The so-called ‘Red Scare’ as McCarthyism

The so-called ‘Red Scare’ as McCarthyism PDF Author: Patricia Schneider
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656708304
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, University of Ulster, language: English, abstract: February 9, 1950, Wheeling, West Virginia: Joseph R. McCarthy, senator of Wisconsin, gives a speech at a meeting of the Republican Women’s Club, claiming that he owns a list of 205 names of members of the Communist party who are employed in the State Department. Although the number of the names changes with the place where the speech is given, the press is electrified by his claims and the senator soon personifies American anti-Communism. In order to explain the circumstances under which it was possible to persecute and harass American citizens in the way McCarthy did after his speech had been successful, a closer look at the decades previous to McCarthy’s appearance is necessary. Therefore, this essay will first focus on the Red Scare of 1919-20, since it can serve ‘both as an analogy and a legacy’ for the events to come. Afterwards the ‘little red scare’ of the thirties will be examined, since anti-Communist sentiments aroused again under Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal programme. During the ‘little red scare’, anti-Communism was rather a domestic issue. Therefore, it could easily be ended by the 2nd World War, since foreign affairs dominated American politics then. However, the following section will focus on the aftermath of the 2nd World War, since several events in America’s foreign policy transferred the anti-Communist sentiments to being international concerns. Thus, the years directly preceding McCarthy’s speech will be examined in detail. Particular attention will be paid to McCarthy himself and the reasons for his success. Finally, the essay will conclude by answering the question whether or not it is accurate to describe the so-called ‘Red Scare’ as McCarthyism.

The so-called ‘Red Scare’ as McCarthyism

The so-called ‘Red Scare’ as McCarthyism PDF Author: Patricia Schneider
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656708304
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
Essay from the year 2010 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, University of Ulster, language: English, abstract: February 9, 1950, Wheeling, West Virginia: Joseph R. McCarthy, senator of Wisconsin, gives a speech at a meeting of the Republican Women’s Club, claiming that he owns a list of 205 names of members of the Communist party who are employed in the State Department. Although the number of the names changes with the place where the speech is given, the press is electrified by his claims and the senator soon personifies American anti-Communism. In order to explain the circumstances under which it was possible to persecute and harass American citizens in the way McCarthy did after his speech had been successful, a closer look at the decades previous to McCarthy’s appearance is necessary. Therefore, this essay will first focus on the Red Scare of 1919-20, since it can serve ‘both as an analogy and a legacy’ for the events to come. Afterwards the ‘little red scare’ of the thirties will be examined, since anti-Communist sentiments aroused again under Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal programme. During the ‘little red scare’, anti-Communism was rather a domestic issue. Therefore, it could easily be ended by the 2nd World War, since foreign affairs dominated American politics then. However, the following section will focus on the aftermath of the 2nd World War, since several events in America’s foreign policy transferred the anti-Communist sentiments to being international concerns. Thus, the years directly preceding McCarthy’s speech will be examined in detail. Particular attention will be paid to McCarthy himself and the reasons for his success. Finally, the essay will conclude by answering the question whether or not it is accurate to describe the so-called ‘Red Scare’ as McCarthyism.

The Age of Eisenhower

The Age of Eisenhower PDF Author: William I. Hitchcock
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451698437
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 895

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Book Description
The New York Times–bestselling biography: a “complete and powerful assessment” of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency (Booklist, starred review). Drawing on newly declassified documents and thousands of pages of unpublished material, The Age of Eisenhower tells the story of a masterful president guiding the nation through the great crises of the 1950s, from McCarthyism and the Korean War through civil rights turmoil and Cold War conflicts. This is a portrait of a skilled leader who, despite his conservative inclinations, found a middle path through the bitter partisanship of his era. At home, Eisenhower affirmed the central elements of the New Deal, such as Social Security; fought the demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy; and advanced the agenda of civil rights for African-Americans. Abroad, he ended the Korean War and avoided a new quagmire in Vietnam. Yet he also charted a significant expansion of America’s missile technology and deployed a vast array of covert operations around the world to confront the challenge of communism. As he left office, he cautioned Americans to remain alert to the dangers of a powerful military-industrial complex that could threaten their liberties. Today, presidential historians rank Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, and William Hitchcock’s “rich narrative” shows us why Ike’s stock has risen so high. He was a gifted leader, a decent man of humble origins who used his powers to advance the welfare of all Americans (The Wall Street Journal).

