In this module, we'll focus on the United States' involvement in World War I. First, we'll examine the context and background of World War I as a global conflict, and then we'll explore the effects of the war on the American state and American citizenship.
Three questions will guide this module blog post:
Why did the US enter World War I and what role did Americans play in the war?
How did the war affect the lives of American citizens on the home front?
What were the contradictions between the United States’ goals for international democracy and social and cultural conditions at home?
Let's get started!
Part I: US Involvement in World War I
Poll #1:
Before getting into the post, consider this poll question:
In your opinion, which aspect of war has a more significant effect on American lives? Technologies and experiences on the battlefield? Or changes made by the state on the homefront? Add your response below, or access the poll here.
In the early twentieth century, intellectuals and economists predicted that due to the increasing globalization of the world, the free flow of capital and goods and ideas across nations, war was becoming increasingly unthinkable. Indeed, in 1914, British economist John Maynard Keynes wrote, the “turmoil of militarism and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies, restrictions, and exclusion” seemed distant threats. In this module, we’ll explore just how mistaken Keynes was.
Despite the free flow of goods and ideas, national rivalries persisted. The major European powers, Japan, and starting in 1898, the US, competed for colonies to expand their holdings in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Great Britain and Germany embarked on an arms race, trying to establish dominant land and sea forces.
A complex alliance system formed as each nation sought to preserve the balance of power in Europe. The Allies became Great Britain, Russia, France, Japan, and Italy; and the Central Powers were Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Ottoman Turkey.
In addition, nationalism made the situation even more unstable. Particular tensions were at play in the Balkans in 1914, between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. It was the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by a Serbian nationalist in June 1914, which set off World War I. When Austria threatened retaliation against Serbia, Russia pledged to defend Serbia. Germany backed its Austria-Hungary. Concerned with the threat they saw from Germany, France and Great Britain backed Russia. By August, these rival coalitions had mobilized their forces and rushed troops and heavy weapons to forward positions, believing that they could only achieve victory by going on the offensive and striking first.
The scale of death and destruction wrought by the war was unprecedented. For example, during the first six months of combat in western Europe, nearly 2 million soldiers were killed or wounded. Later in the war, in Italy, one-half of the entire army was killed or wounded for and advance of 12 miles into Austria.
Military strategies had hoped that trench warfare would be less lethal than mobile attacks. However, during the first months of combat, trench warfare led to staggering losses. Once the opposing armies settled in, battle followed battle over and over. Offensives began with one side’s artillery pounding the trench line of the other for hours or even days.
New weapons, including machine guns, high-explosive shells, and poison gas made warfare especially lethal. Still, generals on all sides hoped that throwing additional troops into combat would eventually overwhelm their foe.
Between 8 and 10 million soldiers died during World War I, along with about 7 million civilians. As the war went on, leaders of the warring nations thought less about the rivalries in the Balkans which had started things off and more about how victory would allow them new territories and influence around the world.
At the war’s outset, President Wilson issued a declaration of neutrality. Americans had a wide range of sentiments towards the warring powers—some identified with the British and the French, many eastern European, and German immigrants did not.
Wilson and other Americans insisted that as a neutral nation, the US had a right to export non-military goods to all the warring powers and to have its citizens travel safely on passenger ships owned by warring nations.
Britain imposed a blockade of all neutral ships bound for German-controlled ports. Germany then retaliated and declared that they would attack any ship, Allied or neutral, in the waters around Britain and France. The US wasn’t happy with either country’s actions—but a blockade seemed less dangerous or threatening to Americans than Germany’s use of submarines to attack merchant ships. In 1915, a U-boat torpedoed the British liner, the Lusitania, killing 1,200 people, including 128 Americans. Wilson warned Germany that the US would take action if Germany did not cease its U-boat attacks on civilian vessels.
The war had a dramatic economic impact on the US. To feed, equip, and move their armies, the Allies borrowed billions of dollars from American banks and used the funds to buy vital raw materials. In 1914, the value of goods Britain and France bought from the US totaled about $754 million. By 1916, the value had more than tripled, to $2.75 billion. With this influx of capital, the US displaced Britain as the world’s leading creditor nation.
