History 546 - Spring 2000
Red Scare
or Red Menace?
Communism
and Anti-Communism in American life
1919-1964
Class meets
Tuesdays 6.30-9.30 in 415 WEAVER
Philip Jenkins Office:
407 Weaver Building
Please note: I check my e-mail regularly (obsessively?) and this
is an excellent way to get in touch with me if you have a quick question or if
you want to make an appointment for a more substantial discussion.
The Course
This course discusses the role of Communism in American life,
politics and culture, chiefly in the context of the so-called McCarthy period
of the early 1950s, but also emphasizing anti-Communism as a perennial theme
which erupted in other periods, like 1919-20 and 1939-41. We will address the
historical controversies which have developed in recent years over the reality
of the Communist threat: was there really a red menace, or should we rather
speak of a baseless "red scare"? Was it all a witch-hunt, or was this
one instance where there really were witches?
Texts for Purchase (all are required, all are in paperback)
1. Philip Jenkins The Cold War At Home University of North
Carolina Press, 1999. ISBN: 0-8078-4781-X
2. Sherman Labovitz, Being Red in Philadelphia Camino
Press, 1997 ISBN: 0940159422
3. Richard Gid Powers, Not Without Honor Yale Univ Press,
1998. ISBN: 0300074700
4. Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes Princeton Univ
Press, 1999 ISBN: 0691048703
5. Sam Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers Modern Library 1998.
ISBN: 0375751459
Course Requirements
The course will take the format of a
reading and discussion seminar. I expect that each week, students will come to
class having read a common set of chapters. In addition, I will be allotting
particular books to people, either as individuals or small groups, so that they
can be responsible for leading discussion about those particular issues. Each
student should come to class with at least two open-ended questions around
which the discussion of the readings should be organized.
Each student will write a major
paper on a topic related to problems and controversies raised in the readings.
The paper (about 20-25 typed pages, fully referenced) will analyze some issue
related to the basic controversy of "red scare or red menace". Please
note that this general area is remarkably underworked, and there are vast
opportunities to maker an original contribution to knowledge, so choose a topic
in which you can make substantial use of primary sources. I would suggest,
though do not require, that your work should apply a local focus, eg to
Communism and/or anti-Communist issues in a specific region or community, but
it would be perfectly acceptable to address instead some institution or
movement in a national rather than a local context (one vastly under-researched
topic to which I do want to draw your attention is the Henry Wallace
Progressive Party campaign of 1948.) Be aware that Pattee library has a number
of excellent archival collections, including the records of both the
Steelworkers and Mineworkers unions, and the Joshua Gitt papers. My earnest (and
quite realistic) hope is that your written work will be good enough to be
submitted to a journal for publication. I will be asking each participant to
make a presentation based on your paper to the whole group during April. Each
student will have half an hour to present his/her research and the questions
raised.
In addition, I want you to write a
book review of any work relating to the course topic OTHER THAN those which are
required for the course, or one of the books on reserve. You might for example
choose any of the books from the bibliography below, so long as it does not
fall into one of the prohibited categories (an item from the blacklist, so to
speak). Incidentally, works of fiction are quite acceptable in this
context, so long as you review them from the point of view of a historian. Your
review should describe the content of the work, and discuss it critically as a
source for the period in question: imagine that it is a review for one of the
flagship journals, like the Journal of American History. Your review
should run to about 1200 words.
Regular class attendance and participation are of course expected
as a necessary element of the final grade. In summary, the grade will be
derived as follows:
paper -
60%
book review -
20%
attendance and participation -
10%
presentation -
10%
100%
SYLLABUS OF
CLASSES
1. Jan 11.
Introducing the course. The historiography of the red scare/red
menace. A witch-hunt?
2. Jan 18.
Communism comes to America; Foster and Browder; The appeal of
Communism 1920-1950.
FILM: Seeing Red
*Books to be discussed include:
Fried, Communism in America.
Johanningsmeier, Forging American communism
Ryan, Earl Browder
Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes chapters 1-3
Jenkins The Cold War At Home, chapters 1-2
3. Jan 25.
The Party and the USSR; Spies and Saboteurs.
How to do research in this area: using library resources (eg
RLIN); finding archival materials; using newspapers and magazines.
Understanding provocateurs and disinformation.
*Books to be discussed include:
Haynes and Klehr, Venona.
