Historiography
Education, Propaganda, and Conscription of White Southern Men during the First World War
Just as Historian Jeannette Keith suggests, American historians often find significance of the Great War not in the muddy trenches of Europe due to its limited involvement, but rather in the debates, revolts, and tensions on the homefront. They find as much fascination in President Wilson’s foreign policy as in how he transformed from the man who “kept us out of war” to one relentlessly fighting for international peace in four months. Without a doubt, Wilson’s powerful and effective propaganda machine yielded this facade, which lasted even years after the war. Traditionally, the United States was depicted as one of solidarity in mobilizing for war. This myth of the national unity remained unchallenged until the Post-WWII 60s, as the OAH credited the shift in historiography to work such as The Wilson Administration and Civil Liberties and Aliens and Dissenters, that largely challenged the legality of policies under Wilson, including propagandas.
George Creel, the former head of the Committee on Public Information (CPI) under Wilson, proudly named his personal account of CPI “How We Advertised America,” and one of the most essential parts of selling the war to Americans was convincing the youth. In the first issue of the National School Service Handbook, a CPI published education guideline, Wilson wrote, “The schools and colleges of America are justified in their work when the youth of our land… are united in unselfish devotion and unstinted sacrifice for the country we hold dear,” stressing the importance of patriotic education.
Historian Joel H. Spring directly examines the involvement of CPI in manipulating public school curriculums in Images of American Life, including the addition of war games and patriotic speech contests. For the secondary schools, the CPI printed over 700,000 copies of “Study of the Great War,” a pamphlet that vilified Germany, to reach every senior high school student. George Creel wrote that the many propaganda materials were intended to be fully integrated into the curriculum, that teachers would structure classes centered on these pamphlets. Yet, Joel Spring argues that the work of CPI was beyond war propaganda. The CPI, according to Spring, acted in accordance with the Social Efficiency theory, the belief that education should be a direct infusion of knowledge and skills to shape students’ predetermined social characteristics. In the words of the CPI, education was meant to create “good citizens” rather than “good scholars.” Subsequently, President Wilson took the opportunity to impart some of his beliefs to the students. The wartime education promoted lessons that would teach “the principles of democracy” and citizenship: ideals held dear by Wilson. Historian Jean Palmer further corroborated with Spring’s argument, that certain Louisiana schools created essay contests with topics aligned with Wilson’s personal beliefs, such as “The Teaching of Democracy as a Factor in a League of Nations.” Consequently, education during the war became a mix of war propaganda and Wilson’s idealism.
The policy of war time education seemed to inherit many characteristics from the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), founded only years before the war. Examining the history of BSA, Scholar Benjamin R. Jordan argues that values of the BSA reflected the changing American political landscape, from blind partisanship during the Gilded Age to the “expert-management” model in the Progressive Era that emphasized work ethics, duty, and citizenship. Non-partisan civic engagement to support the community, known as “practiced citizenship,” became the priority of the Scout. The civic work was amplified during the war, when, according to scholar T.P. McDermott, the BSA sold war bonds that amounted to over 350 million dollars; the members that raised over $250 received a special “ace medal.” McDermott claims that by appealing to the psychology of adolescents with rewards, competition, and strict chains of commands, the BSA connected civic duty with the extent of manhood. Certainly, this carried onto the national education during the war. Historian Jean Palmer reveals that many Louisiana schools taught patriotism through masculinity by starting vocational classes such as telegraphy and placing more emphasis on athletics; several schools even initiated rifle exercise and physical training drills. The youthful spirits of preparedness for war, once prevalent only in the Scouts, gradually spread to other parts of the nation.
Yet, historian Jean Palmer reveals another issue present at the time: combatting localism and sectionalism in America in “advertising” the war. The early 20th Century United States remained a primarily agrarian society, especially in the underdeveloped and rural South. In Rich Man’s War, Poor Man’s Fight, Jeannette Keith details some of these oppositions to institutions such as the National Guard due to a fear of losing state power. For instance, George Huddleston, a Representative from Alabama, dreaded the possibility that “there will be no Alabama troops, no Ohio troops, merely troops of the United States,” while promoting “the old system [of state militias and volunteers].” Keith argues that rural poor Whites simply failed to trust the national institution or find any interest in a foreign war. Exemplified in the phrase “Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight,” rumors that American munitions industry or banking tycoons dragged the United States into the war furthered the mistrust.
