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Second Red Scare (1947–57)

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A photograph of an AR-15 rifle, a pistol, and a knife in camoflage print, as well as bullets and a pair of gloves.

Give Your Mom a Gun

America’s favorite gun.
by Geoff Mann via London Review of Books on March 1, 2024
Mead reading a book, against a psychedelic background.

One of Our Most Respected 20th-Century Scientists Was LSD-Curious. What Happened?

A document in her papers in the Library of Congress sheds new light on postwar research on psychedelics.
by Benjamin Breen via Slate on February 10, 2024
A young J. Edgar Hoover sitting at a desk.

When Hoover Met Palmer: Domestic Surveillance and Radical Suppression in the Early Days of the FBI

J. Edgar Hoover’s ascent within the FBI reveals the birth of an unprecedented surveillance apparatus that would survey US citizens for decades to come.
by Ryan Reft via Tropics of Meta on October 10, 2023
A librarian protects a book from a fat man in a suit who is burning books that don't look "American."

How Librarians Became American Free Speech Heroes

In the past and present, librarians have fought book bans and censorship.
by Madison Ingram via Zócalo Public Square on October 5, 2023
Injured reporter interviewing bloodied antiwar demonstrator

Seeing Was Not Believing

A new book identifies the 1968 Democratic convention as the moment when broad public regard for the news media gave way to widespread distrust, and American divisiveness took off.
by Eric Foner via New York Review of Books on August 30, 2023
J. Robert Oppenheimer

"Cry Baby Scientist": What Oppenheimer the Film Gets Wrong about Oppenheimer the Man

The so-called "father of the bomb" helped bring us prematurely into the age of existential risk.
by Haydn Belfield via Vox on July 22, 2023
A researcher holds a magnifying glass to an archival photograph.

Looking for a Lineage in the Lusk Archive

The records of a New York surveillance committee from the time of the First Red Scare document a radical world—and its demise.
by Ben Nadler, Oksana Mironova via Jewish Currents on July 18, 2023
Trump holding a document, against the backdrop of text defining espionage.

The Espionage Act is Bad for America—Even When it’s Used on Trump

A relic of WWI that helped destroy the anti-war left, it remains a threat to news outlets, political organizers, and challengers of the surveillance state.
by Alex Skopic via Current Affairs on July 13, 2023
The stairs leading to the segregated section of a cinema in Belzoni, Mississippi, in 1939.

The Writers Who Went Undercover to Show America Its Ugly Side

In the 1940s, a series of books tried to use the conventions of detective fiction to expose the degree of prejudice in postwar America.
by Samuel G. Freedman via The Atlantic on July 10, 2023
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg leaving the courthouse in a prison van, 1951.

Not How He Wanted to Be Remembered

Two decades passed before the ghosts of the Rosenbergs came back to haunt Irving Kaufman, the judge who sentenced them to death.
by Linda Greenhouse via New York Review of Books on June 1, 2023
Father Charles Coughlin delivers a radio speech (Fotosearch/Getty Images).

Ultra Violence

Rachel Maddow’s podcast tells of American Nazis in the 1940s. But the era’s real and lasting authoritarian danger came from the growth of a national security state.
by Nelson Lichtenstein via Dissent on May 23, 2023
Director Edward Dmytryk and actress Jean Porter.

The 1950s Hollywood Blacklist Was an Assault on Free Expression

The blacklist didn’t just ruin many workers’ careers — it narrowed the range of acceptable movies and contributed to the conservatism of the 1950s.
by Larry Ceplair via Jacobin on May 18, 2023
A cut out from the magazine New Masses with the headline "For College Student H.H.C," pasted over a photo montage of an archive.

“H.H.C.”: The Story of a Queer Life—Glimpsed, Lost, and Finally Found

My hunt for one man across the lonely expanse of the queer past ended in a place I never expected.
by Aaron Lecklider via Slate on April 24, 2023
1961 pamphlet for Florida's "Americanism vs. Communism" course.

The Long History of Conservative Indoctrination in Florida Schools

The top educational priorities in the Sunshine State were apparently reading, writing, and anti-communism.
by Tera W. Hunter via The Nation on February 27, 2023
Signs on the campus of New College of Florida in Sarasota last month.
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Florida is Trying to Roll Back a Century of Gains for Academic Freedom

The state wants to severely limit what professors can say in the classroom.
by Glenn C. Altschuler, David Wippman via Made By History on February 6, 2023
Helen Hall (R, front), chair of the Consumers’ National Federation, with a committee at the White House making demands for a "new deal" for consumers, 1938.

