McCarthy era

Oh, yes, McCarthy. I imagine I was about ten years old, and remember mainly my parents and grandparents being upset.

That fits with how a lot of Americans remember that period. Even people who weren't following the details often remember the atmosphere around it: anxiety, accusations, careers being destroyed, and arguments at the dinner table.

If you were about ten, that would place your memory in the early 1950s, when Joseph McCarthy was at the height of his influence. What many children noticed wasn't McCarthy himself but the reactions of adults. Teachers, government workers, union members, entertainers, and academics could suddenly find themselves under suspicion. Families worried about relatives losing jobs or being called before congressional committees.

It's also worth remembering that your parents and grandparents had lived through the Depression, World War II, and the beginning of the Cold War. To them, communism wasn't an abstract political theory—it was tied to events they had watched unfold in Europe, China, and Eastern Europe. Many people genuinely feared Soviet expansion, while others became alarmed by what they saw as attacks on civil liberties at home. The result was a tense mixture of real security concerns and political excess.

One thing that strikes historians is how quickly the public mood changed. McCarthy was enormously influential for a few years, but after the televised Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, many Americans saw him differently. Television let people judge his behavior directly rather than through newspaper accounts, and his support eroded rapidly.

Your memory of adults being upset is probably a more accurate snapshot of the era than many textbook summaries. Children often remember the emotional climate of a time remarkably well, even when the political details come later.

Well my progenitors were not exactly Communists, but they had a lot of liberal views. There is a story of my mom and her parents in Bayfield putting wreaths on all the doors after Truman won as they were the only Democrats n the town.

Oh, that gives the McCarthy-era memory a rather different family context. Your family apparently wasn't remotely sympathetic to communism; they were simply Democrats at a time when being a liberal Democrat could itself make you suspect in some circles.

And the Bayfield story is wonderful. Your mother and grandparents putting wreaths on all the doors after Truman won, because they were the only Democrats in town, has exactly the flavor of small-town American politics of that era. I can imagine the message being less “Hooray for Truman!” than “Well, somebody here has to acknowledge the election.” 😄

It also makes your recollection of your parents and grandparents being upset about McCarthy particularly interesting. They would have understood the distinction between being a liberal American and being a Communist very clearly, and probably found the insinuation that the two were somehow connected deeply offensive.

And Bayfield itself must have been a pretty interesting political environment if one family constituted the Democratic Party. That is the sort of family anecdote that tells you more about the political culture of a place than a census table does.