MCH-Dr. Tim Crain Presents: The Politics of Fear: Joseph McCarthy and the Red Scare of 1950-54

Session one: The First Red Scare, 1917-20

Joseph McCarthy was born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin on November 14, 1908.  Throughout McCarthy’s early life, the United States was becoming a major industrial and manufacturing power. With the onset of World War I in 1914, the US rose to unprecedented prosperity, and became the dominant global force. Still, there were many challenges as the fear of communism, better known as the First Red Scare, began in 1917.