American History: A Survey 10/e   Alan Brinkley
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Summary

Following two and a half years of pro-Allied "neutrality," the United States entered World War I because of economic and cultural factors, as well as German submarine warfare. The armies and civilians of Europe had already suffered mightily by the time the United States finally entered. American forces, initially at sea and then on land, provided the margin of victory for the Allies. To mount its total effort, the United States turned to an array of unprecedented measures: sharply graduated taxes, conscription for a foreign war, bureaucratic management of the economy, and a massive propaganda and antisedition campaign. Women entered the work force in record numbers, and the hopes of African Americans were raised by military service and war-related jobs in the North. President Woodrow Wilson formulated American war aims in his famous Fourteen Points, but he was unable to convince either Europe or the United States fully to accept his tenets as the basis for peace. By 1920, the American people, tired from nearly three decades of turmoil, had repudiated Wilson's precious League of Nations in favor of an illusion called "normalcy."

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