home front, World War I

Organization of the UK civilian population by the British government to meet the war effort in World War I. Laws were passed extending government control over new areas. The Defence of the Realm Act (1914) introduced censorship over the news in order to maintain morale and facilitate propaganda. Government control was extended over manufacturing output. Drinking was restricted by law, and food conservation encouraged, although rationing was not introduced until 1918. World War I had a greater impact on the entire UK population than any previous war, and social changes, such as the use of women in men's traditional employment, had a lasting effect after the war.

Censorship and propaganda In conjunction with the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), the British government established the War Office Press Bureau to control information about the war and the War Propaganda Bureau to produce posters and pamphlets with encouraging messages. Through these means the government ensured that only good news was reported in the media to keep spirits high, while depressing casualty figures and defeats remained a secret.

Many newspapers adopted a policy of self-censorship, ensuring that they did not print anything that could cost them their licence or risk imprisonment for the journalist, editor, or publisher. For most this was not a problem at the start of the war, as the press were caught up in the patriotic mood that was sweeping the nation. Readers wanted positive stories, and that is exactly what they were given. As the war progressed, however, and the losses mounted, newspapers found it harder to write positive stories. Disasters such as the loss of 57,470 British soldiers, dead or wounded, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916 were very hard to report. The government dealt with this problem by covering up the truth and limiting the flow of information from the trenches. Soldiers' letters were censored, and the army even produced pre-printed postcards with positive messages for the men to send home. Many men would not tell their families of the horrors of trench life even when they had the opportunity, so a collective sense of denial and misinformation was created.

Work The government took control of coal-mining and the railway network. Factories were forced to change their production to materials needed for the war effort. In 1916 British summer time was introduced to extend daylight working hours by moving the clocks forward one hour.

Recruitment At first there was no need for conscription into the army, as the number of recruits in 1914 and 1915 exceeded all government hopes. Millions of men volunteered. However in 1916 the government used the powers it had gained under DORA to enforce conscription for all single men between 18 and 41; married men were included two months later.

Women As the men disappeared to the Western Front in increasing numbers, women had to take up their places in the workforce. The role of women on the home front was enhanced by the decision of the two main suffragette movements, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) and the more militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), led by Emmeline Pankhurst, to support the government during the war. Both groups suspended their campaigns for women's suffrage (the right to vote) in the interests of national unity. Indeed the WSPU worked with the UK government to encourage men to volunteer for the Army. Emmeline Pankhurst was strongly supportive of the war effort and demanded the right for women to serve their country through work on the home front.

Women became involved in the propaganda war with Germany. The English writer and social worker Mrs Humphry Ward was employed by the War Propaganda Bureau to encourage the USA to support Britain. She was sent to the Western Front as a journalist, the first woman to go, and was commissioned by the UK government to write England's Effort (1916) using her experiences at the front. The US novelist Edith Wharton visited France with the French Red Cross and used her literary talents to raise funds for the war effort.

Factory work that had been mainly closed to women before 1914 was opened up to both sexes, reflecting the major social changes being caused by the war. However, women workers were not treated equally, despite having the same tasks and incurring the same dangers as their male co-workers. By 1918 there were some 950,000 women employed in the munitions industry in Britain but, despite the dangerous nature of this vital work, wages for male munitions workers remained about double those for women throughout the war.

Women worked as farm labourers through the Women's Land Army, established in 1916. By 1917 over 260,000 women were working on farms, many being volunteers from the towns and cities of Britain. Their presence on the farms enabled male labourers to join the British Army without jeopardizing essential food production for the civilian population. At first many farmers were opposed to the Women's Land Army, as they doubted that women could cope with the physical demands of the job. However, as the war progressed, and the number of female labourers increased, such prejudice broke down as the contribution of the Land Army was recognized.

Before World War I the UK government had established the Volunteer Aid Detachment (VAD) to provide nursing and auxiliary help to the Army and government when required. The majority of its members were women. In 1914 the VAD was expanded to aid the war effort; approximately 38,000 VAD members worked on the home front 1915–19. Many women were nurses in the military hospitals that sprang up all over Britain; others worked as ambulance drivers, collecting the wounded from the ports and railway stations.