The nationalist education did find more success in more urban and industrialized parts of the South, such as New Orleans. Yet, Jean Palmer describes how the school board of New Orleans put a little twist to the national policy. While schools celebrate events such as British Day and Liberty Day, they also honor the Confederate Memorial Day, even closing down after noon. What Palmer mentions but fails to explicate here is the use of Confederate and Lost Cause symbols in the patriotic education of the South. In this case, the celebration of Confederate heritage, with all its white-supremacist message, was considered as important as the national spirit. According to Keith, Wilson himself, in fact, used it to rally support when he praised the past chivalry of the South before a convention of Confederate veterans on Registration Day.
Historian Susan A. Brewer analyzes the specificity of propaganda in the American South, using the example of The Prussian Cur by Raoul Walsh. In the movie, Klansmen on horseback “save the day by preventing German sympathizers from breaking a German spy out of jail.” The film followed the formula of the highly controversial but successful film the Birth of a Nation; The only difference was that the villain was now a German agent instead. Brewer holds that the symbolism of protecting white womanhood, prevalent in the movies and posters portraying the “Rape of Belgium,” was again implemented to appeal to the White masculinity. Considering that the Civil War was merely two generations away, the glorification of the Lost Cause and the Southern Redemption allowed many Southerners to reconcile with their American identity. Yet, this message remained unable to reach the rural poor Whites. Jeannette Keith further expanded on this argument by stating that Lost Cause organizations such as UDC mainly drew support from Southern middle class families: one would need both enough time and money for the community work, neither of which illiterate Southern farmers possessed.
The Southern patriotic education of masculinity with the Confederate symbols make an interesting comparison to the Boy Scouts of America. While established a national organization, according to historian Benjamin Jordan, the BSA attracted investments from business tycoons like Rockefeller and appealed mostly to Northern White middle-class families--similar to how Lost Cause memorial groups functioned in the South. They almost appeared complementary to each other: in fact, the BSA found the lowest percentage of recruits in the American South, particularly the Deep South states such as Mississippi. Just like the Scouts, the United Daughters of Confederacy supported the war from the onset. In a formal letter, the UDC supported John Williams, the pro-war Senator from Mississippi, “The women of Dixie are behind you and will give you their loyal support in this crisis.” Much of the work of the UDC also centered on child education, through its subsidiary, the Children of Confederacy, or the notorious catechism. Historian Amy Heyse suggests that the UDC used rhetorical techniques such as enthymeme, oversimplification of the historical facts, or repetition of the word “truth” to manipulate the youth. By creating the catechism that exaggerated the supposed gallantry of Confederate heroes, the UDC not only created the collective memory of the revisionist past, but also taught the Southern white children of the masculinity during the war time.
Again, the success of manipulating the Lost Cause rhetorics was limited, as the majority of the White Southerners, rural and uneducated, failed to grasp it. As historian Capozzola puts across, merely three percents of Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four were enrolled in college by the start of the war. Many Southern yeomen, especially the veterans of the Civil War, still struggled to accept revisionist collective memory fabricated by the UDC. According to Keith, Southern Whites actually used the Confederacy as an excuse to oppose conscription, citing the flawed drafting system that favored the rich during the Civil War or the ineffectiveness of amateur drafted soldiers. In fact, many Confederate veterans would write letters to Claude Kitchin, an anti-war Congressman, for peace.
These suspicions and protests were not wrong, as Keith shows that the federal conscription policy during WWI again disproportionately harmed the Southern poor farmers. While the loss of male strength constituted more troubles in a yeoman farm than a factory, a higher percentage of Southern married men were drafted in comparison to the North. Also, the power of exemption to conscription was given to local commissioners, who often favored the well-to-do families. Keith argues that the corrupt national machinery of drafting caused the disaffected Southern Whites to rebel against them, sometimes with violence. Historian Zachary Smith, however, disagrees with Keith in that he believes the anti-war crusade started long before the draft was implemented. Smith used Tom Watson, a famous former populist who led the resistance of war in Georgia. According to Smith, Watson had a long history of attacking “big money” and institutions like the Catholic Church. Also, his race-baiting rhetorics against Jews and African Americans won him more support following the collapse of the Populist Party, rallying support from thousands of men in 1915. Smith holds that Watson took advantage of the Southern mistrust of “Big Money” and characterized the conscription as yet another example of abusing federal authority: common beliefs that had long been prevalent before the war. To him, the Lost Cause tenets of protecting the home and the Southern way of life simply did not apply to a war oversea against the Germans.
