Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth social movement employing the Scout method, a program of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports. Another widely recognized movement characteristic is the Scout uniform, by intent hiding all differences of social standing in a country and encouraging equality, with neckerchief and campaign hat or comparable headwear. Distinctive uniform insignia include the fleur-de-lis and the trefoil, as well as merit badges and other patches.
War bonds are debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war without raising taxes to an unpopular level. They are also a means to control inflation by removing money from circulation in a stimulated wartime economy. War bonds are either retail bonds marketed directly to the public or wholesale bonds traded on a stock market. Exhortations to buy war bonds have often been accompanied by appeals to patriotism and conscience. Retail war bonds, like other retail bonds, tend to have a yield which is below that offered by the market and are often made available in a wide range of denominations to make them affordable for all citizens.
A liberty bond or liberty loan was a war bond that was sold in the United States to support the Allied cause in World War I. Subscribing to the bonds became a symbol of patriotic duty in the United States and introduced the idea of financial securities to many citizens for the first time.
The Committee on Public Information (1917–1919), also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee, was an independent agency of the government of the United States under the Wilson administration created to influence public opinion to support the US in World War I, in particular, the US home front.
Josefa Madamba Llanes Escoda was a Filipino civic leader, social worker, World War II heroine, and suffragette. She is most known for campaigning for women's suffrage and as a founder of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines.
Mary Coffin Ware Dennett was an American women's rights activist, pacifist, homeopathic advocate, and pioneer in the areas of birth control, sex education, and women's suffrage. She co-founded the National Birth Control League in 1915 together with Jessie Ashley and Clara Gruening Stillman. She founded the Voluntary Parenthood League, served in the National American Women's Suffrage Association, co-founded the Twilight Sleep Association, and wrote a famous pamphlet on sex education and birth control. A famous legal case against her eventually became the catalyst for overturning the Comstock laws.
"Republican Motherhood" is a 20th-century term for an 18th-century attitude toward women's roles present in the emerging United States before, during, and after the American Revolution. It centered on the belief that the patriots' daughters should be raised to uphold the ideals of republicanism, in order to pass on republican values to the next generation. In this way, the "Republican Mother" was considered a custodian of civic virtue responsible for upholding the morality of her husband and children. Although it is an anachronism, the period of Republican Motherhood is hard to categorize in the history of feminism. On the one hand, it reinforced the idea of a domestic women's sphere separate from the public world of men. On the other hand, it encouraged the education of women and invested their "traditional" sphere with a dignity and importance that had been missing from previous conceptions of women's work.
War savings stamps were issued by the United States Treasury Department to help fund participation in World War I and World War II. Although these stamps were distinct from the postal savings stamps issued by the United States Post Office Department, the Post Office nevertheless played a major role in promoting and distributing war savings stamps. In contrast to Liberty Bonds, which were purchased primarily by financial institutions, war savings stamps were principally aimed at common citizens. During World War I, 25-cent Thrift stamps were offered to allow individuals to accumulate enough over time to purchase the standard 5-dollar War Savings Certificate stamp. When the Treasury began issuing war savings stamps during World War II, the lowest denomination was a 10-cent stamp, enabling ordinary citizens to purchase them. In many cases, collections of war savings stamps could be redeemed for Treasury Certificates or War Bonds.
The Four Minute Men were a group of volunteers authorized by United States President Woodrow Wilson to give four-minute speeches on topics given to them by the Committee on Public Information (CPI). In 1917–1918, over 750,000 speeches were given in 5,200 communities by over 75,000 accomplished orators, reaching about 400 million listeners. The topics dealt with the American war effort in the First World War and were presented during the four minutes between reels changing in movie theaters across the country. The speeches were made to be four minutes so that they could be given at town meetings, restaurants, and other places that had an audience.
During American involvement in World War II (1941–45), propaganda was used to increase support for the war and commitment to an Allied victory. Using a vast array of media, propagandists instigated hatred for the enemy and support for America's allies, urged greater public effort for war production and victory gardens, persuaded people to save some of their material so that more material could be used for the war effort, and sold war bonds.
Elizabeth Selden White Rogers was a civic reformer who worked to improve the New York public schools, and to win suffrage for women in the state of New York and the nation.
