Last updated 10th July 2024: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
The headlines “Who's Trying to Ruin Our Schools?” and “Danger's Ahead in the Public Schools” grabbed the attention of the American public during the early 1950s as mainstream publications reacted to efforts by right-wing organizations to influence the curricula of America's elementary and secondary schools. “A bewildering disease that threatens to reach epidemic proportions has infected the public schools of America,” warned John Bainbridge in a two-part series for McCall's in September and October 1952. “The disease does not attack the body but, rather, the mind and the spirit. It produces unreasoning fear and hysteria.” Bainbridge was writing of efforts of some men, women, and their organizations to censor textbooks; to standardize the curriculum; to eliminate teaching about communism, the United Nations and the workings of governments outside of the United States; and to discredit teaching methods used in both public K-12 schools and in the nation's colleges. These activists also sought to ban those who did not subscribe to a specific way of thinking from speaking before students and at educational conferences and gatherings. As a consequence, in the late 1940s and early 1950s a number of American communities were in an uproar over what the country's youth were being taught, and who was doing the teaching.
1 Morse, Arthur D., “Who's Trying to Ruin Our Schools?” McCall's, (September 1951): 26–27, 94, 102, 108–09; Bainbridge, John, “Save Our Schools.” McCall's, (September 1952): 44–47, 82–84, 86–89, 100, 102, 104; and “Danger's Ahead in the Public Schools,” McCall's (Oct. 1952) 56, 92–94, 98, 108–110, 112, 116, 120. The National Commission for the Defense of Democracy through Education, National Education Association, circulated a list of at least three dozen other tides, including Morrison, M. M., “The Enemy at Work,” Virginia Journal of Education (September 1950); McWilliams, Carey, “The Enemy in Pasadena,” The Christian Century (January 3, 1951); and Melby, Ernest O., American Education under Fire (Freedom Pamphlet Series) (New York: Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, 1951), file 9, box 67, LCC.Google Scholar
2 See Zimmerman, Jonathan, Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), especially page 92 in support of his argument that the support for radicals such as Zoll was too limited to alter school policy by themselves, and Nickerson, Michelle M., Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Postwar Right (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, forthcoming), Chapter 3.Google Scholar
3 See McGirr, Lisa, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) and Critchlow, Donald T., Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Woman's Crusade (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).Google Scholar
4 Foster, Stuart J., Red Alert! Educators Confront the Red Scare in American Public Schools, 1947–1954 (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 8.Google Scholar
5 “Report on the Conspiracy,” Time Archive (3 August 1953). This was taken from the report by the Senate subcommittee, headed by Indiana Senator William Jenner, which was investigating subversives in U.S. education. David Caute, The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) 432, notes that in 1941 there were approximately 35,000 public school teachers in New York City. While ex-Communist Bella Dodd, who was a leader of the Teacher's Union in the early 1940s, claimed that 1,000 of the 4,000 union members belonged to the Communist Party, Caute believes 500 to be a more plausible estimate.Google Scholar
6 Benowitz, June Melby, Days of Discontent: Right-Wing Women and American Politics, 1933–1945 (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002).Google Scholar
7 See, for instance, Riesman, David, The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, 23rd printing 1971).Google Scholar
