SECTION 4: Effects of the War
▲ Members of the famous 369th Infantry Regiment are welcomed home in New York City, 1919.
WITNESS HISTORY 
AUDIO
A Difficult Transition
The service of African Americans during the war renewed hopes for equal rights for African Americans. However, the reality changed little.
“It is necessary now as never before that the black man press his claims as an American citizen…. The Government laid claim to him, both body and soul, and used him as freely as if he were the equal of any other man behind the guns…. The path he had to walk was just as rough, the load he had to carry was just as heavy, and the life he gave just as sweet, as that of any other man who laid his all upon the altar. He should contend, therefore, for every privilege, every comfort, every right which other men enjoy.”
—Dr. A. A. Graham, African American leader
Objectives
- Describe the problems Americans faced immediately after the war.
- Analyze how these problems contributed to the Red Scare.
- Understand how the war changed America’s role in world affairs.
Terms and People
- influenza
- inflation
- Red Scare
- Palmer Raids
- Nicola Sacco
- Bartolomeo Vanzetti
- Warren G. Harding
- creditor nation
NoteTaking
Reading Skill: Identify Main Ideas As you read, identify and record the main ideas of this section in a concept web like the one below.
Inflation
Role of women
Effects of World War I
Red Scare
Why It Matters The end of World War I produced an unstable international order. The loss of territory and the harsh reparations imposed by the Allies encouraged a strong desire for revenge in Germany. Meanwhile, Lenin’s Soviet Russia threatened revolution throughout the industrial world. In the United States, the horrors of the war along with widespread fear of communists and radicals led Americans to question their political, if not their economic, role in the world. Section Focus Question: What political, economic, and social effects did World War I have on the United States?
America Adjusts to Peace
World War I produced significant economic, social, political, and cultural changes in America and throughout the world. This led to important, occasionally painful, adjustments.
Flu Epidemic Grips the Nation
The movement from war to peace would have been difficult even in the best of times. But the end of 1918 and 1919 were not the best of times. In September 1918, an unusually deadly form of the influenza, or flu, virus appeared. Research in recent years shows that the 1918 influenza virus was originally a bird flu that mutated to spread to humans. Many historians now believe that the virus originated in the United States, then traveled around the world. Once the virus began, it spread like a wildfire and killed millions worldwide like a predator feasting on its prey. The great influenza pandemic, coming on the heels of the Great War, gave a sense of doom and dread to people around the globe.
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