The First World War, known at the time as the Great War, was the first war to engage the entire European continent since Napoleon was defeated in 1815. It produced worldwide social and political upheaval. The war involved over 70 million combatants and ended in the death of between nine and 12 million people. By its end, the economy of Europe was devastated and its governments either overthrown or reorganized. After it was over, many hoped that it would be “the war to end all wars.”
Internationally, the period before 1914 was one of heightened tensions between the “Great Powers” and great change. Nationalist movements, strengthened by an increasing awareness of ethnic identity, added to the instability. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires struggled to come to grips with their citizens’ desire for self-determination, and an arms race among the nation-states of Germany, Britain, France, and Russia heightened the conflict.
The war had several causes. Great Britain sought to preserve her empire and control of the seas; France fought against German dominance and for return of her lost territories of Alsace and Lorraine. Japan sought to expand its territory as did Italy. China looked for the return of territory lost in the BoxER Rebellion. The Americans entered, belatedly, when the Wilson administration convinced the nation to make the world safe for democracy. The violation of freedom of the seas and the loss of American lives in U-boat attacks stiffened the country’s resolve to join the war.
Europe exploded in the summer of 1914 when a Serb patriot killed the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary. An outraged Austria, backed by Germany, instantly presented an ultimatum to Serbia. Backed by its Slavic patron, Russia, Serbia refused to concede. The Russian czar mobilized his army, threatening Germany on the east. France, Russia’s ally, confronted Germany on its west. Alarmed, Germany struck at France through Belgium to knock the enemy out of action. Witnessing its coastline threatened by the assault on Belgium, Great Britain entered the fight on France’s side. Overnight, Europe was at war on three fronts—in the Balkans, in Russia (the eastern front), and in France and Belgium (the western front). On one side, there were the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, and Bulgaria. The Allies of France, Britain, and Russia, and later Japan and Italy, opposed them. The United States remained neutral.
American neutrality did not prevent it from filling British and French war orders, as business boomed. The Central Powers protested American shipments to Britain, but trade was not against international neutrality laws. Germany was free to trade with the United States as well, but it was prevented from doing so by an effective British naval blockade. The British controlled the sea lanes, and they put a blockade in place across the North Sea, which forced American ships away from German ports. In retaliation for this blockade, Germany quickly instituted a submarine war around the British Isles. German officials declared that they would try to avoid neutral ships, but they warned that, ultimately, mistakes would occur. President Wilson, therefore, had to calculate the importance of free trade and the economic benefits of insisting on neutral trading rights. The loss of American ships endangered American neutrality. Germany declared unlimited warfare on all ships. Submarine warfare ultimately drew the United States irrevocably into the fray. Once the Zimmermann telegram was discovered and published, there was no going back.
When the war began, the American army numbered only 128,000 men. Due to budget cuts and traditional reliance on state militia, the army was badly in need of arms and equipment. Germany was aware of these factors, and thus discounted America’s entry into the war. This prediction was seemingly confirmed by the isolationist policy of the Wilson administration until Germany’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, brought to life by the sinking of ships such as the LUSITANIA, gave Wilson no choice but to protect America’s economic and political interests abroad. He declared war on Germany in April 1917.
Instituting the draft in the United States under the Selective Service Act, along with the accompanying appropriation bills, prepared the American Expeditionary Force for entry into the war. By the end of the war, over four million soldiers, sailors, and Marines had served their country in the war effort. For the first time in the history of the United States, women were allowed to join the armed services. Twenty-four thousand women served in the military during the war as nurses and clerks.
The Wilson administration quickly realized that it needed to mobilize resources to meet the needs of a nation at war. For the first time, the federal government stepped in to regulate all aspects of the country’s industry and life. Wilson established the Food Administration, which advised Americans what and how much they should eat. The Fuel Administration controlled coal, gas, and oil. To fight shortages, they relied on the public’s cooperation and patriotism, rather than on rationing. The National War Labor Board was another example of government regulation. It worked to prevent labor unrest that interfered with the wartime economy and tried to keep wages in line with needs. The War Industries Board controlled industrial output. It made sure that industrial production met war needs. The War Revenue Act raised taxes and issued Liberty Bonds to finance the war.
