World War I, Women's Suffrage (19th Amendment) & The 1920s: Fifth Grade Social Studies
The decade between 1914 and 1929 catapulted the United States onto the world stage as a military superpower in World War I, saw women finally win the constitutional right to vote through the Nineteenth Amendment, and witnessed the dazzling cultural revolution of the Roaring Twenties.
The Great War Erupts in Europe (1914)
In the summer of 1914, a complex web of secret military alliances, imperial rivalries, and militarism dragged the European continent into the most catastrophic conflict the world had ever seen: World War I, then known simply as the "Great War."
The conflict pitted two massive alliances against each other:
- The Allied Powers: Great Britain, France, Russia (until 1917), Italy, and later the United States.
- The Central Powers: The German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey).
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| THE HORRORS OF TRENCH WARFARE |
| |
| - Both armies dug 400 MILES of parallel, zigzagging trenches |
| from the Swiss border to the North Sea ("Western Front"). |
| - "NO MAN'S LAND": A desolate wasteland of craters, mud, |
| and barbed wire between the opposing trench lines. |
| |
| DEADLY NEW MILITARY INVENTIONS: |
| - Machine guns (firing 600 rounds per minute). |
| - Massive high-explosive artillery cannons. |
| - POISON GAS (chlorine, phosgene, and blistering mustard gas!).|
| - Armored tanks, fighter airplanes, and German U-boats! |
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For three bloody years, European armies were locked in a horrific stalemate along the Western Front. Soldiers lived in wet, rat-infested mud trenches, suffering from "trench foot" and lice. When whistle blasts sounded the order to go "over the top," soldiers charged into No Man's Land directly into massed machine gun fire, suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties in single afternoon battles without gaining a hundred yards of territory.
America's Path from Neutrality to War
When war broke out in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed strict American neutrality, urging citizens to be "neutral in fact, as well as in name, impartial in thought, as well as action." In the presidential election of 1916, Wilson won re-election under the popular campaign slogan: "He Kept Us Out of War."
However, maintaining American neutrality proved impossible as German naval actions increasingly violated international law:
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| FACTORS PULLING THE U.S. INTO THE WAR |
| |
| 1. THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA (MAY 7, 1915): |
| - German submarine U-20 torpedoes British luxury passenger |
| liner off the coast of Ireland; sinks in 18 minutes! |
| - 1,198 innocent passengers die, including 128 AMERICANS! |
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| 2. UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE (JANUARY 1917): |
| - Germany declares it will sink ALL merchant and passenger |
| ships trading with Britain without warning! Torpedoes |
| several unarmed American merchant vessels. |
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| 3. THE ZIMMERMANN TELEGRAM (MARCH 1917): |
| - British intelligence intercepts a secret coded telegram |
| from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to Mexico:|
| "If Mexico allies with Germany against the U.S., Germany |
| will help Mexico reconquer its lost territory in |
| TEXAS, NEW MEXICO, AND ARIZONA!" |
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On May 7, 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed the British luxury ocean liner RMS Lusitania. The ship sank in eighteen minutes, killing 1,198 passengers, including 128 American citizens. American public opinion erupted in fury.
The decisive breaking point occurred in early 1917. First, Germany announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare. Then, in March 1917, British codebreakers intercepted and decoded the secret Zimmermann Telegram. German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann proposed a military alliance with Mexico: if the United States entered the war, Germany promised to help Mexico invade the U.S. and reconquer its lost southwestern territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona!
The publication of the Zimmermann Telegram outraged the American public. On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to ask for a declaration of war, declaring that "the world must be made safe for democracy." On April 6, 1917, the United States officially entered the war.
The "Doughboys" Turn the Tide in France
Commanded by General John J. Pershing, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) mobilized more than two million American soldiers, affectionately known as "Doughboys" (possibly named after the large brass buttons on their uniforms or the pipe-clay dust they used to clean their belts).
The arrival of fresh, enthusiastic American troops in the spring of 1918 turned the tide of the war. Under Pershing's insistence that American troops fight as an independent army rather than piecemeal replacements in exhausted British and French units, the Doughboys stopped the final German spring offensive at Château-Thierry and Belleau Wood.