8 As Nancy MacLean discusses in Freedom Is Not Enough: The Opening of the American Workplace (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006) 35, white conservatives were stressing such traditions as small government and economic liberty, ail contrary to the political and economic systems that had emerged from the New Deal and World War II.Google Scholar
9 Speech, , Freeport, NY, 25 January 1951, file 9, box 67, LCC.Google Scholar
10 Crain, , “Iron Curtain Over the Schools,” an address before Michigan Women's National Security Council, Detroit, MI, 13 February 1953, John T. Flynn Papers, Box 17, Special Collections, University of Oregon Library.Google Scholar
11 The term “progressive education” was often used during the middle part of the twentieth century, hearkening back to the Progressive Era when John Dewey introduced changes in the approach to education. The term took on a derogatory meaning when adopted by the right in response to their opposition to various changes that had occurred in education during the intervening years. While their protests became heated and widespread during the post World War II Red Scare, many dated the problem back to the late 1910s or early 1920s.Google Scholar
12 Nickerson, , Mothers of Conservatism; McGirr, Suburban Warriors; Critchlow, Phyllis Schlafly. Google Scholar
13 See especially Melby, Ernest O., American Education under Fire, 26–36.Google Scholar
14 Morse, Arthur D., “Who's Trying to Ruin Our Schools?” 26–27, 94.Google Scholar
15 Letters to Crain, 1949–54, boxes 23–61, LCC.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16 Letters of 7 September 1948 and 13 September 1948—Buckley to Crain and Crain to Buckley, respectively. File 15, box 26, LCC. It was George Montgomery who had introduced Crain to Buckley, and he would serve for a time on the Board of the Educational Reviewer. Montgomery dedicated The Return of Adam Smith “To those parents who have watched in bewilderment as their children emerge from American schools and colleges mouthing strange and alien philosophies… And to those of America's youth who have as yet escaped complete enthrallment of the propaganda that is daily leveled at them from lecture hall and library” (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1949).Google Scholar
17 Letter Crain to Buckley, 31 July 1948, and exchange of letters between Buckley and Crain during January 1950. In letter of 4 January 1950, Crain writes Buckley, “Scoop flash, bulletin—a personal check for $500 from Mr. Lammot DuPont.” File 21, box 26, LCCGoogle Scholar
18 Patricia Buckley worked as a secretary and in other capacities for the Educational Reviewer for about a year. Files 14–25, box 26, LCC. See also Box 27 for correspondence with and regarding William F. Buckley, Jr., and file 3, box 72 for advertisement.Google Scholar
19 For more on Crain's World War II era activities, see Benowitz, , Days of Discontent, 125–26, 146–47.Google Scholar
20 Illness prevented Crain's co-author, Anne Burrows Hamilton, from doing much promotional work for the booklet. In the early months of their collaboration on the Reviewer, Buckley, Sr., expressed interest in her work on “Communistic Infiltration in Women's Organizations.” See letter from Buckley to Crain, 16 March 1948, file 14, box 26. Lucille Cardin Crain and Anne Burrows Hamilton, Packaged Thinking for Women (New York: National Industrial Conference Board, 1948), 23.Google Scholar
21 The right-wing Friends of the Public Schools used Packaged Thinking as the base of their editorial,’ “Who Is Doing Your Thinking for You: or Who Controls Your Thoughts,” in their August 1949 Bulletin. See Reel 18, B11, microfilm, The Right Wing Collection of the University of Iowa Library (hereafter RWC). As Benowitz notes in Days of Discontent, 169, after World War II many of the older of the right-wing women leaders, including Elizabeth Dilling, were replaced by a younger generation with more energy and who did not carry the baggage of having been outspoken anti-Semites during the 1930s and 1940s. Crain, age 47 in 1948, emerged as a senior member of the younger group.Google Scholar
