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Reviews
| Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen, by Christopher Capozzola. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 352 pages. $34.95, cloth.
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| Christopher Capozzola's Uncle Sam Wants You describes the rise of new forms of political obligation during the First World War, often enforced by civic organizations such as women's clubs, vigilance societies, and ethnic associations. Capozzola's work differs from previous accounts of this period in several important respects. He is interested in the territory that lies between state coercion and voluntary activity, what he describes as "coercive voluntarism." In this realm, individuals and groups ostensibly offered their cooperation freely, but ran into myriad legal and extra-legal forms of coercion if they did not do so. Second, he devotes the balance of his text to the local agents of coercive voluntarism—postmasters, librarians, and association members—rather than to national policymakers. In doing so, Capozzola brings politics into social history, and paints a more vivid picture of the pervasiveness of wartime repression than has so far been available. |
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The book is organized thematically, with chapters devoted to different forms of obligation. In a chapter on vigilance societies, Capozzola shows that the American Protective League—a volunteer offshoot of the Justice Department that enforced the Espionage Act—was only the best known among many such organizations. These societies ranged from the Committee on Protective Work for Girls, which patrolled military bases for prostitutes, to the Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, a patriotic organization of black sharecroppers in Arkansas. Chapters on Selective Service and conscientious objection establish the role that ordinary citizens played in staffing draft boards and persuading fellow Americans not to resist. A chapter on women discusses the wartime cooperation of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the latter of which voted in February 1918 to root out pacifism and disloyalty among its members. And chapters on "responsible speech" and enemy aliens deal with the limits imposed on free expression and the repression of German culture. |
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Some of these chapters would be excellent for teaching an undergraduate survey, such as those on Selective Service and conscientious objection, which provide a clear and concrete narrative and connect it to a larger framework. Because of the interesting cultural transformation it describes—from civic voluntarism to coercive voluntarism—the book could be used alongside the interpretations of such authors as Robert Wiebe, Michael McGerr, and David Montgomery in a course on the 1870 to 1920 period. Community college and high school teachers can draw from countless anecdotes that would be amusing if they were not so disturbing. For example, in the New York City slacker raids, a trucker who offered to transport a crowd of detainees was unable to produce his draft card and ended up being detained himself. The book should also be required reading for graduate students in courses dealing with the First World War or changing definitions of citizenship. |
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Uncle Sam Wants You has considerable strengths in addition to those already mentioned. Capozzola quantifies each subject he discusses, giving a basic measure of significance. For instance, readers learn that between 20,000 and 25,000 people participated in the New York City slacker raids of September 1918, and that 60,187 people were detained. The text is also full of valuable insights. In the chapter on vigilance committees, Capozzola observes that it was often such societies of respectable citizens, and not poor or working-class Americans, who were responsible for the vigilante violence that was later pinned on the mob or radical organizations. The author also embraces complexity to show how obligation was contested. In the chapter on women, he deals not only with the loyalty of mainline organizations, such as the General Federation of Women's Clubs, but also the direct challenge to the White House presented by Alice Paul's protests for woman suffrage. |
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Capozzola is determined to connect each of his anecdotes to his larger concept of obligation, but at times, the reasoning can seem a little abstruse. He uses more familiar terms such as the "progressive era" and the "modern state" in places, but they could have been further integrated into the story, especially since some of his principal characters, such as Woodrow Wilson and Newton Baker, were prominent progressives. Still, readers are unlikely to find a fresher, more substantial exploration of the repressive atmosphere of World War I anytime soon. |
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| Borough of Manhattan Community College |
Jacob Kramer |
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