Grade 8:
The Great War
This handsome man is my grandfather, Norman "Cy" Gordon.
He was born in 1899 and was 15 years old when the First World War started.
He was 18 when the United States entered the war. He and his brother enlisted.
Cy came home and went to Dartmouth University and had a good life; including more than 20 grandchildren.
His brother died in a German POW camp.
The first place to start is always the online encyclopedias.
If you are at all interested in listening to a podcast about the First World War, you should give this a listen. The entire podcast is very long but the first few minutes of this, where he talks about Gavrilo Princip and the assassination of the Archduke is very interesting. Click the picture.
Search your topic and follow links to good info.
It's a good idea to search both encyclopedias.
Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand
Search also: Gavrilo Princip; The Black Hand
Links to explore:
The Domino Effect of WWI
Search also: Causes WWI; Start of WWI, Mutual Defense Alliances WWI (be careful, lots of iffy sites come up with these searches)
Links to explore:
Trench Warfare
Trench Warfare is a pretty productive search term. You could also look at: No man's land; going over the top
Links to explore:
U-Boats and Submarine Warfare
Search also: The Lusitania; German submarine activity WWI (be sure to check dates on info - U-Boats were used in WWII as well)
Links to explore:
The 1918 Flu Pandemic
Search also: Spanish Flu,
Links to explore:
The Great Migration
Search also: The First Great Migration (it was a long drawn out process)
Links to explore:
Women in the Workplace
search also: Women's war work WWI
Links to explore:
US War Propaganda
Search also: George Creel; Wilson propaganda; Committee for Public Information (CPI)
Links to explore:
Women's Suffrage
Search also: votes for women; 19th Amendment; universal suffrage (women in England were also fighting for the vote so make sure your source is about the US)
Links to explore:
The Zimmerman Note
Search also: Zimmermann Telegraph
Links to explore:
The Russian Revolution
Search also: add WWI to search; add 1917 to search because there was more than one revolution
Links to explore:
Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points Speech
Search also: you can look for sites that talk about why they were not taken seriously. Also information on this tends to be tied into the Treaty of Versailles.
Links to explore:
Treaty of Versailles and its effects
Search also: terms of Treaty of Versailles; conditions of Treaty of Versailles; effects of T of V; the League of Nations
Links to explore:
Eugene V. Debs v. The United States
Search also: The First Amendment WWI, free speech Debs
Links to explore:
Schenck v. The United States
Search also: The Espionage Act; free speech WWI, Sedition Act 1918, limits to free speech
Links to explore:
Advances in Weaponry and Technology
Search also: Big Bertha, barbed wire, tanks, poison gas, medical advances WWI
Links to explore:
The Draft
Search also: Selective Service Act 1917, WWI conscription, American Protective League, Slacker Raids, draft evaders
Links to explore:
National Archives (just the historical background section)
