Starting in the latter thirties and reaching a peak in the fifties, the American political landscape was dominated by the fear of communism. This fear was increased after 1945 by the specter of atomic warfare. The House Committee on Un-American Activities was formed. Senator Joseph McCarthy lent his name to the wave of anti-communist hysteria which swept over the country. People lost their jobs and some had their lives ruined by being accused of communist sympathies. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of being communist spies, lost their lives. Names such as Alger Hiss and Richard Nixon rose to prominence. The fear of communism and war was real, and affected people’s daily lives. “Rose”, a student in one of my classes, remembered the first house she and her husband bought in 1951. One of the first things they did was build a bomb shelter in their back yard. She stocked it with canned goods, bottled water, powdered milk, sugar, and bullets for the gun her husband bought her, in case the communists started World War III.

Do you have a story of how you, or a member of your family, was affected or influenced by the Red Scare of the 1950s?  Were you, or your father/mother/grandfather/grandmother afraid of communism? What did they think it would do to America? Were they a supporter of McCarthy? Did they watch the Army-McCarthy hearings on TV? Did you or they know anyone who was blacklisted?  Was any of your family a communist?  

If you’d care to share this story, please leave a comment here.  At the end of each month I gather up the Sharing History comments and pick one at random in a drawing. I send the winner of the drawing my e-book:  Making History Workbook: Economics and Politics 1930-1989.

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