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

Immigration, Migration, and "100% Americanism"

Fueled by the rapid rise of urbanization, industrialization, and mass media, debates about American national identity followed the movement of immigrants and migrants into and across the country. The onset of war slowed U.S. immigration considerably, yet the most recent generations of European and Caribbean immigrants brought seismic demographic shifts nationwide. By 1910, roughly one-third of all Americans were either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Black Americans in the Jim Crow South began fleeing disenfranchisement, segregation, and racial violence—migrating to Northern cities in search of jobs, kin, and greater self-determination.

Theodore Roosevelt, Lieutenant-Colonel, U.S.A. (1858–1919). Average Americans. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1919. Yale University Library

Of the 32 million first- or second-generation immigrants living in the United States at the onset of war, roughly 10 million came from Germany or its allied lands. Split loyalties within these families and the threat of espionage and sedition became points of heightened apprehension in public discourse and federal domestic wartime policy. Fears about Black insurrection in the United States, particularly across the South, had long fueled white supremacist policies of surveillance and oppression. With the outbreak of World War I, these anxieties were provoked anew by the possibility of German spies and foreign agitators calling expliclty for Black revolt. As the conflict abroad intensified, the U.S. government adopted sweeping, modern systems of control, surveillence, and censorship. German Americans faced particular scrutiny, though other individuals and groups were vulnerable to repression in the name of “100% Americanism” because of their race, ethnicity, political views, or citizenship status.

R.J. Raylin. “Full length portrait, children arranged around mother.” Mendenhall, Canton, Ill. n.d.

Hermann Hagedorn. Where Do You Stand?: An Appeal to Americans of German Origin. St. Paul, Minn: Publicity Department Commission of Public Safety, [1918?].

The son of German immigrants, Hermann Hagedorn was born in New York City and grew up speaking German. With the outbreak of war, several of his family members returned to Germany to serve their “true” homeland, making the matter of divided wartime loyalty intensely personal. Rising to prominence in the war years as one of the most outspoken public advocates for Americanism, Hagedorn was part of the Vigilantes, a network of writers and artists committed to Roosevelt’s cause. He personally advised Roosevelt on German-American affairs and later did the same for the Wilson administration.

“I wish it could be read by every individual of those to whom it is addressed,” wrote Roosevelt of Hagedorn’s Appeal, “and by all other Americans also.” Patriotic literature in the United States focused on securing the loyalty of German Americans while also demonizing Germany and its culture. By the time the U.S. entered the war, German literature had been censored, banned, and burned. Objection of any kind could be deemed pro-German, as could a lapse as simple as insufficient war contributions—as posters declared: “A Bond Slacker is a Kaiser Backer.”

Hermann Hagedorn (1882–1964). You Are the Hope of the World!: An Appeal to the Girls and Boys of America. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1918 [1917].