“Ethical Consumption” Used to Mean Something More Than Feeling Smug About Your Purchases

A century ago, it was once motivated by the goal of economic reorganization.
by Nick French via Jacobin on January 31, 2023
Brazilla Carroll Reece, Joseph McCarthy and Harry S. Truman with democratic donkeys in word bubbles.

The Real Origins of the “Democrat Party” Troll

We can’t blame Joe McCarthy for this one. (Though he was a fan.)
by Lawrence B. Glickman via Slate on January 21, 2023
photo of C. Vann Woodward, c/o William R. Ferris, Van Every Smith Galleries

What Is There To Celebrate?

A review of "C. Vann Woodward: America’s Historian."
by Eric Foner via London Review of Books on October 20, 2022
Display of banned books in a bookstore.
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Today’s Book Bans Echo a Panic Against Comic Books in the 1950s

When a climate of fear exists, people don’t scrutinize the evidence behind claims about children’s reading material.
by Jeremy C. Young via Made By History on October 17, 2022
Illustration of a fist smashing a tiny blue academic building.

The 50-Year War on Higher Education

To understand today’s political battles, you need to know how they began.
by Ellen Schrecker via The Chronicle of Higher Education on October 14, 2022

Light Under a Bushel: A Q&A with Eric Foner

“It’s important to study history if you want to be an intelligent citizen in a democracy.”
by Eric Foner, Nawal Arjini via New York Review of Books on September 17, 2022
A GOP Elephant locked up in a padded cell.

It Didn’t Start with Trump: The Decades-Long Saga of How the GOP Went Crazy

The modern Republican Party has always exploited and encouraged extremism.
by David Corn via Mother Jones on September 9, 2022
Caricature of Richard Hofstadter surrounded by various American political figures

The Tragedy of the American Political Tradition

What prospects are there today for assessing American politics and history from an early Hofstadterian remove?
by Nick Burns via The Hedgehog Review on August 15, 2022
Members of the John Birch Society pledging allegiance to the flag at a meeting, Chicago, 1961.

The Birchers & the Trumpers

A new biography of Robert Welch traces the origins and history of the anti-Communist John Birch Society and provides historical perspective on the Trump era.
by James Mann via New York Review of Books on June 2, 2022
The U.S. Capitol building at night.

A Capital History

Washington has long been a disproportionately gay city—a mecca for clever, ambitious young men who want to escape their hometowns’ prying eyes.
by Bruce Bawer via Commentary on April 12, 2022
Checkpoint Charlie, seen from West Berlin in 1960.

The Disastrous Return of Cold War Strategy

Hal Brands urges the U.S. to make China and Russia “pay exorbitantly” for their policies. History shows that has never worked.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on March 10, 2022
Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers speaking before the appearance of former president Donald Trump at a Save America Rally on Jan 15th in Florence, Arizona.
partner

The Bond That Explains Why Some on the Christian Right Support Putin’s War

Russia has become an ally in a global movement.
by Bethany Moreton via Made By History on March 5, 2022
U.S. President Harry Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson, sit in the back seat of a car.

Harry Truman Helped Make Our World Order, for Better and for Worse

Institutions meant to secure peace, from NATO to the U.N., date back to Truman’s Presidency. So do the conflicts threatening that peace.
by Beverly Gage via The New Yorker on March 4, 2022
A woman is surrounded by her children as she sits amid a pile of debris in the processing area towards Abbey Gate, as they wait to leave Afghanistan, Wednesday, August 25, 2021.

What We Miss When We Say a War Has “Ended”

Bringing to light the kinship among American wars—and, by extension, their true significance—requires situating them in a single historical framework.
by Andrew J. Bacevich via The Nation on January 25, 2022
Paul Robeson and other members of the Civil Rights Congress submit a report on police brutality and systemic racism against Black people, accusing the U.S. of genocide, to the United Nations.

70 Years Ago Black Activists Accused the U.S. of Genocide. They Should Have Been Taken Seriously.

The charges, while provocative, offer a framework to reckon with systemic racial injustice — past and present.
by Alex Hinton via Politico Magazine on December 26, 2021
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