Klehr, Haynes, and Anderson, The Soviet world of American
communism
Klehr, Haynes, and Firsov; The secret world of American
communism
Weinstein and Vassiliev. The haunted wood
4. Feb 1.
The Anti-Communist tradition; the Popular Front; Roosevelt and the
Communists.
*Books to be discussed include:
Powers, Not Without Honor
Lieberman, "My song is my weapon"
Lyons. Philadelphia communists
Shuldiner, Aging political activists
I NEED TO KNOW THE TOPICS OF YOUR TERM PAPERS TODAY
5. Feb 8.
The Truman Era; the linkage of foreign and domestic policy; the
war threats and civil defense. Hiss and the Rosenbergs.
FILM SEGMENT: Daniel
*Books to be discussed include:
O'Brien, McCarthy and McCarthyism in Wisconsin
Jenkins The Cold War At Home, chapters 3-4
Tanenhaus, Whittaker Chambers
Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes chapters 4-6
6. Feb 15.
HUAC AND SISS; Dies and McCarthy; the sedition trials
FILM: Hollywood on Trial (1979),
*Books to be discussed include:
Belfrage, The American Inquisition
Fried, McCarthyism
Sherman Labovitz, Being Red in Philadelphia
PLEASE WRITE A TWO PAGE SYNOPSIS OF YOUR PROPOSED PAPER, WITH
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. BRING ENOUGH C0PIES TO DISTRIBUTE TO EVERYONE IN THE
SEMINAR FOR IN-CLASS DISCUSSION.
7. Feb 22.
Communism and the mainstream political parties; the anti-Communist
purge and the American political system. Fighting back against McCarthyism
FILM: The American Experience 4: Love in the Cold War (61458, VH)
*Books to be discussed include:
Digest of the public record of communism in the United States
Lewy, The cause that failed
Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes chapters 7-10
8. Feb 29.
The Cold War and the Labor Movement.
How to write work for this class that is not just acceptable, but
publishable. How to transform papers into articles, and dissertations into
books.
*Books to be discussed include:
Heale, McCarthy's Americans.
Nelson et al, Steve Nelson, American radical
McCormick, Seeing Reds
Jenkins The Cold War At Home, chapter 5
BOOK REVIEW DUE TODAY!
9. March 14.
Red Channels: Hollywood and the media.
FILM: Legacy of the
Hollywood Blacklist (F60355)
*Books to be discussed include:
Fariello, Red scare.
Navasky, Naming names
10. March 21.
Constituencies: ethnic and religious; Communism and
African-Americans; CRC and NAACP.
FILM: The American
Experience 6: Eisenhower (91049 VH)
*Books to be discussed include:
Jenkins The Cold War At Home, chapters 6-10
11. March 28.
Schools and Universities. Inverted nativism. The red scare at Penn
State.
FILM: The Edward R. Murrow Collection: The McCarthy Years (91011
VH)
PAPER DRAFTS DUE
12. April 4.
After the scare was over - the domestic Communist issue c.1956-64.
FILM: Children of the Left: A Story About Family and Politics in
Cold-War America (62372 VH)
13. April 11.
Class presentations
14. April 18.
Class presentations
15. April 25.
Conclusion
TERM PAPER DUE IN FINALS PERIOD
********************
BOOKS ON RESERVE IN PATTEE
Belfrage, Cedric, The American Inquisition, 1945-1960. St.
Paul, Minn. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1989. E743.5.B36 1989
Digest of the public record of communism in the United States.
New York City : Fund for the Republic, 1955. E743.5.D5
Fariello, Griffin. Red scare. New York : Norton, 1995 .
E743.5.F34 1995
Fried, Albert, Communism in America. New York : Columbia
University Press, c1997. HX83.C63 1997
Fried, Albert McCarthyism : the great American Red scare
New York : Oxford University Press, 1997. E743.5.F668 1997
Haynes, John Earl, and Harvey Klehr. Venona. New Haven,
Conn. Yale University Press, c1999 JK2391.C5H39 1999
Heale, M. J. McCarthy's Americans. Athens : University of
Georgia Press, 1998. E743.5.H39 1998
Johanningsmeier, Edward P. Forging American communism.
Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, c1994. HX84.F6J65 1994
Klehr, Harvey, John Earl Haynes, and Kyrill M. Anderson, The
Soviet world of American communism / New Haven : Yale University Press,
c1998. JK2391.C5K563 1998
Klehr, Harvey, John Earl Haynes, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov; The
secret world of American communism New Haven : Yale University Press, 1995.
