An American and Nothing Else: The Great War and the Battle for National Belonging

Let's All Be Americans Now: Performing Patriotism

Unknown photographer. “Railroad Car Department Workers and Their Liberty Bond Purchase.” [1917]. Day’s Photo Studio, Merrick, Mass.

Patriotism: A Reading List. New York: The New York Public Library, 1917. Yale University Library.

Although President Woodrow Wilson ran his 1916 reelection campaign on a non-interventionist platform, the war in Europe had embedded itself in U.S. social and political culture from the outset. School curricula, library programs, and theater events peddled the positive values of patriotism, civic contributions, and national sacrifice. These efforts often focused on popultions and cultural institutions deemed “foreign” or otherwise "un-American" and were most robust in cities with large immigrant populations. That said, communities nationwide were swept up in the enthusiasm and social pressures of these extravagant and far-reaching propaganda campaigns. Public figures became subject to loyalty oaths. Commissions sprang up across the country to receive and investigate complaints about seditious publications and activities. Those designated as “enemy aliens” were required to register with the state.   

“Let’s All Be Americans Now.” Irving Berlin, Edgar Leslie, and George W. Meyer. New York: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Company, 1917. World War I Collection, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.

The number of English-language and citizenship classes tripled in 1917 alone, partly in response to an aggressive congressional push for an immigration policy that adopted an English literacy component. The Immigration Act of 1917 also expanded the “undesirable” list to include anarchists and other political radicals, as well as “idiots, imbeciles, [and] epileptics.” Fueled by eugenics and designed to stem immigration from Asia and southern and eastern Europe, these policies would culminate in 1924 with the Johnson-Reed Act, the most restrictive immigration law in U.S. history.

Immigrants, foreign nationals, and other “hyphenated” groups were subject to heightened surveillance, censorship, arrest, and detention in the months leading up to the U.S. declaration of war. However, the government also understood the demographic realities and the unprecedented demand for manpower—war efforts would ultimately expect and depend on the support of immigrants and racial minorities nationwide. Immigrants were called upon to perform support in this way with campaigns targeting their enclaves and printed in their native tongues.

Wartime propaganda frequently called up romanticized and depoliticized images of immigration, even as the subject rankled the public and dominated political discourse. These campaigns drummed up patriotic zeal, framing the purchasing of war bonds as an act of good citizenship and assimilation into mainstream white American culture.

Liberty Loan buttons were worn by Americans as a home front gesture of patriotism and commitment to the nation. They signified a financial contribution, but more broadly boasted membership in a particular wartime campaign—pressuring friends, neighbors, and colleagues to rally behind the same cause. The buttons were part of a massive roll-out of patriotic materials—an estimated 9 million posters and 5 million window stickers were manufactured and distributed, as well as 10 million buttons for a single Liberty Loan campaign.

Roughly one-third of the population purchased at least one Liberty Loan as an investment in the war effort. By encouraging the voluntary purchase of bonds rather than raising taxes and by encouraging public displays of such support, the federal government sought to finance the war effort through citizen investment while also promoting a spirit of national duty and sacrifice. 

Propaganda often juxtaposed U.S. ideals of freedom and democracy against "German Slavery" or Prussianism—the militarism, elitism, and cold discipline associated with the Prussian ruling class of the German Empire.

While patriotic propaganda and preparedness literature circulated widely, many Americans remained ambivalent about the war, seeing it as an issue far removed from daily life and national concern. Opposition to the war and to U.S. involvement was broad and diverse in its reasoning, ranging from affluent intellectuals, businessmen, and establishment progressives to socialists, anarchists, pacifists, and women’s organizations.