Germany’s purchases dwindled to almost nothing by 1916, because of the British blockade. German leaders saw Wilson as a hypocrite for accepting the British naval blockade while condemning German naval warfare.
Between 1914 and 1917, the US stayed out of the European conflict. However, Americans were divided over the war. Some nationalists criticized Wilson for not confronting Germany more forcefully or providing greater encouragement to the Allies. Progressive social reformers complained that military spending and growing intolerance towards immigrants and labor unions undercut the progress made in recent years towards creating a more just society.
Some called for the government to boost military preparedness, restrict immigration, and implement compulsory “Americanization” programs to stamp down influence from ethnic groups who could not be counted on. For example, Henry Ford and other wealthy industrialists created the National Americanization Committee which pushed to Americanize Eastern and Southern European immigrants by teaching English, promoting Protestant social and religious values, and encouraging prohibition. We examined Ford’s program briefly in Module 12.
In 1916, Wilson signed the National Defense Act, doubling the size of the army to 200,000 men. He also deployed military forces to the Caribbean and Latin America, sending Marines and naval vessels to intervene in Nicaragua, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, where internal power struggles both threatened US investments, and, Wilson worried, might provide an opportunity for Germany to seize control.
Additionally, Wilson ordered naval forces to occupy the city of Veracruz, Mexico in the context of the Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910. Wilson hoped to force Victoriano Huerta from power and to prevent a shipment of German weapons from reaching him. American forces then battled against Mexican soldiers under Pancho Villa. But by 1917, the confrontation with Germany pushed the US’ problems with Mexico aside. In an effort to incite war between Mexico and the US, limiting Americans’ ability to fight in Europe, Germany sent a telegram to the German ambassador, Arthur Zimmerman, in Mexico, proposing that if Mexico joined the war with Germany, they would return the lost territories of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona upon victory. The Mexican government did not accept this proposal. The British intercepted the telegram and released it to the US.
Americans were outraged by the evidence of Germany’s designs on US territory. The next month, German submarines sank five American ships.
On April 2, 1917, Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany for what he described as unprovoked attacks on American lives and property.
Poll #2:
In your opinion, did the US declare war on Germany more because of the German threat to the US’ position in North America? Or because of the German threat to merchant and civilian ships in the Atlantic?
Answer the poll below (or access it here.)
Progressive Responses to WWI
Progressives were divided in their opinions of the war. Some could not believe that any “progress” could ever come from war. For example, Jane Addams, founder of Hull House, predicted:
WWI would "set back progress for a generation."
Addams spoke out publicly against America’s entry into the war, and was attacked for her opposition. In 1919, she founded the International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom.
On the other side, some Progressives saw the war as a chance to institute bold changes both at home and abroad. President Wilson framed the war as a chance to “make the world safe for democracy.” He envisioned the US as providing global leadership, molding a progressive world order which would dismantle empires and tyrannical governments, replacing them with democracies. Additionally, he saw the war as an opportunity to expand the scope of the federal government at home while creating a sense of common purpose among the people. In his war address to Congress, Wilson stated:
“This is our opportunity to demonstrate the efficiency of a great Democracy and we shall not fall short of it.”
Part II: WWI and the Expansion of the American State
The home front during WWI provides a useful context to explore the dynamics of American citizenship. The state expanded its reach over citizens during WWI, and increased its presence in the everyday lives of Americans, which impacted citizens’ understanding of their citizenship and their duties to the state in a time of crisis.
State propaganda for the war couched its appeal in the language of social cooperation and expanded democracy. President Wilson’s speeches cast the US as a “land of liberty” fighting to secure self-determination for the oppressed peoples of the world. The state’s rhetoric was backed up by first mass draft of American men to serve in the military.
Poll #3:
What do you think of these recruiting posters? Do you think they were effective? Answer the poll below (or access it here). I'm interested in hearing why you chose your answer for this one in the annotations/comments! For this one, think about how constructs of masculinity were displayed in these posters. (And, if you think the gendered posters are interesting here, just wait until we get to WWII!)
Committee on Public Information
The federal government worked hard to generate enthusiasm for the war. The Committee on Public Information (CPI), a federal agency tasked with promoting the war at home and abroad as a democratic crusade, “sold” the war to consumers through newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, books, cartoons, posters, billboards, and films.
