McCarthyism and the Red Scare, Part I: Dirty Tactics
Senator Joe McCarthy* and the Red Scare of the 1950s have been on my mind a lot lately. McCarthy took the very real fear many Americans felt about the spread of communism** and turned them into an official witch-hunt for his personal political benefit.
Born to a Wisconsin farm family in 1908, McCarthy left school at fourteen. He worked as a chicken farmer and a grocery store manager before he went back to high school at the age of twenty. He went on to get a law degree from Marquette University. Up to this point, McCarthy’s career looks like a textbook example of the American dream.
In 1948, McCarthy was elected to the United States Senate in an upset victory over the incumbent senator, Robert LaFollette, Jr. LaFollette was a second generation progressive Republican senator.*** His seat in the senate seemed so secure that people said if “Little Bob” could be unseated anyone could be unseated.
McCarthy fought a dirty campaign. He lied about his war record, claiming to have flown thirty-two missions during World War II when he actually worked a desk job and only flew in training exercises. LaFollette was too old for military service when Pearl Harbor was bombed, but McCarthy attacked him for not enlisting and accused him of war profiteering. Ad hominem attacks make for sexy headlines. Fact checking does not. McCarthy won the election.
On his first day as a senator, McCarthy called a little-noticed press conference that was a dress rehearsal for his later performance as a demagogue. He had a modest proposal for ending a coal strike that was in progress: draft union leader John L. Lewis and the striking miners into the army. If they still continued to strike, he argued that they should be court-martialed for insubordination and then shot.
It was an ugly start to a career that would get even uglier.
*Not to be confused with Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005), who was the opposite of the early Senator McCarthy in pretty much every way possible.
**Whether those fears were legitimate is another question all together.
***Yes, you read that correctly. A progressive Republican. So progressive that he was accused of being a fellow-traveler with communists. The world has changed.
Rejected Princesses
I’ve been following Jason Porath’s Tumblr Rejected Princesses (and the blog that followed it and the Facebook page) for two years and a bit. The project began in a discussion with his Dreamworks’ co-workers over what historical woman was least likely to be the heroine of a children’s animated movie. He discovered that few of his co-workers had heard of historical figures like 17th century Angolan queen Nzinga,* who successfully defended her country from the Portuguese, or World War II Soviet tank driver Mariya Oktyabrskaya. He set out to change that.
Don’t you love the fractured crown?
Porath’s Tumblr has spun off a book: Rejected Princesses: Tales of History’s Boldest Heroines, Hellions and Heretics. It is a collection of carefully researched, smart-mouthed essays about women who exemplify the idea that well-behaved women seldom make history.** The essays are illustrated in a style that nods toward Disney princesses without sexualizing their subjects–except in the cases of women whose stories depend on their sexuality. ** Some, such as Harriet Tubman and Joan of Arc, will be recognizable to everyone—though details of their stories may surprise readers. Many are virtually unknown. Few are actual princesses.
Rejected Princesses pushes the boundaries of the genre of collective biographies of groundbreaking historical women, often designed to provide female role models for girls. Porath includes stories that may not be suitable for children, or for adults looking for heroines—his historical figures are after all chosen because they’d never be the subject of a children’s movie. ( He’s colored-coded stories by level of moral ambiguity.) In the end, he urges girls to glory in the fact that they come from “a long line of bold, strong, unbroken women”—princesses or otherwise.
*One of my personal favorites.
**If you love the asterisks here in the Margins, you’ll enjoy Porath’s style.
***Such as the aforementioned Queen Nzinga, who followed the lead of many male rulers throughout history and kept a 60-man male harem.
Most of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers
News! (And a newsletter)
I suppose I should come up with a clever build up to the news, but I’m too jazzed to bother. I’m just going to blurt it out: I’ve got a book deal with Beacon Press. Beacon has a history of publishing smart, important works of non-fiction. I hope I don’t disappoint.
For the next fourteen months, I’m going to be heads down writing Women Warriors,* a global history of women for whom battle wasn’t a metaphor, written in a style that the Marginalia will find very familiar.** Depending on where you start counting, I’ve been working on this idea for two years, or maybe 30. I intend to look at both well-known and obscure examples, drawn from the ancient world through the modern day. Their stories will include lying, cheating, murder and revenge as well as defense of home, heart, nation, and religious conviction–sometimes in one story. Some of the stories I intend to tell involve simple acts of heroism, without regard to whether the way in which they fought was a “good war” or a pointless and bloody game of political dominoes.*** Others are both revered as national heroines and reviled as arch-villains, depending on which side of the battlefield your ancestors stood on. A few of the women I discuss led their nations into wars that were as bloody, stupid and greedy as those instigated by any of their historical male counterparts.
What does that mean for History in the Margins? Glad you asked. I still intend to publish regular posts about the historical topics I’m thinking about, though the topics may veer more heavily toward women at war than they have in the past. I’ll share any big news, but I’ll try not to clutter this space with posts about speaking gigs or small news. Instead I’m starting a newsletter where I’ll share news (when I have it) and talk about the process of thinking and writing about history. It will come out less often than History on the Margins, twice a month unless I have BIG news that just can’t wait.
If you’re interested in the newsletter, you can sign up here: http://eepurl.com/cobpk9 . **** The first issue will be coming out soon.
Buckle up. It’s going to be a wild ride.
*The title may change. The idea will not.
**Complete with footnotes, asides, and a hint of attitude.
***The concept of a “good war” is tricky. One woman’s “good war” is another woman’s imperial land grab.
****This isn’t very elegant. I’m new at the newsletter business. If all goes smoothly, you should get a welcome e-mail from me after you confirm your subscription. Let me know if it works?