American infantry forces in 1918, firing a 37 mm. gun, advance against German positions in World War I. (The National Archives)
WORLD WAR I & THE GREAT DEPRESSION
War in Europe in 1914 — with Germany and Austria-Hungary fighting Britain,
France, Italy, and Russia — affected U.S. interests almost from the start. The
British and the German navies both interfered with American shipping, but German
submarine attacks were deadly. Almost 130 Americans died when a submarine sank
the British ocean liner Lusitania in 1915. President Woodrow Wilson
demanded an end to the attacks, and they stopped for a while, but by 1917 they
had resumed. The United States declared war.
The efforts of more than 1,750,000 U.S. troops played a decisive role in the
defeat of the German and Austro-Hungarian alliance. An armistice, technically a
truce but actually a surrender, was concluded on November 11, 1918.
President Wilson negotiated an end to the conflict based on his 14-point plan
for achieving lasting peace. It included an end to secret international
agreements, free trade between nations, a reduction in national armaments,
self-rule for subjugated European nationalities, and formation of an association
— a League of Nations — to help guarantee political independence and territorial
integrity for large and small countries alike.
The final peace treaty, however, contained virtually none of these points, as
the victors insisted on harsh punishment. Wilson's idea of a League of Nations
remained in the Treaty of Versailles, but even he was unable to gain enough
support for the concept, and the United States rejected it. America reverted to
its instinctive isolationism.
The immediate postwar period was one of labor unrest and racial tensions.
Farmers were struggling because of the abrupt end of wartime demand. Bolshevik
violence fueled a "Red Scare" that led to decades of militant hostility toward
the revolutionary Communist movement. Despite these problems, for a few years in
the 1920s the United States enjoyed a period of real and broadly distributed
prosperity. Families purchased their first automobile, radio, and refrigerator,
and they began going to the movies regularly. And suffragists, after decades of
political activism, succeeded in getting approval of a constitutional amendment
in 1920 that gave women the right to vote.
The good times did not last. The value of many stocks, which had become
artificially inflated, fell dramatically in October 1929. Over the next three
years, the business recession in America became part of a worldwide economic
depression. Businesses and factories shut down, banks failed, farm income
dropped. By November 1932, 20 percent of Americans were unemployed.
The presidential campaign that year was chiefly a debate over the causes of
the Great Depression and ways to reverse it. Incumbent Herbert Hoover had
started the process of rebuilding the economy, but his efforts had little
impact, and he lost the election to Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt was
infectiously optimistic and was ready to use federal authority to achieve bold
remedies. Under his leadership, the United States would enter another era of
economic and political change.