The So-called 'Red Scare' as McCarthyism

The So-called 'Red Scare' as McCarthyism PDF Author: Patricia Schneider
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783656709909
Category :
Languages : de
Pages : 16

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Book Description
Essay from the year 2010 in the subject English - Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, University of Ulster at Coleraine, language: English, abstract: February 9, 1950, Wheeling, West Virginia: Joseph R. McCarthy, senator of Wisconsin, gives a speech at a meeting of the Republican Women's Club, claiming that he owns a list of 205 names of members of the Communist party who are employed in the State Department. Although the number of the names changes with the place where the speech is given, the press is electrified by his claims and the senator soon personifies American anti-Communism. In order to explain the circumstances under which it was possible to persecute and harass American citizens in the way McCarthy did after his speech had been successful, a closer look at the decades previous to McCarthy's appearance is necessary. Therefore, this essay will first focus on the Red Scare of 1919-20, since it can serve 'both as an analogy and a legacy' for the events to come. Afterwards the 'little red scare' of the thirties will be examined, since anti-Communist sentiments aroused again under Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal programme. During the 'little red scare', anti-Communism was rather a domestic issue. Therefore, it could easily be ended by the 2nd World War, since foreign affairs dominated American politics then. However, the following section will focus on the aftermath of the 2nd World War, since several events in America's foreign policy transferred the anti-Communist sentiments to being international concerns. Thus, the years directly preceding McCarthy's speech will be examined in detail. Particular attention will be paid to McCarthy himself and the reasons for his success. Finally, the essay will conclude by answering the question whether or not it is accurate to describe the so-called 'Red Scare' as McCarthyism.

McCarthyism

McCarthyism PDF Author: Brian Fitzgerald
Publisher: Capstone
ISBN: 9780756520076
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
Discusses fear of communism in the United States during the Cold War.

The Lavender Scare

The Lavender Scare PDF Author: David K. Johnson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226825736
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
A new edition of a classic work of history, revealing the anti-homosexual purges of midcentury Washington. In The Lavender Scare, David K. Johnson tells the frightening story of how, during the Cold War, homosexuals were considered as dangerous a threat to national security as Communists. Charges that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations were havens for homosexuals proved a potent political weapon, sparking a “Lavender Scare” more vehement and long-lasting than Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare. Drawing on declassified documents, years of research in the records of the National Archives and the FBI, and interviews with former civil servants, Johnson recreates the vibrant gay subculture that flourished in midcentury Washington and takes us inside the security interrogation rooms where anti-homosexual purges ruined the lives and careers of thousands of Americans. This enlarged edition of Johnson’s classic work of history—the winner of numerous awards and the basis for an acclaimed documentary broadcast on PBS—features a new epilogue, bringing the still-relevant story into the twenty-first century.

McCarthyism

McCarthyism PDF Author: Jonathan Michaels
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1135021228
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
In this succinct text, Jonathan Michaels examines the rise of anti-communist sentiment in the postwar United States, exploring the factors that facilitated McCarthyism and assessing the long-term effects on US politics and culture. McCarthyism:The Realities, Delusions and Politics Behind the 1950s Red Scare offers an analysis of the ways in which fear of communism manifested in daily American life, giving readers a rich understanding of this era of postwar American history. Including primary documents and a companion website, Michaels’ text presents a fully integrated picture of McCarthyism and the cultural climate of the United States in the aftermath of the Second World War.

