A lot of American life before WWI was rural, farm life and not very exciting. Many young men went off to war and saw a world that changed their views across a fairly broad spectrum. Imagine seeing Paris if you had never left the county you'd been born in. When they returned, they wanted more. The search for something better resulted in taking a look at ideas. Plus, the horrors they experienced in the trenches made many of them question what had previously been their status quo. Killing on that scale made many question their belief systems.
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