payment page
Migrations
While U.S. soldiers were in Europe, women, children, and men left at home (on the home front) worked to support the war with campaigns for recycling, growing their own food in victory gardens, rationing food, and working in factories to manufacture war supplies. Because so many men were off to serve in the military, factories had begun to employ women and African Americans, offering relatively high-paying jobs. This led many African Americans to move to cities in the North in larger numbers to escape Southern segregation and take advantage of these opportunities in what came to be called the Great Migration.
Nativism and Restrictions on Civil Liberties
Another factor of life on the home front during World War I was the impact of nativism, or negative feelings about people from foreign countries. This was especially strong against immigrants from Germany and Austria-Hungary. There was also negative sentiment toward Russians, as Russia had dropped out of World War I due to the Bolshevik Revolution, in which communists overthrew the Imperial Russian government. This led to a Red Scare in which Americans worried that communists might try to overthrow the American government as well. The Palmer Raids illustrated this anxiety. In these raids, Attorney General Palmer and his assistant J. Edgar Hoover hunted down suspected communists, socialists, and anarchists. Palmer and Hoover trampled people’s civil rights by invading private homes and offices, jailing suspects without allowing legal counsel, and deporting foreign radicals without trials, all based on very weak evidence that the accused might support communism.
The federal government also curtailed Americans’ freedom of speech with the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act. The Espionage Act (1917) forbade Americans to criticize or act against the government or the military. The Sedition Act (1918) further restricted civil liberties by criminalizing the printing or speaking of “any false, scandalous, [or] malicious writing” against the government. These acts were reinforced by the Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States. Charles Schenck, a registered socialist, had been arrested for distributing anti-draft fliers violating the Sedition Act. The Supreme Court’s decision supported Schenck’s conviction and said freedom of speech could be limited when it created “a clear and present danger” to the safety of the United States. Throughout history, during every war in which the United States has been involved, the limitation of citizens’ rights has been a continuity.