American soldiers manning a firing position behind barbed wire in a trench at Dieffmatten, in Alsace (NationalArchives)
Many Americans responded with enthusiasm to the patriotic call. The COMMITTEE EOR Public Ineormation (CPI), created by President Wilson, raised public support for the war effort through propaganda. War posters urged Americans to join the army. Movie stars, marching bands, and billboards celebrated those who “did their duty.” As flags were waved and bands played farewells, men rushed to volunteer for the war and the American Expeditionary Force. Back at home, citizens sacrificed for their boys. The CPI prompted support for the war partly by playing on fear of German spies and other radicals. The CPI informally censored publications until Congress, with the Trading WITH THE Enemy Act (1917), gave the U. S. Post Office the responsibility of censoring materials that opposed the military draft and the war by denying mailing privileges. Government propaganda and fear turned many Americans against everything German. Many states outlawed the German language, and mobs terrorized many German-Amer-ican citizens. Both the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 reflected the government’s desire to suppress dissent and popular fears of Germans and other antiwar individuals. The government prosecuted antiwar socialists and members of the Industrial Workers oe THE World (IWW) under these acts. Antiradical prosecutions culminated in the postwar Red Scare.
Many important social and economic changes came of the war. Massive intervention in industry, the significant but temporary transformation of the role of women, the decline in social deference, and a realignment of class relations were all consequences of the war. There was also, however, a political shift, in the expansion of the state in relation to private citizens. The wartime suspension of individual rights in the military draft and under the Espionage and Sedition Acts had a tremendous impact on society. In addition, the Wilson administration developed machinery for domestic political surveillance. The Justice Department and military intelligence kept tabs on labor organizers and later unhappy ex-servicemen. Such surveillance demonstrated the increased willingness of government to intervene in the lives of its private citizens.
The Great War marked the end of one era and the beginning of a new age. The military struggle of World War I was but one aspect of a changing world. As a modern war, it involved whole societies in support of the armed forces. Sweeping, irrevocable changes on the home front resulted. In the United States, where resources, labor, and industrial plants were plentiful, corporations used the War Industries Board to promote expansion. European domination of the world economy ended, and the war’s end introduced a new world order. In the United States, influential capitalists sought increasing economic control over resources internationally, especially in Latin America and on the Pacific Rim. They looked to the armed forces to protect their interests.
The human cost of war was, for the first time, expressed through new media. Books, films, poetry, songs, and newspapers depicted the human cost of war and affected an entire generation, but it was not only war that had changed society. The woman SUEERAGE movement finally won its battle, with passage of the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote. Sexual norms changed in other ways, as women bobbed their hair, smoked cigarettes openly, and danced freely in public. Overall, women experienced more freedom, as the war had expanded their horizons. Returning servicemen found a social atmosphere quite different from what they had left. There were bootleggers, gangsters, Prohibition, bathtub gin, and jazz. Many returning from overseas relocated in the cities and left the rural areas behind. The popular song that asked “How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm, after they’ve seen Paris” seemed to be true.
The idealism of Wilson, his League oe Nations, and world peace also were casualties of war. Congress, and in particular Henry Cabot Lodge, refused to accept the league or ratify the Treaty oe Versailles. As unemployment rose after the war, race relations at home soured, and disillusioned VETERANS returned home and contributed to the social discontent.
See also Lost Generation; Veterans Bureau.
Further reading: Ronald Schaffer, America in the Great War: The Rise of the Modern War Welfare State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Robert Zieger, America's Great War: World War I, the American Experience (Lan-ham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000).
—Annamarie Edelen
Wright, Frank Lloyd (1867-1959) modernist architect
America’s best-known architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, helped create an American style of architecture and ushered in the modern architectural age. He is known for his designs ranging from large office buildings to small houses. His best-known work is the Pennsylvania house known as Fallingwater. Built over a waterfall in 1936, the house is a definitive example of Wright’s desire to fit his designs into their surroundings. His other famous designs include the headquarters of the Johnson Wax Company in Racine, Wisconsin, the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Due to a variety of personal developments, Wright never achieved the acclaim during his early career that he did after 1930. He is recognized today, however, as the preeminent American architect whose design style was the first to be applicable to all building types.
Born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, Wright entered the University of Wisconsin at age 15 to study engineering, although he wanted to become an architect. After two semesters, he dropped out and went to work in the architectural studio of Louis Sullivan in Chicago. After six years, he quit Sullivan’s firm and opened his own office in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park.
