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Second Red Scare (1947–57)

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The Dark, McCarthyist History of Deporting Activists

Donald Trump is using decades-old laws to expel critics and opponents.
by Michelle Chen via The Progressive on March 21, 2025
Joe McCarthy pointing to a map, while Joseph Welch looks dismayed.

Like Joe McCarthy, I Enjoy a Good Dossier

Diplomatic relations, domestic repression. Plus: the truth about Joseph Welch, and a bit of family history.
by Tim Barker via Origins of Our Time on March 12, 2025
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The Media Spawned McCarthyism. Now It's Happening Again

Some of today's most influential political figures also won power through their willingness to say things that capture media attention.
by A. Brad Schwartz via Made By History on February 9, 2025
Joseph McCarthy on a television screen.

No, We’re Not in a New McCarthy Era

Defending academic freedom doesn’t mean exaggerating the threats to it.
by John K. Wilson via The Chronicle of Higher Education on January 31, 2025
Ben Davis Jr. leaving courthouse, surrounded by crowd carrying signs bearing various slogans.

In 1930s NYC, Proportional Representation Boosted the Left

NYC history suggests that the Left might profitably revive proportional representation as a tool to build its electoral strength.
by Trevor Goodwin via Jacobin on January 26, 2025
Mugshots of Ethel Rosenberg in 1951.

President Biden Should Pardon Ethel Rosenberg

A newly released classified document shows that the National Security Agency knew Ethel Rosenberg was not a spy—and that the government executed her anyway.
by Phillip Deery via The Nation on January 2, 2025
Left: William F. Buckley; right: Donald Trump.

The Modern Conservative Tradition and the Origins of Trumpism

Today’s Trumpist radicals are not (small-c) conservatives – but they stand in the continuity of Modern Conservatism’s defining political project.
by Thomas Zimmer via Democracy Americana on December 16, 2024
Still from "The Apprentice."

The Power Broker: Roy Cohn on Screen

The closeted right-wing operative has become a tragic character in the American repertory.
by Mark Asch via Mubi on December 5, 2024
Fistfight in Peekskill, NY, 1949.

75 Years Ago, the KKK and Anti-communists Teamed Up to Violently Stop a Folk Concert in NY

Racist mobs attacked a 1949 concert in Peekskill, NY, raising anti-communist fervor and showing how hatred could gain legitimacy amid today’s political turmoil.
by Nina Silber via The Conversation on August 20, 2024
Communist Party USA members march for unemployed relief during the Great Depression in San Francisco.

Bring American Communists Out of the Shadows — and Closets

In the 20th century, American Communists were seen as an enemy within. In reality, they were ordinary people with complex lives that deserve to be chronicled.
by David Bacon via Jacobin on August 15, 2024
1957 U.S. Supreme Court Justices
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Super Chief

Reconsidering Earl Warren's place in U.S. history.
by Michael Bobelian via HNN on May 14, 2024
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The Annotated Oppenheimer

Celebrated and damned as the “father of the atomic bomb,” theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer lived a complicated scientific and political life.
by Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on March 7, 2024
Edward R. Murrow on the telephone.

Edward R. Murrow Wasn’t the First Journalist to Question Joseph McCarthy’s Communist Witch Hunts

As the fear of communist subversion spread throughout America, McCarthy launched hearings that were based on scant evidence and overblown charges.
by W. Joseph Campbell via The Conversation on March 1, 2024
Image from the filmstrip, showing a grieved woman with her head in her hands, being comforted by a man standing beside her

Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the Hands of the Red Scared

Again and again, a fervant British anticommunist's filmstrip of the novel shows images of women in states of distress.
by Georgina Blackburn via Commonplace on February 6, 2024
J. Edgar Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover Shaped US History for the Worse

As director of the FBI for decades, J. Edgar Hoover helped build a massive, professionalized national security state and hounded leftists out of public life.
by Beverly Gage, Micah Uetricht via Jacobin on December 30, 2023
Charlie Chaplin in a still from “The Great Dictator.”