McCarthyism

McCarthyism PDF Author: Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781515362500
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Profiles the Alger Hiss case *Includes testimony from HUAC hearings and McCarthy's hearings *Includes quotes from McCarthy about his career *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents In 1947, at the start of the Cold War, President Truman tried to assure Americans who were worried about Communists in government that he was "not worried about the Communist Party taking over the Government of the United States, but I am against a person, whose loyalty is not to the Government of the United States, holding a Government job. They are entirely different things. I am not worried about this country ever going Communist. We have too much sense for that." Nonetheless, shortly after World War II, Congress' House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) began investigating Americans across the country for suspected ties to Communism. The most famous victims of these witch hunts were Hollywood actors, such as Charlie Chaplin, whose "Un-American activity" was being neutral at the beginning of World War II, but at the beginning of the Cold War, many Americans had the Red Scare. Among the people called before HUAC, perhaps none are as controversial as Alger Hiss. Hiss had graduated from Harvard Law, after which he worked as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, worked in the Roosevelt administration for the Agricultural Adjustment Association, and was Head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. That background didn't exactly sound like one held by a Soviet spy, let alone a Communist, but Elizabeth Bentley, a former Communist, notified the Committee about a suspected spy ring and named several names, including Hiss. More notably, Hiss was also accused of being a Communist and Soviet spy by an admitted Communist, Whittaker Chambers. HUAC was well in decline by the time the '60s dawned, a fact so obvious that HUAC actually tried to restore its reputation by changing its name to the Internal Security Committee in 1969. Nevertheless, a few years later, the committee's authority was rolled into the House Judiciary Committee's, bringing to an end one of Congress' most controversial chapters. Another factor was the disrepute the Red Scare fell into because of the antics of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy had made waves in 1950 by telling the Republican Women's Club in Wheeling, West Virginia that he had a list of dozens of known Communists working in the State Department. The political theater helped Senator McCarthy become the most prominent anti-Communist crusader in the government, and the Rosenberg case only further emboldened him. McCarthy continued to claim he held evidence suggesting Communist infiltration throughout the government, but anytime he was pressed to produce his evidence, McCarthy would not name names. Instead, he'd accuse those who questioned his evidence of being Communists themselves. McCarthy's rise made it possible for him to continue lobbing accusations against people, but the Senator finally met his match when he went after the Army. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, McCarthy summoned decorated World War II veterans and challenged their loyalty, and when he openly suggested World War II hero Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker was a Communist during one hearing, the military had enough. In April 1954, the committee hearings were widely televised, and Americans watched Army members demand that McCarthy name names and provide evidence. The Army's legal representative, Joseph Nye Welch, repeatedly demanded that McCarthy produce the list of alleged Communists in the U.S. Army and railed at the Senator: "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" McCarthy was publicly and permanently repudiated. He would be censured by Congress, and he would die just a few years later.

McCarthy's Americans

McCarthy's Americans PDF Author: M. J. Heale
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820320267
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
Was the communist witch-hunt unleashed by Senator Joe McCarthy an aberration, or has red scare politics been an intrinsic part of American political life since the 1930s? Was McCarthyism a populist or an elitist phenomenon? Was Senator McCarthy virtually irrelevant to the phenomenon? McCarthy's Americans shows that some of the contending interpretations of McCarthyism are mutually compatible and reveals the importance of pressures usually overlooked. M. J. Heale's deeply probing study of McCarthy's "hinterland" in the American states demonstrates that what is usually called McCarthyism was part of a political cycle that emerged in the 1930s and took two decades to run its course. Heale also argues that much of the red scare dynamic came from the big cities and the white South. It was here that a range of interests exhibiting a fundamentalist fury with the changing times that the political order had fashioned during the New Deal years rested on fragile foundations. Defying the "consensus liberalism" of the 1950s, McCarthy and, more important, the many little McCarthys in the states kept alive a brand of right-wing politics, preparing the way for George Wallace in the 1960s and the revitalized conservatism of Richard Nixon in the 1970s and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Many Are the Crimes

Many Are the Crimes PDF Author: Ellen Schrecker
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691048703
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 601

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Book Description
Offers an analysis of the McCarthy phenomenon, tracing the machinations of anticommunism in creating a culture of fear and suspicion.

A Good American Family

A Good American Family PDF Author: David Maraniss
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1501178393
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Pulitzer Prize–winning author and “one of our most talented biographers and historians” (The New York Times) David Maraniss delivers a “thoughtful, poignant, and historically valuable story of the Red Scare of the 1950s” (The Wall Street Journal) through the chilling yet affirming story of his family’s ordeal, from blacklisting to vindication. Elliott Maraniss, David’s father, a WWII veteran who had commanded an all-black company in the Pacific, was spied on by the FBI, named as a communist by an informant, called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, fired from his newspaper job, and blacklisted for five years. Yet he never lost faith in America and emerged on the other side with his family and optimism intact. In a sweeping drama that moves from the Depression and Spanish Civil War to the HUAC hearings and end of the McCarthy era, Maraniss weaves his father’s story through the lives of his inquisitors and defenders as they struggle with the vital 20th-century issues of race, fascism, communism, and first amendment freedoms. “Remarkably balanced, forthright, and unwavering in its search for the truth” (The New York Times), A Good American Family evokes the political dysfunctions of the 1950s while underscoring what it really means to be an American. It is “clear-eyed and empathetic” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) tribute from a brilliant writer to his father and the family he protected in dangerous times.