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Mccarthyism In The Early 1950's

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In the early 1950’s, McCarthyism spread as a result of allegations, which ended up turning Americans against each other. Politicians across the United States made anti-communism the centerpiece of their identity after the second world-war which led straight into the Cold War. With the Cold War fueling America, it gave rose to McCarthy, a senator from Wisconsin. What made McCarthy famous was that he, who out of all people, said allegations claiming that two-hundred and five people were in the Communist Party and who were shaping the policy in the state department. The reason in which made McCarthy so believable is a result of what happened in the year prior. In Robert’s article, “Fear of Communist infiltration intensified in 1949 when Communists
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In McCarthy’s speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, he mentions how there were communists throughout the government. He targeted those treated well by the Nation, such as the wealthy and white-collar workers. Attacking people born with silver spoons in their mouths, those who are born privileged, and claiming the ones in the government are Communists increases the amount of fear the Americans had that communism was spreading. Despite McCarthy’s accusations that these people were communists, he never provided evidence that supported his claim. McCarthy’s “witch hunt” for Communists, also known as McCarthyism, was a movement he used to make himself more powerful and to discredit the Truman

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McCarthyism era was this huge idea of creating terror and frenzy by accusing most of the people of being involved in an "unwelcome" repetition, and making deals like letting them go in exchange for turning in friends, family members, and acquaintances. Senator Joseph McCarthy worn with an accused communist stating, "Senator, have you no shame" (Miller 1995; 111; Schrecker 1994; 93). In these cases, fear, philosophy and suspicion threatened to destroy the "community" of people and put in its place a tyrannical lead. People then started looking away from each other and questioning and trying to find out if they have a communist ideology. This gave so much tense and stress to the

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339 Words | 2 Pages

The Cold War was a war of ideologies and propaganda. Hence, the smallest display of failure or mistrust on one side meant a great advantage for the other. This is exactly what McCarthy did in the 1950's. He created and developed a period of negativity in his time as a senator. By doing so, he gave the Soviets an advantage, and he weakened America's image internationally.

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980 Words | 4 Pages

During the 1950’s McCarthyism was a widespread problem reflected in the Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, in hope to warn and prevent mass hysteria developing in the United States. The population of the United States became excessively paranoid at the thought of communists in their country. Paranoia among the citizens did nothing but worsen the current situation of the country at the time, since everyone was accusing everyone else of being a communist. Similar amounts of paranoia during the Salem witch hunts caused

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982 Words | 4 Pages

Sam Roberts in the article “A Decade of Fear” argues that McCarthyism turned Americans against each other. Robert supports his claim by illustrating fear, describing betrayal, and comparing it to other U.S. internal conflicts. The author’s purpose is to point out a vulnerable period in American history in order to demonstrate that Americans felt prey McCarthy’s negative propaganda. The author writes in a cynical tone for an educated audience. I strongly agree with Robert’s claim.

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1094 Words | 5 Pages

Sam Roberts in the article A Decade of Fear argues that McCarthyism turned Americans against each other. Roberts supports his claim by illustrating fear, describing betrayal, and comparing it to other United States internal conflicts. The author’s purpose is to point out a vulnerable period of American history in order to demonstrate that Americans felt prey to McCarthy’s negative propaganda. The author writes in a cynical tone for an educated audience. I strongly agree with Robert’s claim.

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1711 Words | 7 Pages

McCarthy manipulated the media, told outrageous stories about the communist conspiracy in the United States, and used his power and America’s fear to besmirch any opponents as “communist sympathizers” to make sure he remained at the top. Actually, most conservative members of Congress supported McCarthy because it helped them gain votes during elections. The majority of McCarthy 's movement attacked liberals and members of the Democratic Party and this aided anyone who was not part of those topics and organizations. Then McCarthy began to target the Army because they wouldn’t favor David Schine, one of his former investigators, who had been drafted in. “Senator Joseph McCarthy began hearings investigating the United States Army, which he charged with being ‘soft’ on communism.