22 In a letter to Bristol, Lee H., dated 21 September 1951, wrote, Crain, “The truth is that I have no association whatever with either [of the two groups with which the article's author linked her]… except to receive their materials as they do mine. I do not mean to imply, however, that I decry with the author of the article the activities of these organizations, but I shall leave it to them to defend themselves, as I am doing with reference to The Educational Reviewer.” File 4, box 26, LCC.Google Scholar
23 “Pleadings,” file 11, box 62, LCC.Google Scholar
24 Crain placed much of the blame for the Reviewer's financial woes on board member George Montgomery, who she claimed initiated the lawsuit against McCall's without first consulting her. She also believed that Montgomery was conspiring to have her removed from the Reviewer, and she succeeded in having him censured at a board meeting during the summer of 1954. See Crain, letter to Buckley, , 24 June 1954; and letter Buckley to Crain, 30 June 1954, file 4, box 27, LCC.Google Scholar
25 Crain, Letter to Buckley, , 4 January 1950, file 21, box 26; also, files 2 and 3, box 29; and letter Crain to Bristol, 21 September 1951, file 4, box 26, LCC.Google Scholar
26 Crain, Letter to Scanlon, , 24 June 1954, file 13, box 27, LCC.Google Scholar
27 “A Philosofer's [sic] Stone for Textbooks,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 18 January 1950,20.Google Scholar
28 “Advice on Text Books,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, 29 January 1950, 16.Google Scholar
29 Deposition, , c. 1951, file 3, box 62, LCC. She taught elementary school in rural Minnesota towns of Fisher and Dorothy, until she developed tuberculosis in early 1920s. Memorandum to John T. Flynn, 1 September 1950, file 21, box 34, LCC.Google Scholar
30 See, for example Whyte, William H., Jr., Organization Man (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956), 12–13.Google Scholar
31 Hon. Paul Shafer, W. of Michigan, , speaking on “The UNESCO Threat to Our Schools,” on 2 July 1952, U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 82nd Congress, Second Session, (U. S. Government Printing Office, 1952), reprint, no page number, file 10, box 54, LCC.Google Scholar
32 See, for example, newsletter from Pro America, Inc., East Orange, NJ, announcing a luncheon on 22 January 1953 at which Crain was scheduled to be featured speaker, and newsletter from Pro America, Illinois Chapter, 28 June 1953, saying that highlight of year's activities was talk by Crain on 5 May 1953 entitled “Let's Keep America in the Schoolroom” file 5, box 51, LCC. See also “Stress Needed on ‘Right’ Editor Women, Tells Minute,” The Charlotte Gazette, 6 October 1953, in file 4, box 64, LCC.Google Scholar
33 See correspondence with Flynn, LCC, file 22, box 34, LCC.Google Scholar
34 Correspondence between Palmer, and Crain., Quoted from letter of 18 May 1951, Palmer to Crain, file 16, box 51, LCC.Google Scholar
35 Crain to Cassel Publishers Service, 19 November 1952, file 17, box 17, LCC.Google Scholar
36 MacBride to Crain, 3 December 1952, file 17, box 17, LCC.Google Scholar
37 Ross, T. J. to Crain, , 20 June 1950, file 2, Box 29, LCC.Google Scholar
38 Behrhorst, to Crain, , 14 November 1950, file 7, box 25, LCC.Google Scholar
39 Crain, to Buckley, , 16 December 1949, file 20, box 26, LCC.Google Scholar
40 Crain, to Flynn, , 15 September 1951, file 21, box 34, file 21, LCC.Google Scholar
41 Crain, to Buckley, , 20 July 1950, file 22, box 26, LCC.Google Scholar
42 The Educational Reviewer, Vol 1, No.4, 15 April 1950, 1, file 6, box 61, LCC. Since his early teens, MacBride had been a protege of libertarian Rose Wilder Lane. He would play an important role in the Libertarian Party during the 1970s, including making a run for the United States Presidency as a Libertarian Party candidate in 1976. See Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement (New York: Public Affairs, 2007), 131, 397.Google Scholar
43 See speeches and other Educational Reviewer organization materials in File 9, box 67, LCC.Google Scholar
