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Second Red Scare (1947–57)

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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.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on July 27, 2020
Frances Perkins on a ship, wearing a winter coat and gloves.

Frances Perkins: Architect of the New Deal

She designed Social Security and public works programs that helped bring millions out of poverty. Her work has been largely forgotten.
by Bat-Ami Zucker, Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, DeLysa Burnier via JSTOR Daily on July 8, 2020
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"No" on Impeachment Unites Today's GOP. In the 1950s, a Renegade Dared to Break Ranks

Breaking with party unity can be costly. In the 1950's, Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine faced backlash after she condemned McCarthy, a fellow Republican.
by Karen M. Sughrue via Retro Report on December 3, 2019

The Mafia Style in American Politics

Roy Cohn connects the McCarthy era to the age of Trump across more than half a century.
by George Packer via The Atlantic on October 3, 2019

Before the Central Park Five, There Was the Trenton Six

In both cases, false confessions were used against a group of black men with only precarious links to one another.
by Denise Lynn via Black Perspectives on July 3, 2019

The Rocket Scientist Who Had to Elude the FBI Before He Could Escape Earth

Frank Malina's scientific dreams were as radical as his politics.
by Fraser MacDonald via Literary Hub on June 26, 2019
Senators Joseph McCarthy and Kenneth Wherry.

Democracy and Misinformation

The Cold War and today.
by Jennifer M. Miller via Perspectives on History on June 10, 2019
Illustration of Peurifoy and others attempting to find homosexuals within the federal government.

The Homophobic Hysteria of the Lavender Scare

Despite a thriving queer community in Washington, the 1950s State Department fired gay and lesbian workers en masse.
by Kazimir Lee, Dorian Alexander via The Nib on May 31, 2019

We’re Never Going to Get Our “Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir?” Moment

Because that moment isn’t quite what we remember.
by Rebecca Onion via Slate on July 26, 2018
Will Lee as Mr. Hooper

Spotlighting Communism & Hollywood in the Papers of Sesame Street’s Mr. Hooper

The actor who played the loveable grocer found his way to Sesame Street after being blacklisted during the Red Scare.
via American Heritage Center Blog on April 18, 2018
Political cartoon of the Populist Party python eating the Democratic Party donkey.

The Myth of 'Populism'

It's the transatlantic commentariat’s favorite political put-down. It’s also historically illiterate.
by Anton Jäger via Jacobin on January 3, 2018

Memorial Day and Our African American Dead

Are we honoring all of our American heroes this Memorial Day?
by Robert Greene II via U.S. Intellectual History Blog on May 28, 2017

America's Obsession With Rooting out Communism Is Making a Comeback

California lawmakers debate barring Communist party members from government jobs.
by Julia Carrie Wong via The Guardian on May 22, 2017
Political cartoon depicting fat-cat tycoons sitting on money on a dock made of commodities held aloft by struggling laborers.

From Fat Cats to Egg Heads: The Changing American 'Elite'

American has long been suspicious of “elites”, but just who they are has changed a lot over the last 200 years.
by Steven Conn via Origins on May 1, 2017
William Gropper's map of American folklore.

A Popular '40s Map of American Folklore Was Destroyed by Fears of Communism

The government saw Red when looking at William Gropper's painting of the United States.
by Kyle Carsten Wyatt via Atlas Obscura on March 27, 2017
Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn during the Army-McCarthy hearings.

The Ugly History Behind Trump’s Attacks on Civil Servants

President Trump’s criticisms of government workers have something in common with Joe McCarthy’s.
by Landon Storrs via Politico Magazine on March 26, 2017

When W. E. B. Du Bois was Un-American

W. E. B. Du Bois may be our keenest critic of Trumpism today.
by Andrew Lanham via Boston Review on January 13, 2017

Ellis Island's Forgotten Final Act as a Cold War Detention Center

The idealistic interpretation of Ellis Island should be revisited.
by Brianna Nofil via Atlas Obscura on February 2, 2016
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy speaking

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

It had been around a long time before the Radical Right discovered it.
by Richard Hofstadter via Harper’s on November 1, 1964

From Chinese Exclusion to Pro-Palestinian Activism: The History of Politically Motivated Deportation

Removal orders targeting student activists echo America’s long past of jailing and expelling immigrants because of their race, or what they say or believe.
by Rick Baldoz via The Conversation on April 30, 2025
Front cover of the 1940 issue Anvil by John C. Rogers showing a muscular man in bold red strokes.

Anvil, the Forgotten Magazine of Heartland Marxism

Anvil's popular vision for a multiracial socialism in the heart of the US could hardly be more urgent today.
by Marc Blanc via Jacobin on February 23, 2025
David Montgomery in a picket line during a 1955 UE strike.

The People in the Shop

A new collection of essays by David Montgomery shows how he used labor history as a means of grappling with the largest questions in American history.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via The Nation on December 17, 2024
William F. Buckley, 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
John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard.

American Marxism Got Lost on Campus

At universities, American Marxism has led to good scholarship, but it’s also encouraged hyper-specialization and the use of impenetrable jargon.
by Russell Jacoby via Jacobin on December 8, 2024
CPUSA members demonstrate in Union Square on May Day, ca. 1930s.

Maurice Isserman’s Red Scare

A new history of the CPUSA reads like a Cold War throwback.
by Benjamin Balthaser via The Baffler on November 21, 2024
Sen. Joe McCarthy confers with Roy Cohn during a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

A Not-So-Hostile Takeover

Long before the rise of Trump, the American conservative mainstream enjoyed a complex partnership with the Far Right.
by Gillis J. Harp via Commonweal on October 4, 2024
The Executive Board of UCAPAWA in 1937.

Challenging the New Deal’s “Contemptible Neglect”

In the midst of the Great Depression, one CIO union used the new administrative state to influence legislation on behalf of people considered outcasts.
by Jarod Roll via Nonsite on September 21, 2024
Two drawn caricatures of Ronald Reagan's face.

I’m a Historian of the ’80s. I Cannot Tell You How Bizarre the New Ronald Reagan Movie Is.

There’s hagiography, then there’s...whatever this is.
by Paul M. Renfro via Slate on September 3, 2024
summer campers around a fire
partner

Around the Campfire with Paul Robeson

The history of Camp Wo-Chi-Ca tells a largely overlooked story about left-wing politics and Black culture.
by Nina Silber via HNN on August 6, 2024
Jack Conroy

Jack Conroy and the Lost Era of Proletarian Literature

In the midst of the Depression, Conroy helped encourage a new generation of working-class writers.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via The Nation on April 30, 2024
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