Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering the key foreign policy principles, wartime mobilization efforts, social changes, and civil liberties issues during the era of World War I as detailed in Chapter 19.

The Americanisation of the World

A 1902 book by W. T. Stead that predicted the United States would emerge as "the greatest of world powers" due to its "exuberant energies" and economic industry.

Open Door

A key principle of American foreign relations referring to the free flow of trade, investment, information, and culture.

Liberal Internationalism

Woodrow Wilson's foreign policy conviction that economic and political progress went hand in hand, and that the U.S. had a responsibility to intervene in the world to promote liberty and democracy.

Panama Canal Zone

A ten-mile-wide strip of land across the Isthmus of Panama over which the United States was granted sovereignty to construct and operate a canal.

Roosevelt Corollary

An addendum to the Monroe Doctrine stating that the United States had the right to exercise "an international police power" in the Western Hemisphere to prevent European intervention.

Dollar Diplomacy

The foreign policy of William Howard Taft, which emphasized economic investment and loans from American banks rather than direct military intervention to spread American influence.

Moral Imperialism

Woodrow Wilson's approach to foreign policy, which sought to export American manufactured goods and investments while simultaneously spreading democratic ideals and "liberty and justice."

Lusitania

A British liner sunk by a German submarine in May 1915, resulting in the deaths of 1,198 passengers, including 124 Americans, and outraging American public opinion.

Zimmermann Telegram

A message intercepted by British spies in March 1917 from the German foreign secretary calling on Mexico to join a war against the United States in exchange for recovering lost territory.

Fourteen Points

Woodrow Wilson's 1918 vision for a new international order, including principles like self-determination, freedom of the seas, free trade, and the creation of a "general association of nations."

Selective Service Act

A May 1917 law requiring $24$ million men to register for the draft, increasing the U.S. Army from $120,000$ to $5$ million men.

War Industries Board

A federal agency headed by Bernard Baruch that presided over all elements of war production, including the distribution of raw materials and the prices of manufactured goods.

Committee on Public Information (CPI)

An agency created by the Wilson administration, directed by George Creel, to mobilize pro-war public opinion through a massive propaganda campaign.

Nineteenth Amendment

Ratified in 1920, this amendment barred states from using sex as a qualification for voting, effectively granting women the right to vote.

Eighteenth Amendment

A 1919 amendment, taking effect in 1920, that prohibited the manufacture and sale of "intoxicating liquor."

Espionage Act of 1917

A law that prohibited spying and interfering with the draft, as well as "false statements" that might impede military success.

Sedition Act of 1918

Legislation that made it a crime to make spoken or printed statements intended to cast "contempt, scorn, or disrepute" on the government or those advocating interference with the war effort.

Schenck v. United States (1919)

A Supreme Court case where Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes upheld the Espionage Act, ruling that Congress can prohibit speech that creates a "clear and present danger."

Eugenics

The "science" of studying alleged mental characteristics of different groups to justify the control of reproduction and the improvement of the human race's genetic quality.

Americanization

The process of creating a more homogeneous national culture by pressuring immigrants to adopt American values, English language, and social standards.

The Souls of Black Folk

A 1903 book by W. E. B. Du Bois that challenged the accommodationist policies of Booker T. Washington and called for African Americans to press for equal rights.

Niagara Movement

A group organized by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1905 that sought to reinvigorate the abolitionist tradition and demanded full political, civil, and social rights for African Americans.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

An organization founded in 1909 by Du Bois and a group of reformers that launched a long legal struggle for the enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

Great Migration

The movement of approximately half a million African Americans from the rural South to Northern industrial cities between 1910 and 1920 in search of jobs and escape from lynching.

Garveyism

A Black nationalist movement led by Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association that advocated for national self-determination and Black self-reliance.

Red Scare of 1919-1920

A period of intense political intolerance and repression of radicalism fueled by post-war strikes and fears of a communist conspiracy following the Russian Revolution.

Palmer Raids

Federal raids overseen by A. Mitchell Palmer and J. Edgar Hoover in which over $5,000$ people were arrested, often without warrants, to root out radical and labor organizations.

Versailles Treaty

The 1919 peace treaty that ended World War I, established the League of Nations, redrew the map of Europe, and imposed harsh reparations on Germany.