ABSTRACT
The abridgement of civil liberties was a major failing of American democratic impulses during the war. The booming war economy offered many African-Americans the chance to leave the South and migrate to the North to take factory jobs. The war gave temperance reformers the opportunity to link their crusade against alcohol to nationwide concern that a whole generation of young men was about to be corrupted by the military. The backlash against prohibition took longer to develop. Prohibition began as a temporary wartime measure to protect the morals of soldiers and to save grain. The Senate defeated the female suffrage measure the next day and the fate of the suffrage amendment remained uncertain throughout the war. Vivid descriptions of the social and political freedoms available in the North by black newspapers and letters from friends or relatives who made the trip convinced many to pack their bags.
