McCarthyism

Shameful Echoes of the 1950s Lavender Scare

by David K. Johnson

At the height of the McCarthy era, a bipartisan congressional committee concluded that gay and lesbian personnel should be purged from government service because of the alleged "weakness of their moral fiber." Teaching this history could make students more able to recognize political moral panics today. 

Whittaker Chambers's Odyssey from Communist Spy to Conservative Hero

by Matthew Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell

Praised by the right and loathed by the left, Whittaker Chambers entered the public eye when he accused State Department worker Alger Hiss of being a Communist. But his story before and after reveals much more about the political history of midcentury America. 

When McCarthyism Hit Small-Town Vermont

by Rick Winston

The events that roiled one small town in 1950 showed the courage and integrity of newspaper editors who resisted a "red scare" but also the harm inflicted on a community by weaponized suspicion. 

H. Chandler Davis Was a Moral Touchstone for Scholars on the Left

by Alan Wald

Blacklisted from American academe after defying a HUAC investigation at the University of Michigan, the mathematician (and the spouse of historian Natalie Zemon Davis) continued to teach and work as an activist in Canada until his recent death at 96. 

Blacklisted Actress Marsha Hunt Dies at 104

Hunt's participation in the Committee for the First Amendment, which questioned the activities of the House Unamerican Activities Committee in 1947, led to her blacklisting. 

Ellen Schrecker on the Parallels between Today's Attacks on Universities and the 1960s?

by Marybeth Gasman

Historian Ellen Schrecker's new book examines how the antiwar movement led the right to mobilize against universities, and the costs of that battle. 

When a Right-Wing Attack on Textbooks Was Stopped

by Jonathan Zimmerman

A McCarthy-era attack on a leading civics textbook fell short because of both organized resistance and the unpopularity of the ideas behind the ban. Supporters of academic freedom today can potentially draw on both of those elements, too. 

Ketanji Brown Jackson's Forbearance Echoed Jackie Robinson Before HUAC

by Bruce W. Dearstyne

In a Congressional hearing intended to sow guilt by association between civil rights and global communism, the baseball great refused to take the bait, keeping the focus on the need for justice and fairness in America.

Nationwide, Faculty Fight for Academic Freedom

by Ellen Schrecker

"When they act collectively, professors have the power to protect academic freedom and the desire to teach the truth. Let us hope they also have the will."

Lessons From the Struggle Against the Old McCarthyism

by Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin

For a Texas professor, the Lieutenant Governor's push to abolish tenure and punish faculty for teaching certain ideas calls to mind the experiences of his grandparents in the heyday of McCarthy and HUAC. 

The Forgotten Film That Paved The Way For This Year’s Oscars Contenders

by Rebecca Prime

For the 1968 film "Uptight!," white director Jules Dassin enlisted Ruby Dee and Julian Mayfield to remake the 1935 film "The Informer" around the Black Panther Party, a move which drew on all three principals' experiences with surveillance over political activism and provoked a sabotage effort by the FBI.

What the FBI Had on Grandpa

by Molly Jong-Fast

"I never considered my grandfather to be a danger to the republic, but J. Edgar Hoover disagreed." The FBI surveilled writer Howard Fast extensively, though, as he wrote in his autobiography, "the eleven hundred pages detailed every—or almost every—decent act I had performed in my life."

The Other ‘Mank’: Joe Mankiewicz and the Wildest Night in Hollywood History

by Greg Mitchell

The Netflix film "Mank" provides an opportunity to remember the civil liberties stand taken by Frank Mankiewicz's brother Joe, who opposed the imposition of loyalty oaths on the Directors' Guild at the height of the postwar red scare. 

The Red Scare and Women in Government

McCarthyite attacks on the political left also pushed women out of policymaking positions in the federal government, the historian Landon Storrs argues. 

Joseph McCarthy and the Force of Political Falsehoods

McCarthy never sent a single “subversive” to jail, but, decades later, the spirit of his conspiracy-mongering endures.

How Eisenhower Secretly Pushed Back Against McCarthyism

To the end of his life, David A. Nichols says, “Eisenhower never admitted that the White House was behind this.” Yet he couldn’t help but gloat a bit in private. On at least one occasion, he reportedly repeated a joke that “it’s no longer McCarthyism, it’s McCarthywasm.” 

New PBS Documentary "McCarthy" Highlights a Tumultuous Time in Our History

by Julia Brown

Director Sharon Grimberg discusses her new documentary "McCarthy," premiering on American Experience January 6, 2020. 

The New McCarthyism?

by Andrew Feffer

Unfortunately, the term has become almost entirely evacuated of its historical and political meaning. Historians need to set the record straight.

Historians Nathan Connolly and Ed Ayers Give A History Of "Socialism" As A Scare Tactic In American Politics

“Before it really became a dirty word, it became a very popular word."

Hating Muslims in the Age of Trump

by Juan Cole

The New Islamophobia Looks Like the Old McCarthyism.