Guided Notes: McCarthyism

and the Second Red Scare

Period 8

Notes Taken Directly from Eric Foner’s Give Me Liberty

The Cold War at Home

At home, the Cold War…

• helped to fuel economic growth and support
scientific research that not only perfected
weaponry but also led to improved aircraft,
computers, medicines, and other products with a
large impact on civilian life.
• reshaped immigration policy, with refugees from
communism being allowed to enter the United
States regardless of national-origin quotas.
• contributed to the dismantling of segregation.
• encouraged the drawing of a sharp line between
patriotic Americans and those accused of being
disloyal.
 Loyalty, Disloyalty,
and American Identity
• Fear inspired by communism became a catalyst for
reconsidering American identity in the mid-twentieth
century.
• Accusations of communist activity were often framed
as assertions that an individual had betrayed his or her
American identity.
• McCarran-Walter Act: immigration legislation
passed in 1952 that allowed the government to deport
immigrants who had been identified as communists,
regardless of whether or not they were citizens.
• In 1947, President Truman established a loyalty review
system that required government employees to
demonstrate their patriotism without being allowed to
confront accusers or, in some cases, knowing the
charges against them.
 CCOT:
Think-Pair-Share (be an edger):
The McCarran-Walter Act deported immigrants
suspected of being communists. What other time
period does this event remind you of?
 McCarthyism
• Dividing the world between liberty and slavery
automatically made those who could be linked to
communism enemies of freedom.
• This assault on civil liberties came to be known as
McCarthyism.
• McCarthyism: post-world War II Red Scare focused on
the fear of Communists in U.S. government positions.
• McCarthyism peaked during the Korean War
• Most closely associated with Joseph McCarthy, a major
instigator of the hysteria.
Some traits we may associate with McCarthyism:
Character assassination
guilt by association
abuse of power in the name of anticommunism
Cold War Civil Rights

• Black organizations like the NAACP

and Urban League protested the
Truman administration’s loyalty
program.
• They wondered aloud why the program
and congressional committees defined
communism as “un-American,” but not
racism.
• Anticommunist investigators often
cited attendance at interracial
gatherings as evidence of disloyalty.
 Joseph McCarthy
• Joseph R. McCarthy was a Senator from
Wisconsin.
• In a speech at Wheeling, West Virginia, in February
1950, McCarthy announced that he had a list of
205 communists working for the State Department.
• The charge was preposterous, the numbers
constantly changed, and McCarthy never
identified a single person guilty of genuine
disloyalty.
• McCarthy used a subcommittee he chaired to hold
hearings and level wild charges against numerous
individuals as well as the Defense Department and
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy at the Army-McCarthy hearings of
other government agencies.
1954. McCarthy points to a map detailing charges about the
alleged extent of the communist menace, while the army’s lawyer,
Joseph Welch, listens in disgust.
 McCarthy’s Critics

• Edward R. Murrow: (newscaster): broadcast

journalism during its formative years.
• Margaret Chase Smith: (senate’s only
female member) Charged McCarthy,
indirectly, of a “campaign of hate and
character assassination.”
• Herb Block “Herblock” (cartoonist) Showed
the danger to American freedom posed by the
anticommunist crusade.
• President Truman: McCarthy had attacked
Truman's foreign policy in his speech at
Wheeling, West Virginia
 HUAC and the
HollyWood Ten
• In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC) launched a series of hearings about communist
influence in Hollywood.
• Called well known screenwriters, directors, and actors to
appear before the committee ensured a wave of national
publicity, which its members relished.
• Walt Disney and actors Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan
testified that the movie industry harbored numerous
communists.
• But ten “unfriendly witnesses” refused to answer the
committee’s questions about their political beliefs or to
“name names”.
• Hollwood Ten: A group called before the House Un-
American Activities Committee who refused to speak about
their political leanings or “name names”—that is, identity
communists in Hollywood.
• They served jail terms of six months to a year.
 Spy Trials