The CPI also opened information bureaus in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to communicate directly to millions of people abroad. In addition, they hosted foreign journalists on study tours to the US.
Selective Service Act
In 1917, the US Army numbered about 200,000. Over the next 19 months, it grew to over five million. To achieve this growth, the government encouraged volunteers, distributing millions of posters and pamphlets encouraging voluntary service (including the iconic “Uncle Sam Wants You” poster).
Additionally, Congress instituted the draft in 1917 with the Selective Service Act. The Selective Service Act required 24 million men to fill out forms and report them to their local draft boards.
Those who refused to register or who objected to the war itself were deemed to be “slackers,” and were subject to “slacker raids” by members of the American Protective League (APL), an organization of 250,000 people that had been formed to guard the home front.
The APL claimed they were authorized and auxiliary to the Department of Justice, but in reality, they had an ambiguous legal status. Sometimes their members were deputized by police, other times they were warned they had no right to make arrests. They embarked on unwarranted searches and seizures, detained and arrested draft-age men, and intimidated allegedly “disloyal” Americans. [1]
In slacker raids, APL representatives would demand to see draft registration cards of men of eligible age, and attempted to root out draft dodgers, deserters, or other enemies of the state (especially suspected socialists and radicals). In 1918, in a raid in New York City, over the course of three days, the APL scoured the city’s streets and public places and interrogated between 300,000-500,00 men. By the end of the three days, 60,187 had been detained, escorted by the APL to the nearest police station. Only 199 were actual draft dodgers. According to historian Christopher Capozzola, in Uncle Sam Wants You, the slacker raids represent how during WWI, ordinary citizens were in essence, policing each other on behalf of the state.
A similar phenomenon took place among American women. Many women’s clubs asked their members to pledge to conserve food during the war on behalf of the US Food Administration. In addition, many of these clubs had their members regulate the food usage of other women, going door to door to collect pledges, and recording whether or not houses had posted a food pledge poster in their kitchen window. These were subtle acts of “coercive voluntarism” that reveal the extent to which the state had incorporated itself into the lives of everyday Americans during the war. [3]
German Americans and German culture were frequently targeted by vigilantes. Half of the states passed laws banning German in public or over the telephone and forbade teaching it in public schools. In 1915, 24 percent of high school students nationwide took German, by 1922, only 1 percent did. Deli owners were ordered to rename their sauerkraut “liberty cabbage” and frankfurters as “liberty sausages.”
Espionage and Sedition Acts
In addition to these acts of “coercive patriotism, for the first time since 1798, the federal government enacted laws to restrict freedom of speech. The Espionage Act of 1917 prohibited spying, interfering with the draft, “false statements” that might impede military success. The postmaster general also barred numerous newspaper and magazines critical of the Wilson administration from the mails.
The 1918 Sedition Act made it a crime to make spoken or printed statements that intended to cast ‘contempt, scorn, or disrepute’ on the ‘form of government,’ or that advocated interference with the war effort.
Eugene Debs, leader of the Socialist Party in the US, was convicted under the Espionage Act for delivering an antiwar speech. He argued that:
“…workers of America have nothing to gain from this war now waged on behalf of imperialism and capitalism…”
Debs’ words were ruled to have “presented a clear and present danger” that some men listening would refuse to serve in the military. He was imprisoned until 1921.
The federal government also conducted raids on halls of the International Workers of the World (IWW), using the war as a chance to get rid of the Wobblies once and for all. Hundreds were jailed, and one person was lynched. In the New York Times coverage of the event, the paper condemned the murder, but added “the IWW agitators are in effect, and perhaps, agents of Germany.”
Schenck v. United States (1919)
Between 1917 and 1925, the Supreme Court heard a series of cases on freedom of expression. Until the passage of the Espionage Act in 1917, the Court had not ruled directly on matters of free speech. Issues of expression, press, and speech had mainly been litigated in the context of labor law and libel law.
The first case, Schenck v. United States, concerned Charles Schenck, the general secretary of the Socialist Party in Philadelphia. Schenck was charged with violating the Espionage Act when he and his colleague, Elizabeth Baer, circulated fifteen thousand copies of an anti-conscription pamphlet.
