WWI series: The Home Guard

NEW ULM — The Brown County Historical Society continued its speaker series on World War I (WWI) Thursday, with a presentation by Greg Gaut on the Minnesota Home Guard.

The presentation took place in the Library and was well attended by the public.

During the United States’ entry into WWI, the efforts on the home front were contentious. The public was not unified in the decision to join the war. President Woodrow Wilson had campaigned and won re-election five months earlier on a promise he would keep the United States out of the war.

The institution of the draft made the choice even more unpopular. Because of continual disputes among labor organizations, suffragists, immigration, the fight for prohibition and the rising gap between the rich and poor, the United States was almost at war with itself.