44 Critchlow, , in Phyllis Schlafly, 41, writes, “Phyllis Schlafly's importance in grassroots conservatism came because she helped translate the ideas of intellectuals and anticommunist authors to the grassroots, while at the same time providing leadership to activists who eventually came to identify themselves as conservatives.”Google Scholar
45 Files 16–21, box 24, LCC. For more on the Pasadena affair, see Hurlburd, David, This Happened in Pasadena (New York: Macmillan Company, 1951).Google Scholar
46 Reel 46, RWC. It appears as though Bartlett took over the reins of editing and publishing the newsletter from Mary Lamar Knight sometime in 1953. Bartlett, “Five Years and Now,” FACTS in Education, April–May 1955, 2–3.Google Scholar
47 “Facts Editor on Lecture Tour,” FACTS in Education (January 1953), Reel 46, RWC.Google Scholar
48 “Sad Facts,” FACTS in Education (November–December 1953), Reel 46, RWC.Google Scholar
49 Newsletter January 1953, 3, Reel 76, M 19, RWC.Google Scholar
50 Crippen, John R., “And Now ‘McCallism”', Reel 76, M 19, RWC.Google Scholar
51 For more on the Minute Women's Influence in Texas see Carleton, Don E., Red Scare (Austin, TX: Texas Monthly Press, 1985) and the Houston Post October 11–28, 1953.Google Scholar
52 Files 9–11, box 30, LCC.Google Scholar
53 Friends of the Public Schools Bulletin, “The Daughters of the American Revolution Explain Their Stand on Federal Aid to Education,” March 1951, reel 18, RWC.Google Scholar
54 Hurlburd, , It Happened in Pasadena, 57–58, and 60.Google Scholar
55 Bonny, to Crain, , 10 June 1949, file 21, box 25, LCC.Google Scholar
56 Concerns about “collectivism” were not confined to the right. Whyte, in The Organization Man (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956), especially pp. 12–13, addresses regrets he feels about Americans’ loss of individualism as they strive to work alongside and cooperate with others. His concern was not associated with fears of communism, but with the loss of independent ideas and the questioning of authority. As Alan Ehrenhalt points out in “How the Yes Man Learned to Say No,” New York Times late ed., 26 November 2006, 4.11, Whyte needn't have worried about the upcoming generation of Baby Boomers since by the mid-1960s “members of the youthful intellectual elite were beginning an individualist rebellion on almost every social front.”Google Scholar
57 Alexander, to Crain, , file 9, box 24, LCC.Google Scholar
58 Kuhn, Irene Corbally, “Your Child Is Their Target,” American Legion Magazine (June 1952), in file 4, box 64, LCC.Google Scholar
59 This episode is discussed further in Zimmerman, Whose America?, 95–96.Google Scholar
60 Caldwell, to Flynn, , 2 May 1953, file C, box 17, Flynn papers, Special Collections, University of Oregon Library.Google Scholar
61 “The Minute Women of the U.S.A., Inc.,” newsletter (December 1952), reel 76, M 19, RWC.Google Scholar
62 Caldwell, Taylor, The Devil's Advocate (New York: Crown Publishers, 1952), 30.Google Scholar
63 Caldwell, , Devil's Advocate, 35.Google Scholar
64 Caldwell, , Devil's Advocate, 47.Google Scholar
65 For example, see “Report on the Conspiracy,” Time Archive 1923 to the Present (3 August 1953), http://www.time.com/time/archive.Google Scholar
66 Dodd, Bella, School of Darkness (New York: Kennedy and Sons, 1954), 151.Google Scholar
67 Dodd, , School of Darkness, 248–49.Google Scholar
68 Allen, Mary L., Education or Indoctrination (Caldwell, ID: The Caxton Printers, Ltd, 1955). More information regarding Allen and other right-wing women playing active roles in the Pasadena affair can be found in Chapter 3 of Michelle M. Nickerson's forthcoming book, Mothers of Conservatism. Google Scholar
69 Gordon, Rosalie, What's Happened to Our Schools? (New Rochelle, NY: America's Future Inc., 1956), 4–5, 20–22.Google Scholar
70 Zimmerman, , Whose America?, 81–106.Google Scholar
71 David Caute estimates that at least 600 teachers and professors lost their jobs as a result of political purges in American colleges and schools during those years. See Caute, , The Great Fear, 406.Google Scholar
72 Racism is another issue that complicated the Right's road to power, according to McGirr, but race was not a major issue among the women of this study. McGirr, Suburban Warriors, 4, 272.Google Scholar
