Great War Dbq

During the 1910’s decade, a famous and well known war began to take place. This war is World War I, also known as the Great War. Although the war had been going on since 1914, the United States didn’t officially enter the war until April 6, 1917. But before all of that, there were some details that led up to all this commotion. During this decade there were two presidents, William Howard Taft (1909-1913), and Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921). 1910’s was a decade of tension throughout the world. In America, the decade began with an intense election between Democrat Woodrow Wilson, Republican Taft, Progressive Roosevelt, and the Socialist Eugene Debs. Since the Republican voters split between Taft and Roosevelt, Wilson won 42 percent of the

The last straw was when, in January of 1917, the British decoded a secret telegram sent from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman to the German ambassador in Mexico. He proposed that Mexico ally with Germany against the United States. He promised them the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. So, Woodrow Wilson decided to join the Allies in the war. When entering the war, the United States knew that federal spending would increase because of the size of the army going to fight. The federal spending went from $477 million in 1916 to $8,450 million in 1918. But these numbers weren’t a problem to the U.S. economy because the total labor force went from about 40 million in 1916 to 44 million in 1918. This increase allowed the United States to have a large military while still increasing the labor force in the nonfarm section from 27.8 million in 1916 to 28.6 million in 1918. Wages increased in the industrial section during the war, probably by six or seven percent and this increased with the facility of finding work. In addition, there was sufficient amount of money to bring many additional workers into the labor force. (Rockoff, U.S. Economy in World War