The Impact of War on America: World War I

"Explore the changes wrought by World War I - on suffrage, civil and political rights, the growth of business, women and blacks in the workforce, and America’s role as a world power."

With: David Glassberg, Professor of History, UMASS-Amherst
          Rich Colton, Historian, Springfield Armory National Historic Site
Held: July 31-August 2, 2007
          Smith College, Northampton, MA

Primary Sources

1. Theodore Roosevelt, “Annual Message, 1908”

2. “What Public Opinion Can Do in Your Town,” Collier’s Weekly (1912)

3. “America Must Prepare,” Everybody’s Magazine (September, 1915)

4. “Heat Up the Melting Pot,” The Independent (July 3, 1916)

5. “What is an American?,” Everybody’s Magazine (1916)

6. Robert Herrick, “The Recantation of a Pacifist,” The New Republic (October 30, 1915)

7. Woodrow Wilson, “War Message to Congress” (1917)

8. “Northampton Women As Patriotic Volunteers,” Hampshire Gazette (March 30, 1917)

9. “Hampshier County Must Feed Itself,” Hampshire Gazette (April 15, 1917)

10. “Labor’s Service to Freedom,” Samuel Gompers (1917)

11. Information concerning Employment of Women at the Springfield Armory (1918)

12. “Invisible Armor,” The Survey (November 17, 1917)

13. “The Better Cities Which the War Camp Community Service is Building,” American City (October, 1918)

14. “Liberty Songs,” Division of Liberty Choruses, Connecticut State Council of Defense, Hartford, CT

15. Harriot Stanton Blatch, “Woman’s Part in Saving Civilization” in Mobilizing Woman Power (New York: The Woman’s Press, 1918).

16. W.E.B. DuBois, “Close Ranks,” The Crisis (July, 1918)

17. W.E.B. DuBois, “Returning Soldiers,” The Crisis (1919)

18. Woman’s Peace Party poster
    

19. Anti-Enlistment League poster
    

20. The Sedition Act of May 16, 1918
    

21. Schenck v. United States (1919)

22. John Dewey, “Conscience and Compulsion,” The New Republic (July 14, 1917)

23. Randolph Bourne, “Conscience and Intelligence in War,” The Dial (September 13, 1917)

24. “The Effects of War on the American People,” The Scientific Monthly (1919)

25. Ernest Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home (1925)” in Short Stories of Hemingway (New York: Modern Library, Random House, 1938).

26. Woodrow Wilson, “The Fourteen Points” (1918)

27. John Dos Passos, “The Body of an American” in 1919 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932).

 Web Resources

• The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century
  An online exhibit developed by PBS, including links to primary sources, lists of secondary resources, connection to historians, and lesson plans for teachers.
•  The Price of Freedom: Americans at War
  An online exhibit developed by the Smithsonian, with a section on the major conflicts the United States has participated in, including WWI. Notable for its use of objects from the Smithsonian collection.
• Teaching With Documents: Photographs of the 369th Infantry and African Americans during WWI
  Part of a collection of resources from the National Archives, this set of photographs helps uncover the experience of African Americans during the war.
• A Guide to World War I Materials
  An annotated list of resources for studying and teaching World War I, compiled by the Library of Congress, and primarily focusing on collections within the Library of Congress. The site includes a collection of WWI rotogravures from newspapers.