The War on Charlie Chaplin

He was one of the world’s most celebrated and beloved stars. Then his adopted country turned against him.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on November 13, 2023
Conference of Studio Unions' months-long strike against Hollywood studios in 1945.

How Hollywood’s Black Friday Strike Changed Labor Across America

A 1945 union vs. studios battle set off broad right-wing hysteria—its lessons should resonate today.
by Gerald Horne, Anthony Ballas via Zócalo Public Square on November 9, 2023
Charlie Chaplin.

A Man Without a Country: On Scott Eyman’s “Charlie Chaplin vs. America”

Our favorite artists may not be our favorite people.
by Chris Yogerst via Los Angeles Review of Books on October 26, 2023
Political cartoon of men interrogating anxious teacher and inspecting classroom materials.

Political Repression and the AAUP from 1915 to the Present

How can we most efficiently defend the imperiled academy?
by Ellen Schrecker via Academe on October 10, 2023
Performers at the 1963 Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Ron Patterson, a co-founder of the event, appears in orange at the far right.

The Surprisingly Radical Roots of the Renaissance Fair

The first of these festivals debuted in the early 1960s, serving as a prime example of the United States' burgeoning counterculture.
by Gillian Bagwell via Smithsonian on September 28, 2023
A still from the 1960 film Spartacus of two Roman gladiators fighting.

How Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus Broke the Hollywood Blacklists

The 1960 film was penned by two blacklisted Communist writers. Its arrival in theaters was a middle finger to the McCarthyist witch hunt in Hollywood.
by Taylor Dorrell via Jacobin on September 14, 2023
Actor portraying Oppenheimer.

The Real History Behind Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer'

The "father of the atomic bomb" has long been misunderstood. Will the new film finally get J. Robert Oppenheimer right?
by Andy Kifer via Smithsonian on July 18, 2023
J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer, Nullified and Vindicated

The inventor of the atomic bomb, the subject of Christopher Nolan’s new film, was the chief celebrity victim of the national trauma known as McCarthyism.
by Kai Bird via The New Yorker on July 7, 2023
A demonstrator holds a progress pride flag during the Drag March LA protest in West Hollywood, California.
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The Shameful History of the Lavender Scare Echoes Today

Seventy years after a disgraceful episode of anti-LGTBQ history, we are facing a new wave of McCarthyist fearmongering.
by David K. Johnson via Made By History on April 27, 2023
A photograph of Marvel Cooke overlayed over The Crisis' newspaper office.

This Radical Reporter Dedicated Her Life to Fighting the System

"I idolized women like Marvel Cooke," Angela Davis tells Teen Vogue.
by Olivia Lapeyrolerie via Teen Vogue on February 8, 2023
J. Edgar Hoover (center) with President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, February 23, 1961.

J. Edgar Hoover Tried to Destroy the Left — and Liberals Enabled Him

The author of a new biography explains how liberals played an important role in enabling Hoover’s antidemocratic crusade.
by Beverly Gage, Michael Brenes via Jacobin on November 28, 2022
"Thinking like an Economist" light blue book cover

The ‘Economic Style’ as Red Scare Legacy

The rise of the “economic style of reasoning” in the 1960s cannot be properly understood without attending to the political fallout of earlier decades.
by Landon Storrs via LPE Project on September 13, 2022
Headshot illustration of Angela Davis

‘Hell, Yes, We Are Subversive’

For all her influence as an activist, intellectual, and writer, Angela Davis has not always been taken as seriously as her peers. Why not?
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via New York Review of Books on September 1, 2022
Photograph of a woman pushing a shopping cart down a supermarket aisle.

The Secret Anti-Socialist History of Supermarkets

The emergence of the supermarket was used as a key piece of anti-communist propaganda early in the twentieth century against the alternative of grocery co-ops.
by Ann Larson via Jacobin on August 19, 2022
A tank on a city street.

U.S. Deliberation During Hungary’s 1956 Uprising Offers Lessons on Restraint

As the war in Ukraine worsens, there’s little debate about Western policy choices. This is a mistake.
by Branko Marcetic via Current Affairs on June 1, 2022
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