Schenck’s pamphlet insisted that citizens had an obligation to dissent in their resistance to the draft:
“If you do not assert and support your rights, you are helping to deny or disparage rights which it is the solemn duty of all citizens and residents of the United States to retain…You must do your share to maintain, support and uphold the rights of the people of this country.”
Schenck argued that his pamphlet was protected under the First Amendment. In a unanimous decision, the justices sided with government attorneys, who dismissed his claims as “frivolous and unsubstantial.”
It was the context of WWI that impacted the justices’ decision. Speaking for the Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes voiced the most famous line about the limitations of free speech: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic…When a nation is at war many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right.”
To Holmes, there was a boundary line between responsible speech and irresponsible speech. It was up to individuals to regulate themselves and navigate that boundary. [4]
Freedom of Speech
The limitations WWI brought to free expression also applied to books. In the context of the war, most—though not all—Americans took censorship for granted as something that responsible citizens did. Many volunteered for vigilance societies that guarded the nation from immoral or dangerous ideas. This vigilance could take many forms. Women’s clubs frequently supported the censorship of films and books. Grassroots African American organizations campaigned for the censorship of offensive works, such as the film, Birth of a Nation.
(Perhaps surprisingly), libraries also participated in censorship. During the war, libraries collaborated with state agencies and voluntary associations that undertook campaigns to monitor the nation’s reading.
In Lincoln, Nebraska, a newspaper pushed a successful campaign to remove 1,000 German-language books from the State Library Commission collection. Even though the Commission ruled that the books were “harmless,” they removed them from circulation. In Ohio, the Columbus public library sold its German collection for scrap paper. Public libraries in Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles all removed German books from their shelves.
In July 1918, the Connecticut State Council of Defense sent a memo to each of the state’s libraries with a list of books with “supposed pro-German tendency” and advised that the libraries remove them. In many cases, librarians wrote back insisting that regardless of whether the books had already been removed before the memo was sent or afterwards, no one was checking those books out anyway. As Christopher Capozzola writes in his book, Uncle Sam Wants You, “War had already changed both libraries and readers as citizens.” [5]
Check out the American Library Association’s list of cases on the right to read freely here.
In a definite shift from their perspective during WWI, the cases included on the American Library Association’s list all represent the protection of free expression and the right to read freely.
Poll #4:
In your opinion, how did the expansion of the state in WWI affect American citizens? Did it bring more people together, in service of the war effort? Or did it divide people, making some question the loyalty of others?
Answer the poll below, or access it here.
Black Citizens and WWI
For African American citizens, WWI presented a unique opportunity. By serving in the war, African Americans capitalized on Wilson’s rhetoric of “democracy,” “rights,” and “liberties,” hoping to apply those same sentiments to the cause of racial equality and justice at home. Some Black soldiers who served in France were shocked at how different their experiences with whites was abroad rather than at home. They noticed that their French hosts exhibited little racial prejudice in contrast to white Americans. Despite some of their positive experiences abroad, returning Black veterans faced further racial animosity and violence.
Rather, the image of a Black man in a US army uniform epitomized for many white southerners a population that had rejected its place in the regional racial hierarchy. The democratic image of a multi-racial army flew in the face of the construction of black subservience to white supremacy. In 1919, 11 African Americans were lynched.
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The army uniform that black veterans wore connoted authority, power, manliness, and respect—making it appealing for blacks and threatening for southern whites. As historian Chad Williams has written, “Wearing the uniform thus constituted a bold act of defiance on the part of black veterans as an assertion of their citizenship and manhood.” [6] Lynching victims who were robbed of their uniforms were also robbed of their civic identities.
African American veterans hoped that demonstrating their service to the country would aid in the fight for racial equality, full citizenship rights, and voting rights at home. In 1918, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in the Crisis: “This war is an end and also a beginning. Never again will darker people of the world occupy just the place they had before.”
On July 28, 1917, 10,000 Black marchers paraded down Fifth Avenue in New York City in silence. Watch the short video from Yale's Beinecke Library below for images of this powerful event.
