I learned that the intense hatred for the Germans stemed from the horrible things that the americans were hearing about the Germans that were overseas such as rape and murder of women. It got so bad that they viewed all immigrants as a huge threat. at one point even the president wilson said that immigrants were "poision of disloyalty". in 1917 the first legislation to limit immigration was passed. It limited the immigration of all europeans into the country as well as most asians.In a book called World War I I found a quote from Bishop A. F. Winnington-Ingram do London, England
He said the war was a great crusade to kill the Germans not for the sake of killing but but to save the world. lest the civilization of the world be killed.
anything with a german name was renamed. frankfurters were "liberty sausages" sauerkraut was "liberty cabbage" even little dogs, dachshunds, were called "liberty dogs". German was banned from being spoken in public and, in some areas of the country, on the phone. German music was not allowed to be played anywhere. German children were shunned at schools. Some Americans even tormented german-americans by tarring and feathering them and parading them through the streets then forcing them to kiss the american flag.
On my first internet search I found the official site for Ohio history. it describes the ake law which banned the teaching of German in schools below the eighth grade.in the state libraries any material that was condsidered remotely pro-german was removed from the shelves.
Upon conducting another search I found a site that hand full of first hand accounts of what it was like to be German during the world was era. The tried to completely assimilate in a very short amount of time.They changer their names, stopped speaking german and even quit German-American organizations. For some it worked for some it didn't.
This also opened up the way for more posters and postcards. these encouraged the allied countries to boycott anything German. They emphasized that the Germans were horrible and that the same ones that you were doing business with were the ones who were out there killing women and children.I later discovered that even after the war ended there was still tensions between German-Americans and the rest of the people. And then, of course, came World War II.
