Cover -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Notes on Contributors -- Preface -- 1 After the Red Scare: Civil Liberties in the Era of Harding and Coolidge -- 2 The FBI and the Politics of Anti-Communism, 1920-1945: A Prelude to Power -- 3 Citizens versus Outsiders: Anti-Communism at State and Local Levels, 1921-1946 -- 4 Red Herrings? The Fish Committee and Anti-Communism in the Early Depression Years -- 5 Little Red Schoolhouses? Anti-Communists and Education in an "Age of Conflicts" -- 6 Fighting the "Red Danger": Employers and Anti-Communism -- 7 Leftward Ramparts: Labor and Anticommunism between the World Wars -- 8 Premature McCarthyism: Spanish Republican Aid and the Origins of Cold War Anti-Communism -- 9 Laying the Foundations for the Post-World War II Red Scare -- 10 The Dies Committee v. the New Deal: Real Americans and the Unending Search for Un-Americans -- 11 The Long Black and Red Scare: Anti-Communism and the African American Freedom Struggle -- 12 Shooting Rabid Dogs: New York's Rapp-Coudert Attack on Teachers Unions -- 13 The History of the Smith Act and the Hatch Act -- Index.

Anti-communism has long been a potent force in American politics, capable of gripping both government and popular attention. Nowhere is this more evident that the two great 'red scares' of 1919-20 and 1946-54; the latter generally - if somewhat inaccurately - termed McCarthyism. The interlude between these two major scares has tended to garner less attention, but as this volume makes clear, the lingering effects of 1919-20 and the gathering storm-clouds of 'McCarthyism' were clearly visible throughout the 20s and 30s, even if in a more low-key way. Indeed, the period between the two great red scares was marked by frequent instances of political repression, often justified on anti-communist grounds, at local, state and federal levels. Yet these events have been curiously neglected in the history of American political repression and anti-communism, perhaps because much of the material deals with events scattered in time and space which never reached the intensity of the two great scares. By focusing on this twenty-five year 'interim' period, the essays in this collection bridge the gap between the two high-profile 'red scares' thus offering a much more contextualised and fluid narrative for American anti-communism. In so doing the rationale and motivations for the 'red scares' can be seen as part of an evolving political landscape, rather than as isolated bouts of hysteria exploding onto - and then vanishing from - the political scene. Instead, a much more nuanced appreciation of the conflicting interests and fears of government, politicians, organised labour, free-speech advocates, employers, and the press is offered, which will be of interest to anyone wishing to better understand the political history of modern America.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.