Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I, 1916–1920

Vocabulary flashcards covering U.S. foreign policy, World War I home front mobilization, racial violence, civil liberties suppression, and social movements from 1916 to 1920.

Liberal Internationalism

Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy concept asserting that economic and political freedom went hand in hand, and that American intervention abroad would foster global democracy and open markets.

Roosevelt Corollary

An amendment to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine asserting the right of the United States to act as an 'international police power' in the Western Hemisphere to intervene in Latin American nations and enforce financial obligations.

United Fruit Company

An American corporation whose commercial investments in Honduras, Costa Rica, and Guatemala were heavily encouraged and protected by U.S. intervention policies under Theodore Roosevelt.

Moral Imperialism

Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy approach aimed at freeing Latin America from economic foreign domination, driven by the belief that American goods and investments had a mission to teach democracy and 'civilize' the region, which produced more military interventions than under any prior presidency.

U.S. Occupation of Haiti (1915–1934)

A military intervention initiated by Woodrow Wilson in 1915 dispatching U.S. marines to occupy Haiti to oversee financial affairs through American banks, establishing a presence that lasted until 1934.

U.S. Military Government in the Dominican Republic (1916–1924)

A military administration established by Woodrow Wilson in 1916 where U.S. armed forces governed the country and remained stationed until 1924.

Pancho Villa Expedition

A military expedition ordered by Woodrow Wilson sending U.S. troops across the Mexican border to capture the revolutionary general Francisco 'Pancho' Villa following tensions during the Mexican Revolution.

Lusitania

A British passenger liner carrying passengers and contraband military supplies that was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland in May 1915, causing over 1,000 deaths (including 124 Americans) and sparking Wilson's policy of preparedness.

Policy of Preparedness

Woodrow Wilson's military buildup program begun in late 1915 to expand the U.S. army and navy, which contributed to Germany temporarily suspending submarine attacks against noncombatant vessels in May 1916.

Zimmerman Telegram

A coded message intercepted in early 1917 sent by the German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann proposing an alliance between Germany and Mexico if the United States entered World War I, promising the return of lost territory.

Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson's January 1918 blueprint for postwar peace, which championed self-determination for all peoples, freedom of the seas, free trade, open diplomacy, and an association of nations.

Selective Service Act (May 1917)

Federal legislation passed in May 1917 requiring millions of American men to register for the draft, resulting in an unprecedented expansion of the national military.

War Industries Board (WIB)

A federal wartime agency created to supervise national industrial production and allocate raw materials, set manufacturing quotas, and establish prices during World War I.

Treaty of Versailles

The 1919 peace settlement following World War I that redrew European borders, held Germany accountable for the conflict, and officially created the League of Nations.

The Red Scare

A period of intense political paranoia between 1919 and 1920 sparked by postwar strikes and the Russian Revolution, marked by warrantless federal raids, arrests of over 5,000 individuals, mass deportations, and extensive government surveillance of political radicals.

Committee on Public Information (CPI)

A wartime government agency created in April 1917 to sway public opinion in support of the war through posters, pamphlets, advertisements, movies, and speeches delivered across the country by 75,000 Four-Minute Men.

Espionage Act (1917) and Sedition Act (1918)

Federal statutes that prohibited spying, interfering with military recruitment, and making false statements intended to impede the war effort, alongside banning spoken or written speech critical of the U.S. government or war effort.

American Protective League (APL)

A private patriotic organization that assisted the Justice Department during World War I by spying on coworkers and neighbors, staging raids against draft resisters, and enforcing coercive patriotism.

Tulsa Race Riot (1921)

The deadliest race riot in American history, occurring in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where white mobs destroyed the prosperous Greenwood district, killing an estimated 300 African Americans and leaving 10,000 homeless.

W.E.B. DuBois

Prominent scholar and activist who authored The Souls of Black Folk (1903), convened the Niagara Movement in 1905, and co-founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909 to fight for complete civil, legal, and educational equality.

The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

A groundbreaking work by W.E.B. DuBois that attacked Booker T. Washington's accommodationist strategy, arguing instead for higher education, voting rights, and full civil equality for African Americans.

Niagara Movement (1905)

A gathering of Black intellectuals organized by W.E.B. DuBois at Niagara Falls in 1905 that issued a manifesto demanding voting rights, an end to segregation, and equal access to economic and educational opportunities.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

A civil rights organization established in 1909 by a coalition of Black activists and white reformers that launched legal battles to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and eliminate racial discrimination.

Great Migration

The large-scale movement of approximately half a million African Americans from the rural South to urban industrial centers in the North between 1910 and 1920, driven by war production demands, a drop in European immigration, and the search for economic opportunity.

Eugenics

An early 20th-century pseudoscientific movement that claimed human social problems like crime, poverty, and delinquency stemmed from hereditary defects in non-Anglo-Saxon groups, popularized in works such as Madison Grant's The Passing of the Great Race.

Americanization

A nationwide campaign to assimilate immigrants and eliminate foreign cultures by teaching English, instilling Anglo-Saxon customs, and promoting loyalty, celebrated through concepts like the 'melting pot' and industrial schooling programs run by employers such as Henry Ford.