In the autumn of 1918, more than one million American troops launched the Meuse-Argonne Offensive—the largest and bloodiest military operation in United States military history. In forty-seven days of brutal fighting through dense forests, the Doughboys broke through the fortified Hindenburg Line. Exhausted, facing starvation from the British naval blockade, and with its army in full retreat, Germany surrendered.
At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—November 11, 1918—the guns fell silent across the Western Front as an armistice took effect (celebrated today as Veterans Day).
Wilson's Fourteen Points and the League of Nations
In 1919, President Wilson traveled to Paris for the Versailles Peace Conference, championing his "Fourteen Points"—a visionary blueprint for lasting world peace based on freedom of the seas, reduction of weapons, and self-determination for all nations.
Wilson's fourteenth point called for the creation of a League of Nations—an international governing organization where countries could resolve disputes peacefully through diplomacy rather than war.
However, when Wilson brought the Treaty of Versailles home, the United States Senate, led by Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, rejected it. Senators feared that Article X of the League charter would drag the United States into future European wars without congressional approval. The United States never joined the League of Nations, turning its back on global diplomacy and retreating into isolationism.
The Triumph of Women's Suffrage: The 19th Amendment (1920)
World War I provided the final, irresistible catalyst for women to win the right to vote. During the war, millions of American women stepped forward to fill the void left by soldiers: working in munitions factories, driving streetcars, harvesting wheat as the "Farmerettes," and serving overseas as military nurses and telephone operators.
Suffragists capitalized on the moment with brilliant political strategies:
- Carrie Chapman Catt and the NAWSA: Led the two-million-member National American Woman Suffrage Association, pursuing a disciplined "Winning Plan" lobbying politicians state by state and reminding President Wilson that America could not claim to fight for democracy abroad while denying it to twenty million women at home.
- Alice Paul and the Silent Sentinels: A radical young Quaker activist who formed the National Woman's Party. Starting in January 1917, Paul and her followers became the first group in American history to picket the White House. Standing silently outside the gates in freezing snow and blazing heat holding banners reading "Mr. President, How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?", the "Silent Sentinels" were attacked by angry mobs, arrested on bogus charges of "obstructing traffic," and thrown into the squalid Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. When Alice Paul launched a hunger strike, prison guards held her down and force-fed her raw eggs through a rubber tube jammed down her throat.
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| RATIFYING THE 19TH AMENDMENT (AUGUST 1920) |
| |
| - Passed by Congress in June 1919; sent to states. |
| - By August 1920, 35 states had ratified; ONE MORE NEEDED! |
| - THE DRAMA IN TENNESSEE: |
| * State legislature deadlocked 48 to 48! |
| * 24-year-old Representative HARRY BURN wore a red anti- |
| suffrage rose on his lapel, planning to vote "NO." |
| * But Burn received a seven-page letter from his mother, |
| FEBBE BURN: "Hurrah and vote for suffrage and don't keep |
| them in doubt... Be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt!" |
| * Burn changed his vote to "YES"! The tie was broken 49-47! |
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| AUGUST 26, 1920: THE 19TH AMENDMENT BECOMES LAW! |
| "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not |
| be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State |
| on account of sex." 26 MILLION AMERICAN WOMEN ENFRANCHISED! |
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Horrified by the brutal treatment of the picketers and grateful for women's wartime service, President Wilson finally endorsed women's suffrage as a "vital war measure."
In August 1920, the battle came down to the final state: Tennessee. The state legislature was deadlocked 48 to 48. Twenty-four-year-old representative Harry Burn held a red rose on his lapel, indicating a "no" vote. But in his pocket was a letter from his elderly mother, Febb Burn, admonishing him: "Hurrah and vote for suffrage and don't keep them in doubt... Be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the 'rat' in ratification!" Burn voted "yes," breaking the tie. On August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution, granting twenty-six million American women the sacred right to vote.
The Roaring Twenties: Jazz, Radios, and Flappers
Following the trauma of World War I, Americans were eager to put international problems behind them. In 1920, Republican Warren G. Harding was elected president promising a "Return to Normalcy."