Whether the anti-war movement started before the conscription or not, anti-conscription organizations became a strong influence to the rural South, and the U.S. Government was quick to notice and tackle them. Since the exemption rate was high and draft dodging was relatively easy, the Federal Government could not possibly track down every dissenter. Instead, according to historian Christopher Capozzola, the government created a culture of “coercive volunteerism” and a state of vigilante instead. Calling the draft dodgers the “slackers” and listing the names of those who claimed exemptions on newspapers, the government created immense social pressure on those men who stayed behind. Historian Susan Zeiger added a gender lens onto this pressure. Since numerous women worked as pacifists during the war, propagandas connected pacifism with femininity--in a term called maternal pacifism--and ridicules men who held an anti-war attitude. Zeiger states that the CPI even created an archetype of “bad mother”--overprotective mothers whose sons became cowards--in the media during the war to challenge both the woman pacifists and slackers. In addition to the coercive social pressure, vigilante organizations such as the American Protective League was formed. According to Capozzola, while their legal status was in a state of limbo, the League conducted numerous “raids” across the country to find and turn in the slackers. In the rural South, however, Keith argues that, the U.S. Government also created a strong network of surveillance to tackle anti-war activities, using the resources of the Bureau of Investigation and other federal agencies. Zachary Smith corroborated by stating how the Department of Justice, raided anti-draft meetings promoted by Watson and shut down the production of the Jeffersonian. In the end, these methods found mixed success. While they effectively undermined many anti-war organizations, draft evasion and desertion remained high in the rural South. By the end of the war, the Deep South states shared the highest registration desertion rate, ranging between 1.01 and 2.52 percent.
Education, propaganda, and conscription, with unique modifications, became an imperative tool used by the Federal Government to mobilize the Southerners for the war effort. Certainly, there are many other factors such as gender and race outside the scope of this paper, and these factors further complicate the question of wartime patriotism, surveillance, and propaganda.
Work Cited
Primary Sources
Committee on Public Information. National School Service, no. 1. From Library of Congress, Selected Digitized Books. September 1, 1918. https://www.loc.gov/collections/selected-digitized-books/?c=150&fa=segmentof:dcmsiabooks.nationalschoolse00unit/&sb=shelf-id&st=gallery (accessed March 29, 2019)
Creel, George. How We Advertised America: The First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public Information that Carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner of the Globe. London: Forgotten Books, 2012.
Secondary Sources
Brewer, Susan A. Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. http://www.questiaschool.com/read/121524473/why-america-fights-patriotism-and-war-propaganda.
Capozzola, Christopher. Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. http://www.questiaschool.com/read/121502496/uncle-sam-wants-you-world-war-i-and-the-making-of.
Heyse, Amy Lynn. "The Rhetoric of Memory-Making: Lessons from the UDC's Catechisms for Children." Rhetoric Society Quarterly 38, no. 4 (2008): 408-32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40232600.
Jordan, Benjamin René. Modern Manhood and the Boy Scouts of America: Citizenship, Race, and the Environment, 1910-1930. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. http://www.questiaschool.com/read/125379402/modern-manhood-and-the-boy-scouts-of-america-citizenship.
Keith, Jeanette. Rich Man's War, Poor Man's Fight: Race, Class, and Power in the Rural South during the First World War. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. http://www.questiaschool.com/read/122084355/rich-man-s-war-poor-man-s-fight-race-class-and.
McDermott, T.P. "USA’s Boy Scouts and World War I Liberty Loan Bonds." SOSSI Journal 51, no. 3 (2002): 68-73. https://sossi.org/journal/scouts-ww1-liberty-bonds.pdf.
Palmer, Jean M. "The Impact of World War I on Louisiana's Schools and Community Life." Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 7, no. 4 (1966): 323-32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4230922.
Showalter, Dennis. "The United States in the Great War: A Historiography." OAH Magazine of History 17, no. 1 (2002): 5-13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163557.
Smith, Zachary. "Tom Watson and Resistance to Federal War Policies in Georgia during World War I." The Journal of Southern History 78, no. 2 (2012): 293-326. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23248055.
Spring, Joel. Images of American Life: A History of Ideological Management in Schools, Movies, Radio, and Television. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992. Accessed March 29, 2019. https://books.google.com/books/about/Images_of_American_Life.html?id=kvWRWJrRePAC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Zeiger, Susan. "She Didn't Raise Her Boy to Be a Slacker: Motherhood, Conscription, and the Culture of the First World War." Feminist Studies 22, no. 1 (1996): 7-39. doi:10.2307/3178245.