Women also became involved in policing activity. The Women's Police Service (WPS) was formed in 1915 from the Women's Police Volunteers, and became active in a number of major towns and cities. By 1918 there were 357 women in the WPS, although they were not always full members of the local police force, and did not have the same powers of arrest as their male colleagues. Their responsibilities included searching of females and care of refugees. The success of their involvement in law enforcement led to the introduction of women police officers in the regular police force after the war, a move that would have been unforeseeable in 1914. Employment on the railway, traditionally a male preserve was also opened up to women.

Although the government and many men only intended women to make up labour shortages in the short term, the freedom given to women during the war would prove hard to reverse after the war. The campaign for women's suffrage, led by the suffragettes before 1914, was partially successful in 1918 when all married women over the age of 30 were given the vote if they were a house owner. This change in the status of women in Britain was perhaps the most striking result of home front activity during World War I.

Alcohol consumption To ensure that workers were at their best, public houses were controlled. Hours of opening were changed from all day to just two and a half hours at lunchtime and three hours in the evening. It was became illegal to buy a drink for another person, and the alcoholic strength of beer was reduced. All these measures reduced accidents in factories and increased munitions production.

Food supplies Although food rationing was only introduced in 1918, the wasting of food was actively discouraged throughout the war. The government used propaganda posters to equate wasteful habits with helping the Germans. The UK found it hard to supply all the country's food requirements, and had to import foodstuffs from the USA. As the German navy operated U-boat submarines in the Atlantic, a convoy system was adopted, the merchant ships crossing in groups guarded by naval vessels. However, between November 1916 and February 1917 the U-boats still managed to sink almost 1.5 million tonnes of shipping carrying supplies to Britain. Although nobody was starving, there was a shortage of luxuries such as sugar. Average sugar consumption per person fell from 681 g/24 oz per week at the start of the war to 425 g/15 oz by the end.

Public attitude to war The whole population was mobilized in the war effort, as the government believed that victory would only be possible through the combined application of the British nation. The resulting increase in government control was accepted by the majority of the UK population, which remained strongly behind the government for most of the war. Restrictions on normal day-to-day living were viewed as necessary to the war effort, although this does not mean that the people liked the government's actions, or even believed that all were necessary. Some people either opposed the government or withdrew their support. Many of these were pacifists and conscientious objectors. There were cases of deliberate sabotage of vital war production, and in Glasgow, in the middle of the war, the ship workers went on strike for better wages and conditions.

However, most of the population were united by the war, and regularly showed their support for the men at the front. Those who failed to volunteer were the objects of public scorn and abuse; white feathers were handed to men viewed as cowards, while conscientious objectors, such as the Quakers (members of the Society of Friends), were frequently attacked.

home front, World War I

US domestic activity during World War I. Although the military battles of World War I were not fought in the USA, the war changed the lives of most Americans. Low wages, high inflation, increased taxes, and shortages of basic food and supplies forced most people to live very frugally. A shift in population occurred from the South to the North, particularly among African Americans seeking work in the northern factories (which had expanded to meet the war effort). Large African-American ghettos developed in northern cities, and race relations deteriorated, signified by the re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan. Women took a greater role in the workplace, giving more impetus to the granting of women's suffrage (achieved in 1920). Greater government control was exerted over the regulation of industry and the economy, and civil liberties were curtailed.

The US government established new agencies to regulate transportation, to settle labour disputes, and to promote the war effort. It also passed laws restricting civil rights, including the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918, which among other things forbade US citizens from speaking out against the government and the war effort. These laws targeted leftist leaders such as Eugene Debs, a socialist and union agitator, and tried to repress any possibility of revolutionary activity. In this atmosphere of fear and suspicion, immigrants and members of minority ethnic groups faced growing hostility and discrimination.

The war led to the creation of more factory jobs in northern cities, and hundreds of thousands of African Americans left the South during this time seeking work in the North. Many, however, lacked the required skills for the factory jobs or failed to find work at all, and were forced to live in poverty in city ghettos. After the war, race riots broke out across the USA in which more than 100 people died. It was in this climate that the Ku Klux Klan became more prominent and influential.

The war also created more employment for women; they took over the jobs of the men who had gone to war, filled new war-related positions, and also volunteered for the war effort. The suffrage movement, which was gaining momentum before the war, realized its goal after the war in 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment (see Amendment, Nineteenth) gave women the vote. After the war, and the success of the suffrage movement, women began to look for a role in society outside the home and the women's movement began to campaign for equal rights to men.