Revolution in Russia1917 Revolutions overthrew Czar Nicholas II and installed V. I. Lenin’s Communist Bolshevik Party

Lenin took the new Soviet Union out of the war

Americans and Allies sent troops to Soviet Union to stabilize government

Creel Commission made US suspicious of Communists

Postwar US- Decline of Labor UnionsLabor strife reestablished due to workers wanting their wartime benefits and soaring prices

1919- 4 million strikers causing $2 billion in lost sales and wages

Violence and death results in a government crackdown on labor unions

Postwar US- Urban RiotsIncreased racial tensionWhite on black violence increased dramatically after the war

1919- more than 25 race riots throughout the nation

Postwar US- AnarchistsAnarchy- the belief in the absence of government

Anarchists began to use bombs to achieve their goals of eliminating the government

Postwar US- AnarchistsTerrorist bomb threats and attacks increased

Seattle mayor received a mail bomb after he broke up a strike

Georgia senator received a mail bomb that blew the hands off of his maid

Postwar US- Anarchists36 more mail bombs were found by the postal service before being delivered

Bomb exploded at Attorney General Palmer’s house killing the person carrying the bomb

38 killed by a bomb blast in New York’s financial district (Wall Street)

Postwar US- The Red ScareAttorney General A. Mitchell Palmer

blamed the Bolsheviks (Communists) for the chaos

Resulted in the Red Scare (Fear of “Reds” aka Communists)

Thousands were arrested and imprisoned

Others were loaded on boats and shipped back to their home countries

Turned into a general fear of foreigners

Postwar US- Fear of ForeignersImmigration Restriction League

influenced the federal government to establish stricter immigration laws

National quotas were established and immigration was drastically reduced

National Origins ActGreatly reduced the numbers of Asian

and Southeast European immigrants

Postwar US- The “New” KlanReestablishment of the Ku Klux KlanUsed violence to suppress the rights

of blacks, Jews, Catholics, and foreigners

Many law enforcement officials joined the secretive society and their crimes went unchecked

Murder case involving a high ranking Klansman brought the beginning of the end of the “new” Klan

Postwar US- Sacco and VanzettiItalian-born immigrants arrested

and tried for murderAnti-foreigner sentiment was at an

all-time highBelieved to be innocent, but

charged because of anarchist beliefs

Both men were executed and became martyrs for all immigrants of the time period

Postwar US- JournalismWriters aimed sharp criticism against their time period in some of the best American literature ever

H.L. Mencken, T.S. Eliot, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and Ernest Hemingway

Postwar US- Prohibition Era BeginsPassage of the 18th amendment

outlawed alcoholSupported by the Women’s

Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) among others

Led to a black market for alcohol and the rise of gangsters in the US

Federal Bureau of Investigation was created to crackdown on alcohol related crimes

Postwar US- Women’s SuffragePassage of the 19th amendment allowed women to vote in federal elections

Supported by women’s civil rights movements and President Wilson