• A series of highly publicized legal cases

followed which filed the growing
anticommunist hysteria.
• Whittaker Chambers testified before hUAC
that during the 1930s, Alger Hiss, a high-
ranking State Department official, had given
him secret government documents to pass to
agents of the Soviet Union.
• In 1951, a jury convicted Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg, a working-class Jewish
communist couple of conspiracy to pass
secrets concerning the atomic bomb to Soviet
agents during World War II.
 McCarthyism
• Although many Republicans initially
supported his rampage as a weapon against
the Truman administration, McCarthy became
an embarrassment to the party after the
election of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower
as president in 1952.
• McCarthy’s downfall came in 1954, when a
Senate committee investigated his charges
that the army had harbored the “coddled
communists”
• The nationally televised Army-McCarthy
hearings revealed McCarthy as a bully who
browbeat witnesses and made sweeping
accusations with no basis in fact.
UNDERSTANDING SKILLS:
ANALYZING HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

POINT OF VIEW
Step 1: Identify the
Author
➤ Gender

➤ Occupation

➤ Political Ideology
➤ Religion
UNDERSTANDING SKILLS:
ANALYZING HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

POINT OF VIEW
Step 2: Identify Intended
Audience
➤ Town hall, convention
speech
➤ Individual or group
➤ Supporters or
opponents
UNDERSTANDING SKILLS:
ANALYZING HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

POINT OF VIEW

Step 3: Consider Context

➤ When was source
created?
➤ What major events
occurred before or
after the source was
created?
➤ Where was the
source created?
 TEACHER EXAMPLE:
ANALYZING POINT OF VIEW
Source: Michael Jordan, a retired, 6-time NBA Champion speaking about LeBron James to attendees at his Michael Jordan Flight School
Basketball Camp, Aug. 10, 2015. James won his third NBA championship the next year during his seventh straight finals appearance.

“This is the ESPN question. It’s going to be all over ESPN. If I was in my prime, could I
beat LeBron in a one-on-one game? No question!”
Teacher Example (I do): Analyzing Point of View

Source: Michael Jordan, a retired, 6-time NBA Champion, considered one of the best
players in history, speaking about LeBron James to attendees at his Michael Jordan Flight
School Basketball Camp, August 10, 2015. James won his third NBA championship the
next year during his seventh straight finals appearance.

“This is the ESPN question. It’s going to be all over ESPN. If I was in my prime,
could I beat LeBron in a one-on-one game? No question!”

Step 1:

Identify author

Michael Jordan, a retired 6-time NBA Champion, one of

the best in history
Teacher Example: Analyzing Point of View

Source: Michael Jordan, a retired, 6-time NBA Champion, considered one of the best
players in history, speaking about LeBron James to attendees at his Michael Jordan Flight
School Basketball Camp, August 10, 2015. James won his third NBA championship the
next year during his seventh straight finals appearance.

“This is the ESPN question. It’s going to be all over ESPN. If I was in my prime,
could I beat LeBron in a one-on-one game? No question!”

Step 2:

Identify Intended Audience

Attendees at his Michael Jordan Flight School Basketball Camp

ESPN (National Audience)

Teacher Example: Analyzing Point of View

Source: Michael Jordan, a retired, 6-time NBA Champion speaking about LeBron James to
attendees at his Michael Jordan Flight School Basketball Camp, Aug. 10, 2015. James won
his third NBA championship the next year during his seventh straight finals appearance.

“This is the ESPN question. It’s going to be all over ESPN. If I was in my prime,
could I beat LeBron in a one-on-one game? No question!”

Step 3:

Consider Context

James won his third NBA championship the next year

during his seventh straight finals appearance.
 Teacher Example: Analyzing Point of View
Source: Michael Jordan, a retired, 6-time NBA Champion, considered one of the best players in history, speaking about
LeBron James to attendees at his Michael Jordan Flight School Basketball Camp, August 10, 2015. James won his third NBA
championship the next year during his seventh straight finals appearance.

“This is the ESPN question. It’s going to be all over ESPN. If I was in my prime, could I beat LeBron in a one-
on-one game? No question!”

