The late 1910s were a largely forgotten turbulent time in our nation's history. We had just entered World War I, the battle over women's right to vote was reaching a critical stage, the brutal race riots in Tulsa, OK were happening just as the Ku Klux Klan was becoming a national force, and of course the Spanish Flu epidemic was rampaging globally, None of these things occurred in a vacuum.
The Spanish Flu may not have originated in Spain but it was the first country to report on it as the news was censored in the neighboring countries fighting in World War I. It unknown where the pandemic started but it was first observed in Europe just as U.S. soldiers arrived there in 1918. Returning soldiers brought it back home with them and it spread quickly. Worldwide it killed approximately 50 million and in the U.S. the death toll was around 675,000.
While this was going on the suffragettes led by Alice Paul were getting close to the Seneca Falls convention of 1848's goal of achieving votes for women. Woodrow Wilson eventually was convinced to support the amendment along with the proposed 18th amendment to usher in prohibition. The suffragettes hoped that prohibiting drinking would curb domestic violence against women.
Maurice Decaul: Commentary on "Close Ranks" and "Returning Soldiers" by W.E.B. Du Bois from The Gilder Lehrman Institute on Vimeo.
African American's fought in World War I hoping that it would improve their standing in society, it did not. They came home to the same racism that they had experiences before. W.E.B. DuBois had supported Wilson but was disappointed when they returned home. Two years later things exploded when lynchings occurred and the KKK began a resurgence. Things came to a boiling point when a race riot occurred in 1919 in Chicago and the deadliest race massacre in U.S. history in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. In Johnstown, PA, another racial incident occurred in the Rosedale section when African American and Mexicans were driven out of the city in response to the shooting of police officers.
In addition to these other issues the government was involved in the Palmer raids which were conducted against suspected communists who had just come to power in Russia. This was a precursor to the McCarthy hearings of the 1950's. The socialist Presidential candidate Eugene Debs and Alice Paul were briefly imprisoned as a result.
These problems were exacerbated by small economic depression which followed the war. In response to all of this, Warren G. Harding ran for president where he promised a "return to normalcy" from the turbulence of the last years of Wilson's Presidency. He won in a landslide with the votes of women who could vote for the first time. The roaring 20's and the corruption and hypocrisy of prohibition followed.
History does not repeat itself but it does rhyme sometimes. Many of the same forces at work then are at work now. Mostly peaceful protests occurred in response to the death of George Floyd as in the video above. Joe Biden may be successful running as a normalcy president but will he be able to address all of these forces in a way that Trump is unwilling to?
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