What you’ll learn to do: summarize the events leading to the end of WWI and its aftermath

American involvement in World War I came late in the conflict. Compared to the incredible carnage endured by European nations, the United States’ battles were brief and successful, although the appalling fighting conditions and significant casualties made it feel otherwise to Americans, both on the front and at home. For Wilson, victory in the fields of France was not followed by triumphs in Versailles or Washington D.C., where his vision of a new world order was summarily rejected by his Allied counterparts and then by Congress. Wilson had hoped that America’s political influence could steer the world to a place of more open and tempered international negotiations. His influence did lead to the creation of the League of Nations, but concerns at home impeded the process so completely that the United States never signed the treaty that Wilson worked so hard to create.

The end of a successful war did not bring the kind of celebration the country craved or anticipated. A virulent flu pandemic, economic troubles, and racial and ideological tensions combined to make the immediate postwar experience in the United States one of anxiety and discontent. As the 1920 presidential election neared, Americans made it clear that they were seeking a break from the harsh realities that the country had been forced to face during the years of Progressive mandates and war. By voting for President Warren G. Harding in a landslide election, Americans indicated their desire for a government that would leave them alone, keep taxes low, and limit social Progressivism and international intervention.