Most Americans possess only a hazy understanding of World War I or its significance for the United States. So why not leave it there? Why bother with this history lesson? How the nation responded to the challenge of fighting its first modern war re-made America, leading to female suffrage, the modern civil rights movement, the drive to protect civil liberties, new conceptions of military service, and an expanded role for the United States in the world. This lecture examines home-front mobilization and the experiences of soldiers on the battlefield, while also considering how the war affected women, immigrants, and African Americans. In the inter-war period, Americans tried to “learn lessons” from the Great War in unexpected ways, revealing additional ways that the war continued to impact American society. Dr. Jennifer Keene is a specialist in American military experience during World War I and the chair of the Department of History at Chapman University. She received her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University and her undergraduate and masters degrees from The George Washington University. Dr. Keene has published three books on the American involvement in the First World War: Doughboys, the Great War and the Remaking of America, World War I: The American Soldier Experience, and The United States and the First World War. She is also the lead author for the American history textbook, Visions of America: A History of the United States. Dr. Keene has received numerous awards for her scholarship, including Fulbright Senior Scholar Awards and a Mellon Library of Congress Fellowship.