The Great War and America
The Great War and America

Author: Nancy Gentile Ford

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2008-02-28

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0313352216

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The First World War marked a key turning point in America's involvement on the global stage. Isolationism fell, and America joined the ranks of the Great Powers. Civil-Military relations faced new challenges as a result. Ford examines the multitude of changes that stemmed from America's first major overseas coalition war, including the new selective service process; mass mobilization of public opinion; training diverse soldiers; civil liberties, anti-war sentiment and conscientious objectors; segregation and warfare; Americans under British or French command. Post war issues of significance, such as the Red Scare and retraining during demobilization are also covered. Both the federal government and the military were expanding rapidly both in terms of size and in terms of power during this time. The new group of citizen-soldiers, diverse in terms of class, religion, ethnicity, regional identity, education, and ideology, would provide training challenges. New government-military-business relationships would experience failures and successes. Delicate relationships with allies would translate into diplomatic considerations and battlefield command concerns.

Making Men Moral
Making Men Moral

Author: Nancy K. Bristow

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 1997-10-01

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 0814786235

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On May 29, 1917, Mrs. E. M. Craise, citizen of Denver, Colorado, penned a letter to President Woodrow Wilson, which concluded, We have surrendered to your absolute control our hearts' dearest treasures--our sons. If their precious bodies that have cost us so dear should be torn to shreds by German shot and shells we will try to live on in the hope of meeting them again in the blessed Country of happy reunions. But, Mr. President, if the hell-holes that infest their training camps should trip up their unwary feet and they be returned to us besotted degenerate wrecks of their former selves cursed with that hell-born craving for alcohol, we can have no such hope. Anxious about the United States' pending entry into the Great War, fearful that their sons would be polluted by the scourges of prostitution, venereal disease, illicit sex, and drink that ran rampant in the training camps, countless Americans sent such missives to their government officials. In response to this deluge, President Wilson created the Commission on Training Camp Activities to ensure the purity of the camp environment. Training camps would henceforth mold not only soldiers, but model citizens who, after the war, would return to their communities, spreading white, urban, middle-class values throughout the country. What began as a federal program designed to eliminate sexually transmitted diseases soon mushroomed into a powerful social force intent on replacing America's many cultures with a single, homogenous one. Though committed to the positive methods of education and recreation, the reformers did not hesitate to employ repression when necessary. Those not conforming to the prescribed vision of masculinity often faced exclusion from the reformers' idealized society, or sometimes even imprisonment. Social engineering ruled the day. Combining social, cultural, and military history and illustrating the deep divisions among reformers themselves, Nancy K. Bristow, with the aid of dozens of evocative photographs, here brings to life a pivotal era in the history of the U.S., revealing the complex relationship between the nation's competing cultures, progressive reform efforts, and the Great War.