The Four Freedoms is a series of four oil paintings made in 1943 by the American artist Norman Rockwell. The paintings—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear—are each approximately 45.75 by 35.5 inches, and are now in the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The four freedoms refer to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's January 1941 Four Freedoms State of the Union address, in which he identified essential human rights that should be universally protected. The theme was incorporated into the Atlantic Charter, and became part of the Charter of the United Nations. The paintings were reproduced in The Saturday Evening Post over four consecutive weeks in 1943, alongside essays by prominent thinkers of the day. They became the highlight of a touring exhibition sponsored by The Post and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The exhibition and accompanying sales drives of war bonds raised over $132 million.
The Third Liberty Loan Act was a liberty bond sold during World War I that helped cover the war expenses of the United States. In effect, the bonds were loans from citizens to the US Government which would be repaid with interest in the future. There were two previous loan acts, The Liberty Loan Act and The Second Liberty Loan Act, each providing additional money to the US Government to fund the war. The Third Liberty Loan Act was enacted on April 5, 1918. The third act specifically allowed the US government to issue $3 billion worth of war bonds at a rate of 4.5% interest for up to 10 years with an individual aggregate limit of $45,000. The bonds produced by the Third Liberty Loan Act were not redeemable until September 15, 1928.
During World War I, the United States saw a systematic mobilization of the country's entire population and economy to produce the soldiers, food supplies, ammunitions and money necessary to win the war. Although the United States entered the war in April 1917, there had been very little planning, or even recognition of the problems that Great Britain and the other Allies had to solve on their own home fronts. As a result, the level of confusion was high in the first 12 months.
The United States declared war on the German Empire on April 6, 1917, nearly three years after World War I started. A ceasefire and armistice were declared on November 11, 1918. Before entering the war, the U.S. had remained neutral, though it had been an important supplier to the United Kingdom, France, and the other powers of the Allies of World War I.
Celebrate the Century is the name of a series of postage stamps made by the United States Postal Service featuring images recalling various important events in the 20th century in the United States. Ten of these sheets were issued, with each sheet depicting events of one decade of the 20th century, from the 1900s to 1990s. Fifteen stamps were embedded into each sheet. For the first eight sheets of the fifteen stamps, one stamp of each sheet was printed using the intaglio process, while the remaining fourteen were offset printed along with the rest of the sheet. All the sheets were printed by the Ashton-Potter USA printing company.
The outbreaks of sexually transmitted infections in World War II brought interest in sex education to the public and the government. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, military maneuvers increased worldwide and sexual hygiene and conduct became major problems for the troops. Soldiers and sailors on assignment overseas were often lonely, had time to spare, got homesick, or were just looking for female companionship. This resulted in many men having multiple sex partners, and as a result, became a major health concern. During the Great War, venereal diseases (V.D.) had caused the United States Army to lose 18,000 servicemen per day. Although by 1944, this number had been reduced 30-fold, there were still around 606 servicemen incapacitated daily. This drop in numbers was partly because of the Army's effort to raise awareness about the dangers faced by servicemen through poor sexual hygiene, and also because of the important developments in medicine. In late 1943, a case of gonorrhea required a hospital treatment of 30 days, and curing syphilis remained a 6-month ordeal. By mid-1944, the average case of gonorrhea was reduced to 5 days, and in many cases the patient remained on duty while being treated.
Caroline Katzenstein was an American suffragist, activist, advocate for equal rights, insurance agent, and author. She was active in the local Philadelphia suffragist movement through the Pennsylvania branch of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the Equal Franchise Society of Philadelphia. She played a role in the formation of the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage, which later became the National Women's Party. Katzenstein was also active in the movement for equal rights, serving on the Women's Joint Legislative Committee with Alice Paul, and championing the cause for the Equal Rights Amendment. She was the author of Lifting the Curtain: the State and National Woman Suffrage Campaigns in Pennsylvania as I Saw Them (1955).
Hannah Jane Patterson was an American suffragist and social activist. She was a key member of the women's suffrage movement in Pennsylvania and worked for the National American Woman Suffrage Association. During World War I Patterson was a member of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense. For her service, she was awarded with a Distinguished Service Medal. Patterson graduated from Wilson College and studied at both Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.
The American Schools at War program was a program during World War II run by the U.S. Treasury Department, in which schoolchildren set goals to sell stamps and bonds to help the war effort. The program was also administered by the U.S. Office of Education, the Federal government agency that interfaced with the nation's school systems and its thirty-two million students. The Office, however, allowed the Treasury to work with the schools directly as the main objective of the program was raising money.
