13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Naming Names in Pennsylvania, July 13, 2000
This review is from: The Cold War at Home: The Red Scare in Pennsylvania, 1945-1960 (Paperback)
Philip Jenkins does a masterful job of documenting and reminding us how much of "McCarthyism" predated McCarthy and carried on after his demise. He does this in a well written text which uncovers the roles of individuals in Pennsylvania who worked with, for and against the Communist left in the labor movement, education, ethnic groups, churches and most importantly state political and judicial systems. This state is taken as a case study in the overall malestorm of Red hunters and the author is able to provide an overview of the national context while zeroing in on specific state events. He accomplishes his goal.
For the most part this history is centered in the 1950's when the loss of China and the Korean War intensified the "Red Scare." The author is careful however, to document background and causes, for example, he goes back to 1927 (when two professors of West Chester State Normal College were dismissed for citicisms of U.S. Policies in Nicaragua) to examine the 1951 Pechan Act which required loyalty oaths for public employees and affirmation that they were not subversive agents. Candidates for elective office were required to file a sworn statement that they could not be considered subversive. This and other laws were upheld by the courts of Pennsylvania which were occupied by anti-Communists.
Jenkins explores the role of Matthew Cvetic exhaustively in context of the national HUAC hearings but also in the context of an ethnic and religious member of society. He was Pennsylvannia's most significant mole who spent time in the 1940s as an FBI agent in the Communist Party and was instrumental in naming many names (some 300 leftist), many in the United Electrical,Radio and Machine workers of America.
I like the balance in this account,because while Jenkins explores the extremism of some of the Red baiting actors, he also carefully documents the actual workings of the Communist Party in ethnic groups, labor groups and teaching unions. He explains why events took such a course.
This is a real contribution to Cold War history. I was impressed at how he carefully threaded in the significance of the Korean War. It is not and does not pretend to be a survey of "McCarthyism" which is better read in Ellen Schrecker's "The Age of McCarthy" and Stephen Whitfield's "The Culture of the Cold War." Jenkins mentions in his introduction that Michael Holmes' "The Specter of Communism in Hawaii" and M.J. Heale's "McCarthy's Americans" present other case studies in this period similar to his own work.
Let me conclude that Jenkins has does his work carefully,coherently and scholarly. I am impressed with the number of endnotes and documentations from numerous newpapers, most notetably from Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. He has a geat conclusion which explores the consequences of the anti-Communist movements, its effect on individuals and federalism. This case study approach on a large industrial state with strong ethnic organizations, an active Catholic clergy, New Deal Democrats, various elite Republicans,and fractious labor groups is most informative per se. It will also be most interesting to those in or from the state of Pennsylvania.
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