HX83.K557 1995
Lewy, Guenter, The cause that failed New York : Oxford
University Press, 1990. JK2391.C5L48 1990
Lieberman, Robbie, "My song is my weapon" Urbana
: University of Illinois Press, c1989. ML3795.L44 1989
Lyons, Paul. Philadelphia communists, 1936-1956
Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 1982. JK2391.C53P485 1982
McCormick, Charles H. Seeing Reds Pittsburgh, Pa.
University of Pittsburgh Press, c1997. F159.P657M38 1997
Navasky, Victor S. Naming names New York, N.Y. : Penguin
Books, 1991. PN1993.5.U6N4 1991
Nelson, Steve, Steve Nelson, American radical Pittsburgh,
Pa. University of Pittsburgh Press, c1981. HX84.N44
O'Brien, Michael, McCarthy and McCarthyism in Wisconsin
Columbia : University of Missouri Press, 1980. E748.M143O27
Ryan, James G. Earl Browder Tuscaloosa, AL. University of
Alabama Press, 1997. HX84.B69R93 1997
Shuldiner, David Philip. Aging political activists
Westport, Conn. Praeger, 1995. HX84.A2S58 1995
Weinstein, Allen, and Alexander Vassiliev. The haunted wood
New York : Random House, c1999 UB271.R9W45 1999
********************
General Bibliography: Communism and Anti-Communism
This is a small sample of what is out there! In addition to these
specific references, there is a vast amount of material listed in the LIAS
system under topics like:
Communism - United States
Communists - United States - Biography
Communist Party of the United States of America
Anti-communist movements - United States etc.
John J. Abt,
Michael Myerson (Contributor), Margaret Burnham Advocate and Activist :
Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer Univ of Illinois Press (1993)
Bayley,
Edwin R. (1981) Joe McCarthy and the Press. (Madison, WI: University of
Wisconsin Press).
Cedric
Belfrage, The American Inquisition, 1945-1960 (Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1973)
Bennett,
David H. (1995) The Party of Fear, second edition (New York: Vintage)
Kenneth
Lloyd Billingsley Hollywood Party : How Communism Seduced the American Film
Industry in the 1930s and 1940s Prima Publishing1998
Boyer, Paul S (1985) By the bomb's
early light: American thought and culture at the dawn of the atomic age.
(New York, Pantheon Books)
Boyer, Paul
S. (1992) When time shall be no more. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press)
Brands, H.
W. (1993) The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War. (New York:
Oxford University Press)
Broadwater,
Jeff (1992) Eisenhower and the Anti-communist Crusade (Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press)
Carr, Robert
Kenneth (1952) The House Committee on Un-American Activities, 1945-1950.
(Ithaca, Cornell University Press).
Caute, David
(1978) The Great Fear (New York: Simon and Schuster)
Crosby,
Donald F. (1978) God, church, and flag: Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and the
Catholic Church, 1950-1957. (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina
Press).
Curtin,
Michael. (1995) Redeeming the wasteland: Television documentary and Cold War
politics. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press).
Digest of
the Public Record of Communism (1955) Digest of the Public Record of
Communism in the United States (New York: Fund for the Republic)
Theodore
Draper The Roots of American Communism Chicago: Ivan R Dee 1989
Edwards,
Paul N. The Closed World: Computers and the politics of discourse in Cold
War America. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996.
Fariello,
Griffin (1995) Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition. New
York: Norton).
Filippelli,
Ronald L. and Mark McColloch (1995), Cold War in the Working Class
(Albany, State University of New York Press)
Franklin
Folsom , Days of Anger, Days of Hope : A Memoir of the League of American
Writers 1937-1942 Univ
Pr of Colorado 1994
Marjorie
Garber and Rebecca L. Walkowitz, eds., Secret Agents (New York:
Routledge, 1995)
Gillon,
Steven M., and Diane B. Kunz (1993) America during the Cold War. (Fort
Worth, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)
Goldberg,
Robert Alan. Barry Goldwater. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
Goodman,
Walter (1968) The Committee: The extraordinary career of the House Committee
on Un-American Activities (New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux).
Goulden,
Joseph C. (1976) The Best Years 1945-60 New York: Atheneum)
Griffith,
Robert, (1987) The politics of fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate.
second edition (Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press).
Griffith,
Robert, and Athen Theoharis, eds. (1974) The Specter (New York: Franklin
Watts).
Haynes, John
E. (1996) Red Scare or Red Menace? (Chicago, Ivan R. Dee).
Heale, M. J.
