Chapter Number and Title:22 – War and the American State

Suggested Time Frame:2 Weeks

Links to MA Curriculum Frameworks

Links to MA Curriculum Frameworks

USII.6 Analyze the causes and course of America’s growing role in world affairs from the Civil War to WorldWarI. (H, E)

J. American entry into World War I

USII.7 Explain the course and significance of President Wilson’s wartime diplomacy, including his Fourteen Points,the League of Nations, and the failure of the Versailles treaty. (H)

Seminal Primary Documents to Read: President Woodrow Wilson, “Peace Without Victory,” speech (1917)

Brief Summary of Unit With Desired Enduring Understandings:

(What do you want the students to be able to know and understand several years from now, after they have forgotten the details?)

In 1914, nationalism, militarism, imperialism, and entangling alliances combined with other factors to lead the nations of Europe into a brutal war. The war quickly stretched around the globe. The United States remained neutral at first but ended up abandoning its long tradition of staying out of European conflicts.

Before the war, the federal government played a minor role in the daily lives of most Americans. During World War I, the government assumed new powers. It regulated industrial and agricultural production, worked to shape public opinion, and established a new military draft. While war required sacrifice, it also brought new economic opportunities and many Americans migrated to other parts of the country in search of these opportunities. The war permanently changed America’s relationship with their government.

By the time the United States entered World War I in the spring of 1917, the conflict all ready had become a deadly, bloody stalemate. The war would be won or lost on the Western Front in France. Since 1914, both sides had tried desperately to break the stalemate there and failed. American entry into the war would play a key role in the Allied victory.

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.

What Essential Questions will guide this unit and focus teaching and learning? (Essential questions are designed to engage student interest and guide inquiry into the important ideas of a unit of study.)

1. Why did World War I happen?

2. Why did the United States enter the war’?

3. Why did a stalemate develop on the Western Front?

4. Compare the three positions Americans took on the issue of whether or not the United States should enter the war.

5. In what ways did Americans support the war effort?

6. How did the Supreme Court justify the restrictions of the Espionage Act and Sedition Act?

7. Compare and contrast the reasons some Americans did not support the war.

8. How do you think returning soldiers reacted to changes at home when the war ended?

9. Describe America’s contributions to the Allied war effort?

10. What problems did the peace treaties solve? What problems did they create?

11. Why did the United States Senate ultimately reject the peace treaty and the League of Nations?

12. How did the influenza pandemic make the transition from war to peace more difficult?

13. How does the Sacco and Vanzetti case demonstrate the mindset of the Red Scare?

14. How did Americans both reject and embrace the new global influence of the United States?

What key knowledge and skills will the students acquire as a result of this unit?

Terms / People / Places / Other
Triple Entente
Triple Alliance
Central Powers
U- Boat
Conscientious Objector
Great Migration
Convoy
Self-determination
Reparations
Influenza
Inflation
Red Scare
No man’s land
Trench warfare
Weapons of WWI
Shell shock
Basket case
Treaty of Versailles
Armistice
Zimmerman Note / Franz Ferdinand
Gavrilo Princip
Woodrow Wilson
Ferdinand Foch
John Pershing
Alvin York
Eddie Rickenbacker
Bernard Baruch
George Creel
Jeannette Rankin
Sacco and Vanzetti
Henry Cabot Lodge
The Irreconcilables
Quotes:
“He kept us out of war.”
“The war to end all wars”
“We must make the world safe for democracy”
“Lafayette, we are here” / Militarism
Nationalism
Imperialism
Alliance System
RMS Lusitania
Selective Service Act
League of Nations
Fourteen Points
Flanders Fields
Big Bertha
WIB
The Fokker
Great Migration
War bonds
AEF
“Over There”
Salisbury Steak

What concepts and skills will students need to acquire/practice in order to learn the content and demonstrate the knowledge?

(Links to MA curriculum Framework Concepts and Skills)

How will students demonstrate their knowledge and skills?

Supplemental Materials:

  • Primary Source Documents:
  • Something
  • Videos
  • X
  • Y
  • Z