The decade of the 1920s—known as the "Roaring Twenties" or the "Jazz Age"—witnessed a dizzying economic boom and a dazzling cultural revolution:
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| SYMBOLS OF THE ROARING TWENTIES |
| |
| HENRY FORD & THE MODEL T: |
| - Perfected the MOVING ASSEMBLY LINE in Highland Park, MI. |
| - Reduced car assembly time from 12 hours to 93 MINUTES! |
| - Dropped Model T price from $850 to under $300! |
| - Paid workers $5 A DAY (double the average wage!); created |
| an American car culture of road trips and suburbs! |
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| MASS CONSUMER CULTURE & MEDIA: |
| - Commercial radio stations (KDKA Pittsburgh, 1920). |
| - Motion pictures ("Silent Movies" & "Talkies": *The Jazz |
| Singer* in 1927). |
| - Electric appliances: vacuum cleaners, washing machines, |
| and refrigerators purchased on installment credit ("Buy |
| now, pay later!"). |
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| THE "FLAPPER": |
| - Symbol of modern young women; bobbed short hair, knee-length|
| fringed dresses, makeup, driving cars, and dancing the |
| Charleston in dance halls! |
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| PROHIBITION (The 18th Amendment): |
| - Banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol (1920-1933). |
| - Gave rise to illegal "SPEAKEASY" nightclubs and violent |
| gangster syndicates (Al Capone in Chicago!). |
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The Harlem Renaissance
The cultural centerpiece of the 1920s was the Harlem Renaissance—an extraordinary blossoming of African American literature, music, poetry, and visual arts centered in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem.
Driven by the Great Migration—in which hundreds of thousands of African Americans fled the oppressive Jim Crow South to seek factory jobs and freedom in Northern cities—Harlem became the cultural capital of Black America.
Visionary artists redefined Black identity and challenged racial prejudice through magnificent creative expression:
- Poets and Writers: Langston Hughes penned immortal poems celebrating Black resilience, beauty, and soul ("I, too, sing America"); Zora Neale Hurston collected rich Southern folklore; and Claude McKay wrote fiery sonnets against racial violence.
- The Birth of Jazz: African American musicians invented jazz, blending African polyrhythms, Southern blues, and ragtime into a uniquely American musical art form. Legendary trumpet master Louis Armstrong, composer Duke Ellington, and blues singer Bessie Smith performed at famous venues like the Cotton Club, thrilling Black and white audiences alike.
The 1920s was a decade of thrilling energy, technological speed, and cultural innovation. But beneath the roaring party, economic cracks were quietly spreading—setting the stage for the catastrophic economic collapse of the Great Depression.
Chapter Review and Exercises
Summary Review Exercises
Exercise One asks students to explain the factors that compelled the United States to abandon its policy of neutrality and enter World War I on the side of the Allies in April 1917. The response should detail the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare sinking American merchant ships, and the intercepted Zimmermann Telegram proposing a German-Mexican alliance against the U.S.
Exercise Two asks students to analyze the contrasting strategies used by Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul that culminated in the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in August 1920. The response should contrast Catt's traditional lobbying of politicians and support for the war effort through NAWSA with Paul's radical picketing of the White House with the Silent Sentinels and hunger strikes, explaining how the drama in Tennessee ended with Harry Burn casting the deciding vote on his mother's advice.
Exercise Three requires students to describe the cultural and economic transformations of the "Roaring Twenties," detailing Henry Ford's moving assembly line, the rise of consumer culture, and the artistic achievements of the Harlem Renaissance. The response should explain how Ford made the Model T affordable, how radios and mass credit spurred consumer spending, and detail the literary and musical contributions of Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington in celebrating African American identity.
Detailed Solutions
Solution to Exercise One clarifies that American entry into World War I was driven by repeated violations of maritime sovereignty and national security. The Zimmermann Telegram transformed a distant European conflict into an immediate hemispheric threat, prompting Woodrow Wilson to mobilize American military and industrial might to ensure democratic victory.
Solution to Exercise Two reveals that the suffrage victory was achieved through a complementary "inside-outside" political strategy. Catt's diplomatic lobbying established mainstream credibility, while Paul's public civil disobedience exposed federal hypocrisy and shamed political leaders, culminating in the dramatic ratification that enfranchised twenty-six million female citizens.
Solution to Exercise Three details that the 1920s marked the birth of modern American consumer society. The moving assembly line created affordable mass transit and stimulated suburban growth, while the Harlem Renaissance dismantled racial caricatures through world-class literature and the invention of jazz, establishing Black artistic excellence as a defining pillar of American culture.