(1990) American Anti-Communism (Baltimore: )
M.J. Heale, McCarthy's
Americans (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1998)
Kenneth J. Heineman (1999) A Catholic
New Deal : Religion and Reform in Depression Pittsburgh Penn State Press
Lillian
Hellman, Scoundrel Time (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976)
Henriksen,
Margot A. (1997) Dr Strangelove’s America: Society and Culture in the
Atomic Age University of California
Hofstadter,
Richard (1979) The Paranoid Style in American Politics (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press)
Holmes, T.
Michael (1994) The specter of Communism in Hawaii (Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press).
Gerald
Horne, Black Liberation/Red Scare (Newark, DE: University of Delaware
Press, 1994)
Gerald
Horne, Communist Front? The Civil Rights Congress, 1946-1956
(Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987)
Maurice
Isserman, Which Side Were You On? (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University
Press, 1982)
Jaffe,
Julian F. Crusade against radicalism : New York during the Red scare,
1914-1924 Port Washington, N.Y. Kennikat Press, 1972.
Jeansonne,
Glen (1988) Gerald L. K. Smith: Minister of Hate Yale University Press.
Philip
Jenkins Hoods and Shirts University of North Carolina press, 1997.
Philip
Jenkins The Cold War At Home University of North Carolina press, 1999.
Johanningsmeier,
Edward P. Forging American Communism: the life of William Z. Foster.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Judy Kaplan
and Linn Shapiro (Editors) Red Diapers : Growing Up in the Communist Left Univ of Illinois Press,
1998
Klehr,
Harvey. The Amerasia Spy Case: Prelude to McCarthyism. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Harvey
Klehr, John Earl Haynes and Kyrill M. Anderson, The Soviet World of American
Communism (Yale University Press, 1998)
Harvey
Klehr, John Earl Haynes and F. I. Firsov, The Secret World of American
Communism (Yale University Press, 1995)
Kornweibel,
Theodore. Seeing red : federal campaigns against Black militancy, 1919-1925
Bloomington : Indiana University Press, c1998.
Kovel Joel
(1994) Red Hunting in the Promised Land (New York: Basic Books).
Kraditor,
Aileen S., Jimmy Higgins: The Mental World of American Rank and File
Communists 1930-1958, Greenwood Press, 1988.
Sherman
Labovitz, Being Red in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Camino Books, 1998),
Leab, Daniel
J. (FORTHCOMING BOOK ON MATT CVETIC - should be out any day now from Penn State
press
Lewis,
Lionel S. (1993) The Cold War and academic governance: The Lattimore case at
Johns Hopkins. (Albany, State University of New York Press)
Lewy,
Guenther (1990) The Cause That failed: Communism in American Life (New
York: )
Robbie
Lieberman My Song Is My Weapon : People's Songs, American Communism, and the
Politics of Culture, 1930-50 Univ of Illinois Press (1995)
Lipset,
Seymour M., and Earl Raab (1978), The Politics of Unreason: Right Wing
Extremism in America 1790-1970 second ed., (Chicago: University of
Chicago).
Lipsitz,
George (1994) Rainbow at midnight: Labor and culture in the 1940s.
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press)
Lyons Paul
(1982) Philadelphia Communists 1936-1956 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press)
McAuliffe,
Mary Sperling, (1978) Crisis on the left: Cold war politics and American
liberals, 1947-1954. (Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press).
McCormick,
Charles Howard, (1989) This nest of vipers: McCarthyism and higher education
in the Mundel affair, 1951-52. Urbana, University of Illinois Press
Charles H.
McCormick, Seeing Reds (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,
1997)
Patrick
McGilligan and Paul Buhle, Tender Comrades (New York: St.
Martin’s, 1997)
Marty,
Martin (1996) Modern American Religion: Under God Indivisible 1941-1960
(volume three) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press)
William J.
Maxwell New Negro, Old Left : African-American Writing and Communism Between
the Wars Columbia Univ Press,
1999
May, Elaine
Tyler. Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. New York:
Basic Books, 1988
Gary
May Un-American Activities :
The Trials of William Remington
Oxford Univ Press 1994
Paul C.
Mishler Raising Reds : The
Young Pioneers, Radical Summer Camps, and Communist Political Culture in the
United States Columbia Univ Press 1999
Mitchell, Greg. Tricky Dick and the
Pink Lady : Richard Nixon vs. Helen Gahagan Douglas--sexual politics and the
Red Scare, 1950 (New York : Random House, c1998)
Morris,
Charles R., American Catholic, New York: Times Books.