Women's Suffrage
Suffragists had been fighting for women’s right to vote since 1848, and had some success gaining woman suffrage in a campaign targeting each state individually. After defeat of state suffrage referenda in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania in 1915, suffragists continued their fight for suffrage state by state, but also stepped up their pressure on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment. Some suffragists employed more visual and confrontational tactics. Alice Paul and members of the National Women’s Party unfurled a banner that read, “Mr. President, What Will You Do for Woman Suffrage?” from the gallery during Wilson’s first address to Congress in 1916.
The suffrage movement had grown in popularity immensely. The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) had 2 million members, and was now the largest voluntary organization in the country. Four million women in 11 states could vote. Newspapers covered the issue prominently.
WWI impacted the kind of activism that suffragists employed. While the outbreak of war caused NAWSA, the more conservative organization, to back down and support the war effort, the National Women’s Party began picketing the White House with provocative placards, which called the President “Kaiser Wilson,” and accused him of betraying democracy by continuing to exclude women.
Skirmishes between protestors and police broke out, resulting in the arrests of more than two hundred picketers in the summer and fall of 1917. Half of these women went to jail and endured miserable conditions. They engaged in hunger strikes, and their force-feedings made front page news.
Newspapers publicized the plight of suffrage activists’ treatment in prison, and garnered sympathy for their cause. And finally, in September 1918, Wilson linked the war effort and its goals to woman suffrage. He proclaimed that the vote for women “is vital to the winning of the war.” Not only did activists successfully pressure Wilson through public activism, but women also had played a major role in supporting the war effort—something that Wilson could not ignore. Over one million American women labored in war industries at home. Women also served as nurses and telephone operators for the American military, and volunteered overseas for organizations like the YWCA.
Additionally, suffragists worked to defeat the elections of anti-suffrage senators. Finally, the 19th amendment made it through both the House of Representatives and the Senate in 1920. It had been seventy-two years since woman suffragists declared their demand for the right to vote at the famed meeting in Seneca Falls. The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment!
However, the right to vote for women did not mean that everyone now had access to this basic right of citizenship. Blacks in the South were still widely disfranchised. Black women suffrage organizations were often treated with discrimination by white suffragists, who feared that openly including them in their battle would dissuade the Senators from the South whose votes they needed to pass the amendment.
Poll #5:
Think about African Americans’ and women’s activism in the context of World War I when you answer this poll.
In your opinion, was the war empowering for marginalized groups (including women and African Americans) in the US? Yes/no? (Answer the poll below, or access it here.)
Armistice
By the time the US entered the war, new problems had been created in Russia. In 1917, Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, seized power from the pro-Allied regime. They signed a treaty with Germany and formally pulled Russia out of the war by the spring of 1918. This allowed German commanders to transport thousands of troops from eastern to western Europe, and launch an offensive to overrun France before American forces could arrive.
American troops joined the battle and were able to blunt the German advance. In an intense 10 months of combat, nearly 50,000 Americans were killed. The infusion of fresh forces boosted Allied morale, and Germany’s allies in Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria quit fighting.
Germany agreed to seek a cease-fire, especially after German leftists called for a revolution, inspired by the Bolsheviks in Russia. The terms of the armistice were harsh, including an Allied food blockade which would continue until Germany signed a final peace treaty. Germany resented the terms, but had little choice. Many military leaders in Germany promptly accused liberals, socialists, and Jews of a “stab in the back,” shifting the blame from their shoulders—foreshadowing the next great conflict.
The Fourteen Points
In 1918, Wilson introduced the Fourteen Points, a statement of American war aims and his vision for a new international order. Among the key principles were self-determination for all nations, freedom of the seas, free trade, open diplomacy (an end to secret treaties), the readjustment of colonial claims with colonized people given “equal weight” in deciding their futures, and the creation of a “general association of nations” to preserve the peace. Wilson envisioned this entity to be the global counterpart to the Progressive reform efforts at home to maintain social harmony.
Only some of Wilson’s goals were achieved at the Versailles peace conference. The Versailles Treaty established the League of Nations. It applied the principle of self-determination to eastern Europe and redrew the map of that region. New nations emerged from the war—Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Yugoslavia.
The Treaty also contained a clause which declared Germany to be morally responsible for the war, and established heavy reparations payments which crippled the German economy. The end of the war left Europe with new boundary lines, but not without conflict.
