The Missouri Home Guard: Protecting the Home Front during the Great War

When the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, the Missouri National Guard was deployed into federal service. As did twenty-six other states during World War I, Missouri established a Home Guard to take over the functions of the absent National Guard. This so-called Home Guard was an entirely voluntary organization that took on the duties of providing introductory military training for draftable men, protecting crucial infrastructure from potential enemy activities, and maintaining law and order during labor activism. The Home Guard also functioned to preserve patriotism and reduce opposition to the war, sometimes going so far as to police the behavior of German Americans who appeared, in the eyes of the state government and some citizens, as disloyal to state and country.

The attempts by women to join the organization reflected their struggle to change society’s prescribed gender roles. At the same time, participation, or at least the desire to participate, in the Home Guard gave men of all ethnicities, especially German Americans, an opportunity to publicly display their loyalty to the United States. DeWitt’s work also seeks to highlight the understudied efforts of African Americans to establish a Negro Home Guard.