← Section II (National Study): USA 1919-1941
What were the political, economic and social conditions in the United States in 1919?
The USA in 1919, including the political system, economic conditions, society, and the impact of World War I
A focused answer to the HSC Modern History National Study survey of the USA in 1919. The federal political system, the post-war economy, the Red Scare, the race riots of the Red Summer, the Spanish flu, and Wilson's failed crusade for the League of Nations.
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What this dot point is asking
NESA expects you to set the scene for the National Study by sketching the United States as it emerged from World War I. Strong answers integrate the political deadlock over the Treaty of Versailles, the post-war economic turmoil, the racial and ideological tensions of 1919, and the long shadow of the war on American society. The point is not to tell every story but to identify the structural features that explain the 1920s.
The answer
The political system
The United States was a federal republic with a written constitution, a President with a four-year term, a Senate of two members per state, a House of Representatives elected biennially, and a Supreme Court of nine justices. The Seventeenth Amendment (1913) had introduced the direct election of senators. The Nineteenth Amendment (women's suffrage) was passed by Congress in June 1919 and ratified on 18 August 1920.
Woodrow Wilson (Democrat) was the twenty-eighth President, in his second term. Republicans held both houses of Congress after the November 1918 mid-term elections, a setback Wilson had not seen coming. Politics in 1919 was dominated by the Treaty of Versailles, by the labour disputes of the year, and by the Red Scare.
The economy
The American economy was the world's largest, having overtaken Britain before 1900. Industrial production was around 35 per cent of the world total. The war had turned the United States from a debtor to a creditor nation; Britain and France owed Washington around 10 billion dollars.
The transition to peace was rough. War contracts were cancelled; 4 million troops returned to the labour force. Inflation hit around 15 per cent in 1919. The cost of living roughly doubled between 1914 and 1920. Around 4 million workers participated in over 3,600 strikes in 1919, including:
- The Seattle General Strike (6 to 11 February 1919), the first general strike in American history.
- The Boston Police Strike (9 September 1919) suppressed by Governor Calvin Coolidge.
- The Great Steel Strike (22 September 1919 to 8 January 1920), defeated by US Steel.
The strikes were widely portrayed as Bolshevik subversion. They prepared the ground for the conservative reaction of the 1920s and for the long quiet of organised labour through to the Wagner Act of 1935.
Society
American society in 1919 was deeply unequal and deeply divided.
Racial conflict was at the centre. The Great Migration of African Americans to northern cities (around 500,000 between 1916 and 1919) collided with returning white veterans. The Red Summer of 1919 saw at least 25 race riots, including:
- Chicago, 27 July to 3 August 1919, after a Black teenager Eugene Williams was killed at a segregated beach. 38 dead (23 Black, 15 white), over 500 injured, around 1,000 Black families left homeless.
- Washington DC, 19 to 24 July 1919.
- Elaine, Arkansas, 30 September to 1 October 1919, a massacre of Black sharecroppers organising a union, with estimates of 100 to 240 Black dead.
The Ku Klux Klan, refounded by William Joseph Simmons in 1915, was beginning the membership surge that would peak at around 4 million by 1925.
The Spanish flu pandemic (1918 to 1919) killed around 675,000 Americans, more than the country lost in the war.
The Red Scare
The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (October 1917) and the German Revolution (November 1918) generated American fears of communist subversion. A series of anarchist letter bombs in April and June 1919, including one that damaged Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's house in Washington on 2 June, gave Palmer the pretext for action.
The Palmer Raids (November 1919 and January 1920) arrested around 10,000 suspected radicals, often without warrants. Around 556 foreign-born radicals were deported, including Emma Goldman to Soviet Russia on the USS Buford on 21 December 1919.
The Scare collapsed in 1920 when Palmer's prediction of a May Day revolution did not materialise.
