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Red Scare

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Campaign against communists (called ‘reds’) in the USA during the 20th century, and associated atmosphere of suspicion and fear. The first major Red Scare took place in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution , and coincided with a period of US labour disorders, most notably by the Industrial Workers of the World . The second took place during the Cold War in the late 1940s and 1950s, and led to the political persecution known as McCarthyism . Thousands of people were arrested on suspicion, careers were ruined, and communists were banned from entry to the USA. The first Red Scare in the USA developed when a wave of labour strikes in 1919 was seen as a prelude to revolution and violently suppressed. Some labour organizations, such as the Industrial Workers of the World, had advocated violence, and there were anarchist bombing incidents. Soon all socialists were perceived as threats to the state. J Edgar Hoover was enlisted to track subversives, and a nationwide roundup…
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Full text Article Red Scare

From World of Criminal Justice, Gale
More than once in the twentieth century, the United States succumbed to Red scares. Outbreaks of hysteria over political radicalism, the Red scares were directed by politicians and involved the full machinery of law and government, yet they reached deeply into private life, too. The term itself is a…
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Full text Article Red Scare

From The Great American History Fact-Finder
A fear of communism that swept the United States following World War I. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, American leaders, fearing a similar revolution might break out in the United States, set into motion a federal crackdown on suspected radicals. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer…
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Full text Article Red Scare

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Campaign against communists (called ‘reds’) in the USA during the 20th century, and associated atmosphere of suspicion and fear. The first major Red Scare took place in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution , and coincided with a period of US labour disorders, most notably by the…
| 307 words
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1919–1920 Red Scare was a term applied during the 1920s to a period of extreme anticommunism in the United States from 1917 until 1920. It started with the Russian Revolution in October 1917 which saw the Bolshevik Party taking power in Russia. The result was that there was a fear in the United…
| 588 words
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Full text Article Red Scare (1919 to 20)

From Chambers Dictionary of World History
A period in US history characterized by an intense distrust of radicals and foreigners, and marked by the Palmer Raids . Perhaps due to the general fear of foreigners engendered by World War I and the foundation of the Third International or Comintern in 1919, American fear of radicals was such that…
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Full text Article Red Scare

From The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Houghton Mifflin
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Full text Article Palmer, A(lexander) Mitchell

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
(born May 4, 1872, Moosehead, Pa., U.S.—died May 11, 1936, Washington, D.C.) U.S. politician. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1909 to 1915 and helped secure the Democratic Party presidential nomination for Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Appointed U.S. attorney general (1919–21), Palmer…
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Full text Article American Plan Seeks to Quash Labor Movement

From Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
The American Plan was a broad effort to undermine the power of labor unions in the years immediately following World War I (1914–18). The plan was devised and organized by a consortium of probusiness and nationalist organizations, chief among them the National Association of Manufacturers, the…
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Full text Article loyalty-security programs

From Encyclopedia of the American Presidency
Loyalty programs designed to increase U.S. security date back to the early days of the republic. Even the Continental Congress took steps to remove those loyal to the Crown from public employment. It was not until the cold war era that these loyalty-security programs began to raise serious questions…
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Full text Article Sacco and Vanzetti Case

From The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Business, Labor, and Economic History
In May 1920, Nicola Sacco, a shoemaker, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a fish peddler, were arrested for the murder of a paymaster and a guard in a robbery at a shoe factory in South Braintree, Massachusetts. In a trial marked by flimsy evidence and flawed procedures, they were convicted and sentenced to…
| 418 words
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