Point of View

General POV Jordan believes that during his prime, he would

have had a competitive edge over LeBron James.

Author Considered one of the greatest players of all time,

Jordan’s point of view is likely influenced by a desire to defend

Context
his legacy amid James’ impressive rise

Intended Audience to his camp attendees and a national audience.

 Your Turn: Sourcing for Point of View
Source: Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, 1950, delivered the
following “Declaration of Conscience” in the Senate Chamber against
McCarthyism. A Republican senator from Maine, Smith served 24 years
in the U.S. Senate beginning in 1949, following more than four terms
in the House of Representatives—the first woman to serve in both
houses of Congress.
“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character
assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore
some of the basic principles of Americanism…It is high time that we all stopped being
tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here
unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life,”
Getting started:

How does the source reflect at least one (1) trait of neoconservatism
( Character assassination; guilt by association; abuse of power in
the name of anticommunism)
 Your Turn: Sourcing for Point of View
Source: Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, 1950, delivered the following “Declaration of
Conscience” in the Senate Chamber against McCarthyism. A Republican senator from Maine, Smith
served 24 years in the U.S. Senate beginning in 1949, following more than four terms in the House
of Representatives—the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.
“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character
assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore
some of the basic principles of Americanism…It is high time that we all stopped being
tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here
unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life,”

Step 1:

Identify the author

Margaret Chase Smith, Republican senator, first woman to serve in both houses
 Your Turn: Sourcing for Point of View
Source: Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, 1950, delivered the following “Declaration of
Conscience” in the Senate Chamber against McCarthyism. A Republican senator from Maine, Smith
served 24 years in the U.S. Senate beginning in 1949, following more than four terms in the House
of Representatives—the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.

“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character

assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore
some of the basic principles of Americanism…It is high time that we all stopped being
tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here
unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life,”

Step 2:

Identify Intended Audience

Fellow members of the Senate
Joseph McCarthy
The American People
 Your Turn: Sourcing for Point of View
Source: Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, 1950, delivered the following “Declaration of
Conscience” in the Senate Chamber against McCarthyism. A Republican senator from Maine, Smith
served 24 years in the U.S. Senate beginning in 1949, following more than four terms in the House
of Representatives—the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.

“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character

assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore
some of the basic principles of Americanism…It is high time that we all stopped being
tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here
unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life,”
Step 3:

Consider Context
Height of the Cold War and McCarthy’s influence
Soon after McCarthy’s Wheeling Speech
Not many speaking out against him
 We Do Example: Analyzing Point of View
Source: Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, 1950, delivered the following “Declaration of Conscience” in
the Senate Chamber against McCarthyism. A Republican senator from Maine, Smith served 24 years in the
U.S. Senate beginning in 1949, following more than four terms in the House of Representatives—the first
woman to serve in both houses of Congress.

“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too
frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism…It is
high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued
here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life,”

Point of View

General POV or opinion Smith believed that McCarthy’s tactics were destructive and
antithetical to what America stood for.

Author Considering her role as a Republican senator during this time,

Smith’s point of view was likely influenced by McCarthy’s then

Context recent speech about suspected communists in the state
department and a possible concern for the direction of her party
and country
Intended Audience as she delivered this speech to members of the Senate, including
McCarthy himself.
LINE UP: ALPHABETICAL ORDER
OF YOUR LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE, SHOW, OR SONG
 SOURCING
DOCUMENTS:
TASK:
1. Gloss your assigned source individually,
with specific focus on the traits of
McCarthyism.
2. Answer the guided reading questions
individually
3. Then, share with your group what you
glossed and how you answered the reading
guide questions.
4. Record what you glossed as a group on the
poster paper of the source
5. Make a claim: what is the Point of View of
your author’s document?
 GRAFFITI
Task: As a group, rotate to each of the other group’s source and gloss one
piece of evidence that reflects a similar Point of View as your group’s.
 LSCW:

Calling out McCarthy!

Similar to Murrow