Effects Of World War I On American Society

My report is on how the first world war effected the American people, and how the war helped shape the country we know today.

The war started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were touring the city of Sarajevo in the newly acquired

country of Serbia. The Serbian Nationalistic group the "Black Hand" plotted to assainate him, so, Gavrillo Princip shot Franz Ferdinand in June of 1914. Anyway this led to a big conflict in Europe, and all the major powers took their sides. This war was a big excuse, mostly because most of the war was fought without the Austrians or the Serbians. The war had it's devastating toll on the population of Europe, with most of the casulties suffered by Russia. With the loss of the Russians, the Allies needed the United States help. The Britains had recognized

the potential strength of the Americans, but the Americans wanted neutrality. But with the sinking of many merchant and luxury ships that belonged to America, or the sinking of foriehn ships with Americans on them, helped persway the Americans to join the fight.

The United Stated declared war on April 4, 1917. The Americans sent close to one million troops over to the western front, were after many decisive victories, the Allied beat the Central Powers.

The great deal of veterns coming home began to change the lifestyle of many Americans. Many people found it hard to demobilize, and people began fighting for their jobs back, but, many of these soldiers began living away from home and started living a life of success and luxury, this is where the jazz age begins.

Many people saw what had happened in Russia with the Bolshevik Revolution, and many people had become suspicious with the labor unions, which is were most laborors work from. The activities that eveybody was so suspicious about finally ended into the Palmer raids. The Palmer raids were established to find so called communists, and most of the people found guilty were actully innocent.

In 1915, the Ku Klux Klan had been re organized at Stone Mountain on Georiga, and the new klan was more powerful than it had been before. The Klan was electing many people into Congress, even though the Klan was still anti-black, the Klan began to speak out against forieghn radicals and the Communists. The Klan waged massive rallies against the "reds", and even was able to control some communism in North America, the Klan eventully died out because of the economy, and because of embarrassment

of the group.

But in the times that followed the Great War, many good things were also happening, the economy was beginning to boom, people were becoming more and more less frugle with their money, and the