Janelle Sanders
U.S. History
Class 10-1
1/27/15
“The First World War: 1914-1920”
Chapter 19
Why did the United States at first resist intervening in World War I? Why did it later retreat from this policy and send troops?
In the beginning, the United States was neutral. The reasons behind the neutrality was because this fight simply wasn’t our problem. We wanted to stay out of the war in order to save lives and money. We soon retreated from this neutrality to war. The sinking of the Lusitania ship set off this spark, as well as other reasons. This ship had aboard many passengers, which included Americans citizens. It’s job was to ferry people as well as goods, across the Atlantic Ocean. That path was between the United States and Great Britain. It was torpedoed by a German U-boat on May 7th, 1915. Of the 1,959 people on board, 1,198 died, including 128 Americans. Next on list of reasons, Britain, who controlled the majority of the North Atlantic Ocean, refused to allow American goods to be shipped to Germany and declared all cargo in neutral waters to be contraband. Britain then began seizing U.S. goods. The Zimmermann note was also a cause. It was a proposal by a German official that Mexico attack the United States in return for territory. This proposal led to strong public support for U.S. entry into the war. Lastly, British propaganda was used in the U.S. to gain support from the public and side with them. Propaganda is a form of misleading information that could either lead to support or anger towards that topic. This type of propaganda caused the latter one. Even though it was misleading information, the positive effect was the support from us americans. Men would volunteer to fight in the war with no question, women would take care of their jobs at home, and many donations were created to help the war, including food and money. In the end, propaganda did do us good after all.
How did the World War I change America - both its standing in the world and at home? Why is the war important enough for the authors of your textbook to give it a full chapter?
World War I was one of the biggest events that happened in our history, as well as the growth of America.. Economic changes, and technological/industrial were few...
