Havenโt you ever wondered that?ย I mean itโs on a different continent after all, and thereโs an ocean between us and them.ย Itโs a big ocean, and none of the issues going on even affected our country. So let’s dig into this history lesson and start this World War 1 Unit with How did the United States end up in World War 1?
So, I posed the question to my kids:
How did the United States end up in World War 1?
First, we had to address the Lusitania.ย The Lusitania is the sister ship to the Titanic, and it was quite the luxury liner.
The only problem? It was smuggling munitions for Britain while carrying those expensive passengers, and everyone knew it. Germany even printed an ad in all of the New York newspapers warning they were going to sink the ship. Did people listen? NOOOO, only one person canceled their tickets.
And the Germans did what they said, they sank the ship. The American press and media were outraged, โhow dare they sink the ship!โ
We watched this video together, and the kids were outraged and shocked watching the sinking of the ship.ย I was surprised how much they were upset by it.ย Princess was almost crying.
Editorials and Letters to the Editor: Step 1 of Getting the United States into World War 1
So like any good American, we wrote a strongly worded letter of protest!ย Oh, the outrage!
Future Ticia 2025 chiming in here, let me lay out a few things to make this a bit more useful. And give you some suggested criteria:
- form of a letter
- facts used to support their argument (choose the number of facts required depending on age and how long they have to write their letter)
- length of letter
Then we learned about the role of journalism in getting us into the war.ย After the sinking of the Lusitania, there were many editorials and articles about the sinking.ย We talked about the difference between straight journalism, editorials, and propaganda.
ย Can I just say I WANT that dry erase board? (Future Ticia 2025, when they moved, she gave us that dry erase board, it’s just a piece of glass, and we’ve got it installed, and it was awesome to have)
- ย Straight journalism is just the facts, with no attempt to insert the writerโs opinion.ย Honestly, this is almost impossible to do because we all have our opinions, and we all want to influence opinions somewhat.ย Sadly, I didnโt get a good video of this one.
- Editorial.ย You are blatantly stating your opinion, you are naming names, and giving reasons.ย I did not get a video of this one because Superman outright accused someone else of stealing; he named names.ย Just like you would in a good editorial.
- Propaganda.ย You are trying to influence what people think, but youโre not letting people know that.ย Honestly, most news today falls into this category on both sides.ย Democrat, Republican, Conservative, and Liberal, all of them, when the reporter writes their story or talks into their microphone, you can hear it in their voices and in the words they use.
ย Propaganda relies on connotative meaning of words.ย If you looked up the dictionary definition,it would be black and white, but if you think about the shades of meaning in how we use the word, thereโs more to it.ย It relies on descriptive words to give the emotion.
ย The Zimmerman telegram, the final reason why the United States entered World War 1
Now, if the Lusitania had been the only factor, we probably would have stayed out of the war, but then there was the Zimmerman telegramโฆโฆโฆ.
Germany sent a coded telegram to Mexico proposing an alliance, and Mexico could take the United Statesโฆโฆย Britain intercepted the telegram, decoded it, and that was the end of it.ย We got into the war.
More World War 1 material
- What caused World War 1?
- What was it like in the trenches of World War 1?
- World War 1 soldier Paper doll
- US history pinterest board
- World War 1 for boys
- World War 1 worksheets
- World War 1 activities and simulations
- World War 1 explanation videos
Luisitania image: Lmacdonald21, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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