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807 Words | 4 Pages

McCarthy created the uproar of having a ‘witch hunt’ on communists in America. His influence on the people gave him credibility when he accused those innocent people. “He cited 81 cases that day. He skipped several numbers, and for some cases repeated the same flimsy information. He proved nothing, but the Senate called for a full investigation.”(ushistory.org).

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185 Words | 1 Pages

McCarthyism turned Americans against each other after WWII by claiming that Communists had infiltrated many areas of American life and government. In fact, “According to a local newspaper McCarthy dropped a bombshell: ‘The State Department is infested with Communists,” (para 3). In other words, this is the beginning of McCarthy turning Americans against each other. Paranoia started to spread through America which all this strongly affected Americans everyday life. McCarthyism was a result of American fear of communism in the 1950s.

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693 Words | 3 Pages

George Orwell wrote the novel "1984" in 1949. What is engaging about this book is the author's use of advanced technology, like screens that watch you at all times, monitor your heart, and listen to everything you say. What makes this fascinating is that Orwell wrote this over six decades ago, at a time when such technology was only a fragment of his imagination. In the book, the Party spies on the characters to keep everyone in check and ensure no one has opposing thoughts against the Party. Anyone who is inconsistent with the Party's ideology gets punished.

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930 Words | 4 Pages

Sam Robert in the article, “A Decade of Fear”, argues that McCarthyism turned Americans against each other. Robert supports his argument by illustrating, describing, and listing the roots of McCarthyism. The author's purpose is to inform people about McCarthyism in order to convince readers that it caused conflict between Americans. The author writes in a factual tone for the adults reading New York Times. I strongly agree with Robert’s argument.

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887 Words | 4 Pages

The purpose of this investigation is to answer the following question, “What impact did McCarthyism have on American society during the early 1950’s?” The main body of evidence will investigate on what events lead up the practice of McCarthyism, and why it holds negative connotations of government accusations on the society. Evidence will include eyewitness accounts of this practice such as journal articles and speeches from the time. Documents will be analyzed in regards to their origin, purpose, value, and limitations in order to properly evaluate the evidence. Documents include a list containing the false accusations Senator Joseph McCarthy made under his own reasoning as well as President Harry S. Truman’s response according to this practice.

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1212 Words | 5 Pages

Joseph McCarthy, a United States senator, as well as other citizens, began posing false accusations of communists in the country and government. Since the fear of communism during the Cold War was so high, mass hysteria extended through the United States and its government, like the Salem Witch Trials and the village of Salem,

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1609 Words | 7 Pages

While mccarthyism was on the rise citizens of United states were in fear and fearing it cause a public panic president Harry S. Truman got involved too in order to get rid of communism and he established a federal loyalty security program on March 21 1947 which was basically set up a loyalty check for federal workers If there were any reasonable ground on why people suspected that the colleagues they were working with was a communist supporter they would be fired from their jobs. There was a loyalty review board that was set up to deal with employees appel. The next month as Joseph Mccarthy claimed there were 205 communist there was no proof so many government worker including president Dwight Eisenhower disagreed and were not supportive of Joseph Mccarthy tactics. The rise of McCarthyism really started when Joseph Mccarthy became in charge of the Government operations which allowed Joseph Mccarthy to run even more expensive investigations than before which led to many citizens lives be ruined as loyalty review board many were found guilty for unreasonable reasons. The influence of mccarthyism was so wide spread out that even hollywood workers, actors and actress were accused of being favourable about mccarthyism.

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462 Words | 2 Pages

Senator Joseph McCarthy was a merciless politician who would be censured by the Senate in 1954 for his false accusations. However, his political journey throughout the country had a significant impact on the American public. Americans let fear override their conscious and allowed a bully to insert panic into their minds. McCarthy’s crusade was powerful and convinced the naive public during a time of war to question their own government without sufficient

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