Red Scare

New York's Education Wars a Century Ago Show how Content Restrictions Can Backfire

by Bill Greer

Laws enforcing ideological positions in education can gain popularity when they focus on unpopular ideas. But when they take effect to punish popular teachers, the public gets second thoughts. 

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. 

How the Government Used the First World War to Crush the American Left

Adam Hochshild's book details the intersection of patriotism and legal repression that stifled the broad left in the United States, and explains how the war to "make the world safe for democracy" evinced an impoverished understanding of the term. 

Economism as a Red Scare Legacy

by Landon Storrs

An economic historian traces the rise of neoliberal political economy to the post-WWII Red Scare, when Keynesians were driven out of government service under suspicion of disloyalty. 

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. 

Law Enforcement Has Long Practiced Double Standards for Activists

by Denise Lynn

Nobody should be shocked that the FBI has aggressively surveilled Black Lives Matter organizers while deciding that the online organizing of the January 6 attack on the Capitol was protected speech; this double standard has characterized law enforcement's approach to racial justice protest. 

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 Dossier That Destroyed Frank Wilkinson’s Dream of Public Housing in LA

by Eric Nusbaum

Frank Wilkinson's advocacy for racially integrated public housing in Los Angeles set off a red-baiting campaign that landed him in prison. 

When “Fake News” Was Banned: An America Trump Might Have Loved

by Adam Hochschild

Exactly 100 years ago, this country’s media was laboring under the kind of official censorship that would undoubtedly thrill both Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo.

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. 

When America Tried to Deport Its Radicals

by Adam Hochschild

A hundred years ago, the Palmer Raids imperilled thousands of immigrants. Then a wily official got in the way.

A Family History of the Red Scare

by David L. O'Connor

A review of David Maraniss' A Good American Family: My Father and the Red Scare.

The Red Scare: From the Palmer Raids to Joseph McCarthy to Donald Trump

by Ronald L. Feinman

Trump has learned very well from prior anti-Communism crusaders, and it requires vigilance and activism to cope with the threat he represents every day.

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."

Historian Kathryn Olmstead on The Long History of the Red Scare as an American Political Tactic

"It had such a broad and long-lasting impact on American politics that it’s just impossible to overstate."  

Lessons from White House disinformation a century ago: ‘It’s dangerous to believe your own propaganda’

by John Maxwell Hamilton andMeghan Menard McCune

One hundred years ago, the U.S. government published documents that fueled the mounting Red Scare, helped justify the American military invasion of Russia and poisoned American-Russian relations for years to come.

Review of “Antiwar Dissent and Peace Action in World War I America,” Edited by Scott H. Bennett and Charles F. Howlett

by Murray Polner

Every generation needs to be reminded of and taught the heavy price exacted by war.

The Case for Sparing the Rosenbergs

by Lori Clune

Credit: Wiki Commons.Sixty years ago this week, Ethel Rosenberg was strapped into the same electric chair that killed her husband Julius moments before. Her gruesome death ended the spy case that captured worldwide attention. Julius Rosenberg had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit espionage, specifically passing atomic bomb secrets to the Soviets.FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had also ordered the arrest of Julius’ wife Ethel, hoping to use her as a “lever” to get Julius to name other spies. He never spoke. They both died instead.The grisly executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 made their sons orphans and shocked the world. The Rosenbergs remain the only married couple executed for a federal crime and the only civilians killed for spying.