Au cœur du mouvement progressiste aux États-Unis et alors que le réformisme consolide sa place en politique nationale grâce à l'élection de Woodrow Wilson en 1912, émerge à côté du nouveau président élu la figure de Charles Richard Crane (1858-1939), auparavant quasi-inconnu sur la scène nationale. Industriel richissime, réformateur, mécène et philanthrope de Chicago, Crane avait fait sa marque dans les cercles progressistes du Midwest en plus d'avoir soigneusement cultivé des relations importantes à l'étranger. En même temps, ses intérêts et ses accointances variés le rendirent utiles aux yeux de Wilson qui l'intégra dans un cercle très sélect de conseillers intimes. Rapidement devenu ami avec le président, Crane fut tour à tour choisi pour de multiples tâches politico-diplomatiques de relative importance : contributeur majeur des élections de Wilson en 1912 et 1916, promoteur et facilitateur des réformes sociales et politiques du programme de la New Freedom, mission diplomatique en Russie révolutionnaire, soutien à la création de la Tchécoslovaquie, commission d'experts au Moyen-Orient dans le cadre de la Paix de Versailles et ambassade américaine en Chine comptent parmi ses principales tâches au sein du wilsonisme. À travers ces années avec Wilson, les plus déterminantes de sa vie à ses propres yeux, s'écrivit une carrière publique remarquable qui illustre des aspects du wilsonisme à la fois caractéristiques et inédits. Son engagement dans un réformisme assez radical, qui se manifesta autant dans la sphère nationale, avec des politiques agraires et anti-monopolistiques, qu'à l'étranger, avec l'appui à des causes révolutionnaires, anti-impérialistes et humanitaires, et la constance de son discours wilsonien et de son appui à Wilson apportent un éclairage différent à la perspective historienne du progressisme wilsonien et de l'époque qui l'a produit et façonné. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Charles Richard Crane, Woodrow Wilson, relations internationales, Première Guerre mondiale, histoire de États-Unis, ère progressiste

On May 9, 1950, President Truman declared that “all our international policies, taken together, form a program designed to strengthen and unite the free world.” My dissertation is the first history of the “free world,” a crucial concept that identified the object of U.S. leadership, drove the country to seek global preeminence, and shaped the American understanding of the Cold War. For much of the nineteenth century, American policymakers had envisioned a globe divided into a “new world” of freedom and an “old world” of tyranny. In 1917, Woodrow Wilson proposed a new global dichotomy, arguing for the creation of a trans-Atlantic coalition of democracies against aggressive autocracies whose very existence threatened the survival of freedom everywhere. A revised version of this logic prevailed during the Second World War. But it was only after the start of the Cold War in the late 1940s that American policymakers embraced the concept of an enduring and extra-hemispheric “free world.” Their efforts to lead, unite and strengthen this spatially defined “free world” prompted a massive expansion of American foreign policy and fundamentally transformed the country’s position in the international arena.

No description available.

Issued also as inaugural dissertation, Bonn. / "Zeittafel": p. [145]-149. "Literatur": p. [150]-153.

Issued also as inaugural dissertation, Bonn. / "Zeittafel": p. [145]-149. "Literatur": p. [150]-153.

No description available.

Master of Arts / Department of History / Donald J. Mrozek / This thesis examines the internationalist message in news coverage and editorial commentary of a select group of American newspapers in the last throes and years immediately after World War I. Some historians have misinterpreted this period as a "return" to isolationist sentiments throughout America. However, the articles and editorials in these papers presented a message that America was still concerned with the happenings of the world and willing to participate in ascertaining solutions to the problems confronting Europeans as well as other peoples around the globe. The first chapter looks at the late stages of the war through the Senate's rejection of the Versailles Treaty. These papers initially presented a message of hope that the war could become the last war in history, spearheaded by President Wilson's Fourteen Point program. However, these hopes were dashed when the Fourteen Points were largely overlooked in the treaty. In the ensuing fight between the administration and the treaty's dissenters there were no threats of isolating the country from world affairs. According to these sources, those proposing reservations to the treaty were unwilling to commit the country to the League of Nations because they believed the League to be a permanent military alliance that violated the Constitution. The second chapter examines how the debate over the treaty and League membership became significant issues throughout 1920, reaching a climax with the presidential election in November. This section focuses on the coverage of Senator Harding's message of continued U.S. international participation throughout the campaign. The coverage from these papers regarding the international affairs of and events during the Harding administration is investigated in the final chapter. This chapter focuses heavily on the reactions to the Washington Conference of 1921-1922 which established international naval arms limitations. Harding and his policies enjoyed significant popular support from many of these papers because they believed he established a lasting peace. Throughout this period, the editorials and news coverage in these papers presented U.S. leaders as actively participating in global affairs rather than proposing the country step back from a leadership position in the world.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, many Americans quickly rallied to support the nation. Among the numerous committees, organizations, and individuals that became active in the mobilization process were the forty-eight state councils of defense. Encouraged to form by President Wilson and his administration in the days and weeks following U.S entry in the war, the state councils grew as offshoots of the Council of National Defense and assisted in bringing every section of the country into a single scheme of work. Everyone was expected to do their part in WWI, whether they were fighting overseas or helping on the home front. The state councils, broken down into various sections and county, township, and high-school level councils, made sure that this was the case by reaching down into local communities and encouraging individuals to become involved in the war effort. Their work represented the embodiment of a “total war” philosophy and, yet, studies on these organizations are surprisingly scarce, giving readers an inadequate understanding of the American home front during the conflict. This thesis therefore places the focus directly on the state councils and examines the work they undertook to make the United States ready for, and most effective in wartime service. In particular, it explores the efforts of the Educational Section of the Indiana State Council of Defense. By concentrating on this one section, readers may gain a better understanding of the lengths that the state councils went to in order to put every person – teachers and students included – on a wartime footing.