The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left

Landon R.Y. Storrs (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

424 Seiten

2015
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-16674-2 (ISBN)

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In the name of protecting Americans from Soviet espionage, the post-1945 Red Scare curtailed the reform agenda of the New Deal. The crisis of the Great Depression had brought into government a group of policy experts who argued that saving democracy required attacking economic and social inequalities. The influence of these men and women within the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, and their alliances with progressive social movements, elicited a powerful reaction from conservatives, who accused them of being subversives. Landon Storrs draws on newly declassified records of the federal employee loyalty program--created in response to claims that Communists were infiltrating the U.S. government--to reveal how disloyalty charges were used to silence these New Dealers and discredit their policies. Because loyalty investigators rarely distinguished between Communists and other leftists, many noncommunist leftists were forced to leave government or deny their political views. Storrs finds that loyalty defendants were more numerous at higher ranks of the civil service than previously thought, and that many were women, or men with accomplished leftist wives.
Uncovering a forceful left-feminist presence in the New Deal, she also shows how opponents on the Right exploited popular hostility to powerful women and their supposedly effeminate spouses. The loyalty program not only destroyed many promising careers, it prohibited discussion of social democratic policy ideas in government circles, narrowing the scope of political discourse to this day. Through a gripping narrative based on remarkable new sources, Storrs demonstrates how the Second Red Scare repressed political debate and constrained U.S. policymaking in fields such as public assistance, national health insurance, labor and consumer protection, civil rights, and international aid.

Landon R. Y. Storrs is professor of history at the University of Iowa. She is the author of Civilizing Capitalism: The National Consumers' League, Women's Activism, and Labor Standards in the New Deal Era.

List of Illustrations ix Abbreviations Used in Text xi Selected Government Officials Investigated under the Federal Loyalty Program xiii Introduction 1 1When the Old Left Was Young ... and Went to Washington 16 2Allegations of Disloyalty at Labor and Consumer Agencies, 1939-43 51 3"Pinks in Minks": The Antifeminism of the Old Right 86 4The Loyalty Investigations of Mary Dublin Keyserling and Leon Keyserling 107 5Secrets and Self-Reinvention: The Making of Cold War Liberalism 147 6"A Soul-Searing Process": Trauma in the Civil Service 177 7Loyalty Investigations and the "End of Reform" 205 Conclusion 259 Appendix 1: Loyalty Case Records and Selection 265 Appendix 2: Case Summaries 268 Appendix 3: Chronology of the Federal Loyalty-Security Program 286 Appendix 4: Statistics of the Federal Loyalty-Security Program 291 Acknowledgments 293 Notes 295 Selected Bibliography of Primary Sources 385 Index 391

Erscheint lt. Verlag	29.3.2015
Reihe/Serie	Politics and Society in Modern America
Zusatzinfo	22 halftones.
Verlagsort	New Jersey
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 235 mm
Gewicht	624 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Systeme
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
ISBN-10	0-691-16674-9 / 0691166749
ISBN-13	978-0-691-16674-2 / 9780691166742
Zustand	Neuware