Wright quickly won recognition and hundreds of commissions that allowed him to work out new principles of design. Borrowing from many previous architectural styles, he eventually developed his own unique style that, in the years prior to 1930, he used primarily in the design of houses. He rejected the artificiality and rules of the classical style in favor of designs that combined structure, function, and idea with the inspiration of natural forms. The design that Wright eventually developed revolved around a set of guiding principles. These principles called for the reduction of necessary parts and the number of rooms in order to create a sense of unity throughout the entire house. He also believed that it was vital for a house to fit its surroundings, whether a rectangular lot marked by the street grid or a more natural setting.
Wright’s designs eliminated boxlike rooms in favor of wide doorways between rooms that occurred more naturally and he often relied on screens for dividing rooms. His principles also called for the use of straight lines and just one building material in order to make them “clearer and more expressive.” His principles went beyond the structure of the house itself. Wright’s desire for clarity led him to design ornamentation based on straight lines and rectangular shapes that matched both the natural settings of the house and its materials. He also sought to incorporate furnishings into his architecture by designing them in simple terms along straight lines and in rectangular forms.
Wright’s designs became known as prairie-style houses because of their open design and embrace of the open spaces of the Midwest. A group of architects embraced Wright’s style and became known as the “Prairie School.” Wright’s influence in the years before 1930 was tempered, however, by his insistence on individualism and a series of scandals that surrounded him. Because Wright believed that each architect should express his own individualism and creativity in his designs, he never set out to create a school of design. He was, in fact, openly critical of the Prairie School architects. In addition, Wright became unpopular when in 1909 he left his wife and began living with the wife of one of his clients. His personal choices lost him many commissions in the Chicago area. Despite these obstacles to the spread of his ideals, Wright became the most recognized architect in America. He did so because he was the first American architect to develop a set of principles applicable to the complete range of buildings, from small houses to large office buildings, demanded by American society.
Further reading: William J. Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900, 2d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1987); Ada Louise Huxtable, Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: Viking Penguin, 2004).
—Michael Hartman
Wright Brothers (Wilbur [1867-1912] and Orville [1871-1948]) inventors of the airplane Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered, sustained, and controlled flight with a heavier-than-air flying machine at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. The aviation pioneers grew up in a household led by their father, a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, whom they later credited with fostering in them a curiosity about the way things worked. The two brothers never graduated from high school, choosing instead to study mathematics and engineering on their own. In 1889 they launched their first joint venture, a print shop. They also began to publish two short newspapers.
During the 1890s, the Wright brothers sought to use their mechanical skills to supply the booming market for bicycles. Americans were experiencing a bicycle craze triggered by mechanical developments that made them easier to ride. By 1896, the Wrights were building bicycles for sale in their small shop in Dayton, Ohio. Their business was successful, and the brothers used their profits from the sale of bicycles to finance their experiments in flight.
The Wright brothers became interested in flight after reading articles reporting the death of a German aeronautical pioneer in 1896. Between 1899 and 1905, they manufactured seven aircraft, three of which were powered. In
Orville Wright flying a Wright glider at Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The flight was officially the first sustained, controlled flight by a heavier-than-aircraft. Wilbur Wright runs alongside his brother. (Hulton/Archive)
1901, they designed and built their own wind tunnel, which proved crucial to their eventual success. The wind tunnel allowed them to experiment with different wing designs and arches. While doing these tests, they developed the first accurate tables of lift and drag, the parameters that govern flight. From their experiments in the wind tunnel and in actual flights in the gliders they constructed, the Wright brothers developed the proper wing and tail shape to provide stability in flight. They then built an engine to power their aircraft. The aircraft that made the first flight had a wingspan of 40 feet and weighed 750 pounds, with the pilot. The brothers took turns flying it. The longest flight on that first day in 1903 lasted 59 seconds and the plane traveled at 10 mph.
The Wright brothers patented their control system and offered their plane to the U. S. War Department. They did not, however, begin to exhibit their aircraft publicly until 1908 when they undertook a promotional tour of the United States and Europe. By 1909, they could sustain a flight for 20 miles and governments in the United States and Europe began to order planes. To meet the demand, the Wright brothers formed the Wright Company to manufacture and sell their aircraft.
Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever in 1912, and Orville sold the Wright Company to investors in 1915. He continued to play an important role in aeronautics. He served as a consulting engineer during World War I and became a member of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
Further reading: Tom D. Crouch, The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989).
—Michael Hartman
World History