Wilsonian Moment
Wilson’s rhetoric of self-determination resonated across the globe, in some places more strongly than in Wilson’s own view. Wilson had supported the annexation of the Philippines, and obviously did not extend his ideals of democracy to people of color within the United States.
Nonetheless, in other parts of the world, people celebrated his ideals. For example, the leading Arabic newspaper in Egypt—then under British rule—gave extensive coverage to Wilson’s speech asking Congress to declare war in the name of democracy, and to the Fourteen Points. In China, students in Beijing demanded that China free itself from foreign domination, and gathered around the US embassy shouting “Long live Wilson.” [7]
During the peace conference in Paris, supporters of colonial independence lobbied the peace negotiators. For example, Arabs demanded that a unified independent state be carved from the old Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. A young Vietnamese patriot named Nguyen That Thanh—who later took the name Ho Chi Minh—pressed for his people’s claim for greater rights within the French empire. W.E.B. DuBois organized a Pan-African Congress in Paris that put forward the idea of a self-governing nation to be carved out of Germany’s African colonies.
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However, the Allied powers had no interest in applying the principle of self-determination to their own empires. Germany’s colonies in Africa and the Pacific Islands were dispersed to France, Britain, Belgium, Australia, South Africa, and Japan.
Ultimately, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles or membership in the League of Nations. Critics argued that both unfairly restricted America’s freedom of action and might oblige the country to engage in unwise military ventures without congressional approval.
Wilson was unwilling to compromise with his critics. In September 1919, he suffered from a near fatal stroke.
Conclusion:
After officially declaring neutrality, US entered WWI in 1917 after the sinking of the Lusitania, the interception of the Zimmerman telegram, and the sinking of five American ships by the Germans.
With WWI, American citizens increasingly policed each other on behalf of the state.
Although Wilson professed that the US’ involvement in WWI would “make the world safe for democracy,” he faced challenges at home from Blacks and women who demanded equal rights.
Citations:
[1] Christopher Capozzola, Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 42-43.
[2] Capozzola, Uncle Sam, 49.
[3] Capozzola, Uncle Sam, 92-94.
[4] For more on Schenck, see Capozzola, Uncle Sam, 164-171.
[5] Capozzola, Uncle Sam, 169.
[6] Chad L. Williams, Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 238.
[7] See more in Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Hello everyone! I really enjoyed reading all of your comments on this one. A few things came up that I wanted to reiterate--the dynamics between nationalism and patriotism and coercion and oversight are really interesting in this era. As Khang noted, nationalism can be a double-edged sword, because while it can solidify a nation's position and national defense in a war, there is also some infringement on personal liberties. Julia made an interesting point that in this particular context, many people went along with these restrictions voluntarily, under these special circumstances.
On the recruiting posters--I really appreciated the discussion about gender. Many of you made excellent points about why the ad with the woman would have been effective based on…
In your opinion, were these recruiting posters effective?
Though the posters were sexist, back then that was normal. There was more expectancy in men to the tough fighting in war and nobody expected anything from women at all except to cook and stuff like that. It's sad but in the men's eyes, if they didn't join the army, they were pathetic.
I felt that these posters were very effective in delivering the message to join the armed forces. To have a figure point directly at you and speak to you. To be wanted as a citizen to enlist and serve the interests of the national interests as a whole. As well as what it means to be a man back then, the importance of serving in the armed forced carried large social and cultural impact. Leaving Children and family behind and serving to the ideals of what it means to be a "Man." The identity of the soldier was so solidified that everyone knows uncle sam even today. Even recruitment to join armed forces is still heavily prompted in high schools…
In your opinion, were these recruiting posters effective?
Yes, because they have many characteristics of any ad that we would see today. Therefore, they easily grab anyone's attention. The wording of the recruiting posters is very emotional and touches on key insecurities of any average person. Instead of visualizing the war as imminent death, these posters created an illusion that it was more a test of strength, will, and manpower which could easily persuade anyone.
In your opinion, was the war empowering for marginalized groups (including women and African Americans) in the US? Yes, I think the war empowering for marginalized groups (including women and African Americans) in the US. Because they had the chance to fight for their rights, and also gain some successes. They grew stronger to stand up and protested for women's rights and vigorously active to claim for their activists.