Little 'Red Scares'

Robert Justin Goldstein is professor emeritus of political science at Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA, and currently research associate at the Center for Russian, E. European & Eurasian Studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, USA.

• Contents: Preface: Little’ Red scares’: anti-Communism and political repression in the United States, 1921-1946, Robert Justin Goldstein; After the Red scare: civil liberties in the era of Harding and Coolidge, Ernest Freeberg; The FBI and the politics of anti-Communism, 1920-1945: a prelude to power, Athan Theoharis; Citizens versus outsiders: anti-Communism at state and local levels, 1921-1946, M.J. Heale; Red herrings? The Fish Committee and anti-Communism in the early Depression years, Alex Goodall; Little Red schoolhouses? Anti-Communists and education in an ’age of conflicts’, Timothy Cain; Fighting the ’Red danger’: employers and anti-Communism, Chad Pearson; Leftward ramparts: labor and anticommunism between the World Wars, Markku Ruotsila; Premature McCarthyism: Spanish Republican aid and the origins of Cold War anti-Communism, Eric Smith; Laying the foundations for the post-World War II Red scare: investigating the left-feminist consumer movement, Landon R.Y. Storrs; The Dies Committee v. the New deal: real Americans and the unending search for un-Americans, Kenneth O’ Reilly; The long Black and Red scare: anti-Communism and the African American freedom struggle, Robbie Lieberman; Shooting rabid dogs: New York’s Rapp-Coudert attack on teachers unions, Stephen Leberstein; The history of the Smith Act and the Hatch Act: anti-Communism and the rise of the conservative coalition in Congress, Rebecca Hill; Index.

'[Little 'Red Scares' is] a welcome addition ... Generations of historians, and volumes such as [this] have done much to expose the invidious ends and disingenuous tactics of American anti-communists.' Reviews in History '...the entire collection is excellent...'Cercles'...Thirteen splendidly written essays... A major contribution of these essays is the way that, both individually and collectively, they reveal the deep layers and wide variety of forms that political repression and anticommunism took in these years, recapturing the vast network of groups and individuals who engaged in such repression, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, and Martin Dies to different state national guards and local police red squads to business groups, the American Legion, the Ku Klux Klan, and even the American Federation of Labor.’ Journal of American History'Edited by one of the nation’s finest chroniclers of radicalism in the US, the essays in this collection explore a sometimes-overlooked period when repression was meted out to left-wing organizations and activists. Included in the collection are offerings by other top historians ... This welcome volume clearly adds to the knowledge of interwar radicalism and repression in the US. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels.'R. C. Cottrell, California State University, Chico. Choice'The well-researched chapters of Little "Red Scares" cover an array of subjects....This collection’s greatest asset is its scope; by examining civil rights education, consumption, labor, citizenship, and politics in the vertices of the interwar era, a fuller picture of anticommunism in America emerges.As Goldstein states, many of the events and developments discussed in this volume lent subsequent generations of Americans a vocabulary to employ when debating the merits of capitalism and the perceived threats of communism. ... each chapter is informative, tightly organized, and engagingly written. Little "Red Scares" will be of interest to a wide range of scholars.'Stephen Nepa, Journal for the Study of RadicalismLittle "Red Scares" is an important contribution to the literature on American anticommunism. It gathers together thirteen experts in the field, and sheds light on a period in the history of American anticommunism that has received relatively little historiographical attention: the years between 1921 and 1946. The volume is edited by a pioneer in the field, Robert Justin Goldstein. As Goldstein makes clear in his succinct introduction, this volume proves that the first Red Scare of 1919–1920 was not a blip in American history: rather, it was the opening salvo for decades of anticommunist, counter-subversive activity. Within this framework, McCarthyism was nothing new under the sun. Further, Little "Red Scares" explores the many faces of counter-subversion between 1921 and 1946. Anticommunism was implemented at the federal, state, and municipal levels, often to varying degrees and at different times. The book shows that the boom in activism was a grassroots matter, too. Militant religious and secular organizations were rabidly anticommunist and remarkably well-organized, and often bundled their attacks on communism within broader battles against the rise of secularism, the influx of immigrants, or racial and gender equality. Given its breadth and depth, Little "Red Scares" will be of interests to specialists in a range of different fields. With appropriate scaffolding, it may be put to productive use in undergraduate and graduate courses on US history, the history of anticommunism, and the history of countersubversion since World War I. Giuliana Chamedes, University of Wisconsin – Madison, USA, Labour History/Le Travail (Canada)