The impact of the war
The United States entered World War I in April 1917 and mobilised around 4 million men. American casualties were around 116,000 dead. The Selective Service Act, the Espionage Act (1917), and the Sedition Act (1918) had created a new federal apparatus of conscription, censorship, and prosecution of dissent.
The war had vastly accelerated American economic and political power. By 1919 the United States held around half the world's gold reserves and was the world's largest creditor.
Wilson and Versailles
Wilson sailed for Paris on 4 December 1918 with his Fourteen Points (8 January 1918), the most influential of which was the call for a League of Nations. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919.
The Senate, controlled by Republicans, refused to ratify without the Lodge Reservations on Article X (collective security). Wilson refused compromise; his September 1919 speaking tour to rally support ended with a stroke on 2 October 1919. The Senate rejected the Treaty on 19 November 1919 (53 to 38 against) and again on 19 March 1920. The United States made a separate peace with Germany on 25 August 1921.
The rejection set the United States on its 1920s and 1930s course of unilateral internationalism without the League.
Historiography
David Kennedy (Over Here, 1980) is the standard study of the impact of the war on American society.
John Milton Cooper (Woodrow Wilson, 2009) is the major biography arguing Wilson's stroke, not Senate hostility, doomed the Treaty.
Cameron McWhirter (Red Summer, 2011) is the standard account of the 1919 racial violence.
Ann Hagedorn (Savage Peace, 2007) integrates the Red Scare, Red Summer, and Treaty fight into a single 1919 narrative.
Common exam traps
Treating 1919 as a year of peace and prosperity. It was a year of strikes, race riots, deportations, and a failed treaty.
Forgetting the Senate rejection date. 19 November 1919 (first vote) and 19 March 1920 (second).
Conflating the Red Scare with McCarthyism. The First Red Scare (1919 to 1920) ended with Palmer's failed May Day prediction; McCarthy belongs to the 1950s.
In one sentence
In 1919 the United States was the world's largest economy and a victorious power, but it was also gripped by labour conflict (4 million strikers), racial violence (the Red Summer, with 38 dead at Chicago), the Red Scare (Palmer Raids of November 1919 and January 1920), and the Senate's rejection of the Treaty of Versailles (19 November 1919), which together set the conservative and isolationist pattern of the 1920s.
Past exam questions, worked
Real questions from past NESA papers on this dot point, with our answer explainer.
Practice (NESA)10 marksAssess the political, economic and social condition of the United States in 1919.Show worked answer →
A 10-mark "assess" needs a judgement plus three or four developed strands.
Thesis. In 1919 the United States was the world's largest economy and a victorious power, but it was also a society in turmoil. Industrial conflict, racial violence, the Red Scare, and the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles all pulled in different directions. The year set the pattern for the 1920s retreat from progressivism and from Wilsonian internationalism.
Political. Woodrow Wilson (Democrat) was President. Republicans controlled both houses of Congress after the November 1918 mid-terms. Wilson left for Paris on 4 December 1918 and was personally involved in the Versailles negotiations. The Senate rejected the Treaty on 19 November 1919 and again on 19 March 1920. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge led the "reservationists"; Wilson's stroke (2 October 1919) destroyed any chance of compromise.
Economic. The wartime boom ended; gross national product fell as war contracts were cancelled. Inflation ran at around 15 per cent in 1919. Around 4 million workers struck in 1919, including the Seattle General Strike (February), the Boston Police Strike (September), and the Great Steel Strike (September to January 1920). All were defeated.
Social. The First Red Scare (1919 to 1920) followed the Russian Revolution. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer launched raids in November 1919 and January 1920, arresting around 10,000 suspected radicals. The Red Summer of 1919 saw race riots in Chicago (27 July to 3 August, 38 dead), Washington DC, and over 20 other cities. The second wave of the Spanish flu pandemic (1918 to 1919) killed around 675,000 Americans.
Markers reward the dated evidence: Lodge, Palmer, the Chicago riot, the 4 million strikers, the failed Treaty vote.
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