During the Paris Peace Conference, for example, many American women met with others from around the world to form the Women's International League for Peace and Feeedom. The WILPF opposed peace terms that would create additional, hostility among nations. The organization opposed the Treaty of Versailles for that reason, suggesting that its legacy would only be more war. The WILPF and other peace organizations wanted disarmament, arms control, and neutrality.

Reparations and War Debts

In 1914, the US had been a debtor nation, meaning that it owed more money to foreign nations than those nations owed to the US. After WWI, however, the US became the world's leading creditor nation, meaning that other countries owed more to the US than the US owed to them. The US was also the world's leading industrial producer, exporter, and financier. These changes were due in large part to money from the payment of war debts owed to this nation from the other Allied powers.

During WWI, the European Allies borrowed a great deal of money from the US in order to buy war supplies from American manufacturers. After the war, these debts became a source of conflict; European nations argued that their debts should be forgiven because while the US had contributed money, Europe had paid a heavy price in lives lost. Despite these arguments, the US demanded repayment anyway.

A factor that made repayment difficult was the US protectionist policy. High American tariffs limited European trade with the US and thus reduced earnings that might have been used to pay off war debts. These same tariffs also led to retaliation by 26 nations, most of which would raise their own tariff rates.

One step aimed at making repayment easier was the Dawes Plan, adopted in 1924. Under this plan, the US lent funds to Germany so that it could make war reparations--money it owed to European Allies as payment for economic losses during the war; the Allies would, in turn, use the funds to make payments on the war debts they owed the US.

Steps Towards Peace and Arms Control

In 1921, President Warren G. Harding hosted the Washington Naval Conference. The US, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan agreed to set limits on the number of warships each nation could build. They also pledged to keep the peace in Asia and to protect the independence of China. The conference, however, failed to establish any means of enforcement.

In 1928, 15 nations meet in Paris to sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which outlawed war except in self-defense. Enforcement provisions were missing from the Pact, which 60 nations eventually signed.

Although these moves towards peace would not last, the US would see an era of prosperity, and that's what we'll cover in the next post here on The Half-Pint Historian Blog.