The War At Home

Minnesota During the Great War, 1914-1920

Greg Gaut

Minnesota Historical Society Press (March 2025)

Description

Exploring Minnesota’s history from the beginning of the European war in 1914 through the 1920 U.S. election provides a unique vantage point from which to assess the war’s impact on American society.

Americans went to war in 1917 literally against Germany but also against each other. The controversial decision to send an army to France came during a contentious time when farmers and workers challenged the wealthy, African Americans struggled against Jim Crow, women campaigned for suffrage, and millions crusaded against alcohol. In The War at Home, historian Greg Gaut focuses on the lives of individual Minnesotans to tell the dramatic story of this period, when the North Star State experienced bitter polarization, nativism, flagrant disregard for democratic norms, and intense, sometimes violent, confrontations.

The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety ruled the state with an iron hand during the war. Led by John F. McGee, the commission pursued a “loyalty” campaign against trade unions, the Nonpartisan League, the Socialist Party, and the Industrial Workers of the World. McGee’s most prominent adversary was Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., whom the Nonpartisan League nominated to challenge the governor in the fiercely contested 1918 primary.

Although Minnesota’s home front experience was the product of a particular confluence of events and personalities, it raises issues about how democracy can give way to authoritarianism when economic inequality, anti-immigrant nationalism, and racism hold sway.

Advance Praise

“I wish there were more books like this. The war on Progressives, which overlapped and followed World War I, is a part of American history largely ignored. Greg Gaut’s fine, careful study of its toll in Minnesota is a model that deserves to be followed by historians of other states.”

Adam Hochschild, author of American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis

“The War at Home delivers a chilling account of the misuse of state power in World War I Minnesota, a largely unremembered history that we ignore at our peril. This is an important book with a timely reminder: Our fundamental democratic institutions and the civil liberties they protect are far more fragile than we would like to think. What was proven true during World War I should be taken just as seriously today.”

Mary Lethert Wingerd, author of North Country: The Making of Minnesota 

“The dark shadows of America’s current descent into authoritarian populism are ever-present in Greg Gaut’s fascinating study of Minnesota’s drift into fascism during World War I. The War at Home is a must-read for those interested in the survival of democracy in the coming years.”

William Millikan, author of A Union Against Unions: The Minneapolis Citizens Alliance and Its Fight Against Organized Labor, 1903–1947

“If a book like this had been available over the past century, we would realize that a world engulfed by war and a pandemic, amidst a society wracked with political polarization, the scapegoating of immigrants, the suppression of civil liberties, political debates about tariffs, and struggles for women’s rights and racial justice are experiences and issues deeply grounded in Minnesota’s history, especially during World War I.  In The War at Home, Greg Gaut offers us access to this long-overlooked history and invites us to immerse ourselves in it. Whether we learn from it is up to us.”

Peter Rachleff, professor emeritus of history, Macalester College

Author Information

Historian Greg Gaut taught at a liberal arts college for two decades and has worked for ten years as a historic preservation consultant, primarily preparing National Register of Historic Places nominations around the state of Minnesota. With his wife and coauthor Marsha Neff, he is a frequent contributor to Minnesota History, and two of their articles won the David Gebhard Award for the best article on Minnesota’s built environment. A lover of libraries, he published Laird's Legacy: A History of the Winona Public Library and Reinventing the People’s Library, a history of St. Paul’s Arlington Hills Public Library, which is now the East Side Freedom Library. His article on a World War I espionage case, “Hardware Store Sedition: The Case of Charles W. Anding,” won the Solon J. Buck Award for the best article in Minnesota History for 2020. He holds a doctorate in modern European and Russian history from the University of Minnesota.