Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis (Undergraduate)
Department
History
First Advisor
Jennifer Miller
Abstract
During the First World War Ohio was engulfed in an environment of anti-Germanism. In an effort to mobilize the public for war, the federal and Ohio state governments labeled German-Americans and Germanness as an existential domestic threat. It was thus framed that policing the loyalty of German-Americans and riding the state of its German character were essential wartime duties. This ideology led Ohioans to eliminate German language from schools, purge the state of German culture, engage in mob violence against their German American neighbors, and successfully utilize anti-Germanism to enact statewide prohibition. While other historians have suggested that this anti-Germanism can be boiled down to simple wartime fury or that attacks against Germanness had little to do with anything that was characteristically German, this thesis will argue otherwise. Much of the ideology that led anti-Germanism was a strong feeling that German Americans were a uniquely subversive racial element that needed to be fought against. Understanding this, and anti-Germanism as a whole, is essential to illuminating the experiences of Ohioans on the homefront during WWI.
Recommended Citation
Hall, Quinn Edward, "“The Duty of Hatred”: Anti Germanism in Ohio During WWI" (2026). History Undergraduate Senior Theses. 5.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/history_senior_theses/5
