McCarthy Madness – Wednesday Workshop 4/3
by Dr. H - April 2nd, 2013
“I have in my hand…”
Anticommunism dominated American politics and culture in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The name of the junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, has since become synonymous with the entire Second Red Scare era, although his own political career peak was only from 1950 to 1954. McCarthyism seemed to many a kind of cultural hysteria, a madness, infecting Congress and Washington, Hollywood, workplaces, and public life. To others, it was a deadly earnest effort to keep America free from subversion and potential nuclear annihilation.
Inspired by the NCAA tournament (March Madness), today’s workshop is a Sweet Sixteen bracket of primary sources relating to Senator McCarthy and McCarthyism. Who will dominate?
Working in groups, you have ten minutes to decide the winner between various sets of primary sources by trying to convince the other team your document is more important/interesting/useful to historians. By 15 past the hour, we will have our champion #1 source of the McCarthy era.
Remember to use your primary source analysis skills as you build your case: Who wrote or made this? When? Why? What does it say? What does it NOT say? What point of view or political ideology does it express? How could historians use it now; what message does it provide about McCarthy or his cultural context?
Some of the documents are in paper form, others you’ll need to access online:
Herblock Cartoons (pick ONE winner in the first round from your assigned group of 3)
Newsman Edward R. Murrow’s closing oratory for his TV show “See it Now” March 9, 1954
1952 Wisconsin Republican Primary Campaign Brochure, “What Has McCarthy Done for Wisconsin?”