Murray,
Robert K. Red scare : a study in national hysteria, 1919-1920
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1955.
Naison,
Mark, Communists in Harlem During the Depression University of Illinois,
1983.
Nelson,
Steve, James R. Barrett, and Rob Ruck (1981) Steve Nelson: American Radical
(Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press)
Oakes, Guy
(1994) The Imaginary War: Civil Defense and American Cold War Culture.
(New York, Oxford University Press)
O'Brien, Michael,
(1980) McCarthy and McCarthyism in Wisconsin. (Columbia, MO: University
of Missouri Press).
Ogden,
August R (1945) The Dies Committee: A Study of the Special House Committee
for the Investigation of Un-American Activities 1938-1944 Washington
O'Reilly,
Kenneth (1983) Hoover and the Un-Americans: The FBI, HUAC, and the red
menace.(Philadelphia, Temple University Press).
Oshinsky,
David M. (1976) Senator Joseph McCarthy and the American Labor Movement.
(Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.
Oshinsky,
David M. (1983) A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy (New
York: Free Press)
Paterson,
Thomas G. (1988) Meeting the communist threat, Truman to Reagan. (New
York: Oxford University Press).
Patterson,
James T. (1996) Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-74 (New York:
Oxford University Press).
Edward C.
Pintzuk Reds, Racial Justice,
and Civil Liberties : Michigan Communists During the Cold War Marxist
Educational Press 1997
Powers,
Richard Gid (1995) Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism
(New York : Free Press)
Preston,
William, Aliens and dissenters : federal suppression of radicals, 1903-1933
2nd ed. Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1994.
Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton The
Rosenberg File Yale Univ Press 2nd reprin edition ( 1997)
Wilson
Record, Race and Radicalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1964)
Reeves,
Thomas C. (1982) The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy (New York: Stein and
Day )
Steven
Rosswurm, ed., The CIO’s Left-Led Unions (New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, 1992)
Rosteck,
Thomas (1994) See it now confronts McCarthyism. (Tuscaloosa, University
of Alabama Press)
James G.
Ryan Earl Browder : The Failure of American Communism Univ of Alabama
Press (1997)
Walter
Schneir, Miriam Schneir, Invitation to an Inquest (1973)
Robert
Schrank Wasn't That a Time? : Growing Up Radical and Red in America MIT Press 1998
Schrecker, Ellen. (1986) No ivory
tower: McCarthyism and the universities. (New York, Oxford University
Press)
Ellen
Schrecker, Many Are The Crimes (Boston: Little Brown, 1998)
Selcraig,
James Truett (1982) The red scare in the Midwest, 1945-1955: A state and
local study. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press.
David A.
Shannon, The Decline of American Communism (New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1959)
Sherry,
Michael S. (1995) In the shadow of war: The United States since the 1930s.
(New Haven, Yale University Press)
Sirgiovanni,
George (1990) An undercurrent of suspicion: Anti-communism in America during
World War II. (New Brunswick, U.S.A., Transaction Publishers, 1990).
Mark I.
Solomon The Cry Was Unity : Communists and African Americans, 1917-36 Univ
Press of Mississippi (1998).
Joseph R.
Starobin, American Communism in Crisis, 1943-1957 (Harvard University
Press, 1972)
Steinberg,
Peter L. (1984) The Great "Red Menace", United States prosecution
of American Communists, 1947-1952. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press).
Tanenhaus,
Sam (1997) Whittaker Chambers: A Biography.(New York: Random House).
Theoharis,
Athan G., ed. (1982) Beyond the Hiss case: The FBI, Congress, and the Cold
War (Philadelphia, Temple University Press).
Theoharis,
Athan G. and John Stuart Cox (1988) The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great
American Inquisition. Philadelphia, Temple University Press.
Troy, Thomas
F. Wild Bill and Intrepid: Donovan, Stephenson, and the origin of CIA.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
Tuck, Jim
(1995) McCarthyism and New York's Hearst press. (Lanham, University
Press of America).
Allen
Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, updated ed. (New York:
Random House, 1997)
Allen
Weinstein, Alexander Vassiliev The Haunted Wood : Soviet Espionage in
America-The Stalin Era Random House 1999
White,
Graham and John Maze. Henry A. Wallace. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1995.
Whitfield,
Stephen J. (1996) The culture of the Cold War. 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press).