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The Red Scare was a time in the 1920s when everyone was terrified of communist spies around the country calling them "Reds" because of the color of the Soviet flag. This affected society since people would rat out their neighbors reporting and gossiping about them

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As advances in technology allowed for better aircraft military and civilian aviation increased. This led many people to begin to compete for records and do races. People even began to fly across oceans and continents. Many women and African Americans were doing aviation

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Back in the 1920s, there was a nationwide ban on alcoholic beverages that was in effect from 1920 to 1933. This prohibition led to organized crime in the US. The prohibition was added because of the belief that domestic violence and child abandonment were caused by alcohol. Americans were very unhappy about this and despite the ban, people began to make alcohol illegally and sell it. This also led to the building of secret bars you needed a pass to get in.

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Table of Contents

1. First Red Scare: 1917-1920

2. Cold War Concerns About Communism

3. Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee

4. J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI

5. Hysteria and Growing Conservatism

6. Red Scare Impact

The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, which intensified in the late 1940s and early 1950s. (Communists were often referred to as "Reds" for their allegiance to the red Soviet flag.) The Red Scare led to a range of actions that had a profound and enduring effect on U.S. government and society. Federal employees were analyzed to determine whether they were sufficiently loyal to the government, and the House Un-American Activities Committee, as well as U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, investigated allegations of subversive elements in the government and the Hollywood film industry. The climate of fear and repression linked to the Red Scare finally began to ease by the late 1950s.

First Red Scare: 1917-1920

In the United States, labor strikes were on the rise, and the press sensationalized them as being caused by immigrants bent on bringing down the American way of life. The Sedition Act of 1918 targeted people who criticized the government, monitoring radicals and labor union leaders with the threat of deportation.

The fear turned to violence with the 1919 anarchist bombings, a series of bombs targeting law enforcement and government officials. Bombs went off in a wide number of cities including Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, D.C., and New York City.

The first Red Scare climaxed in 1919 and 1920, when United States Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer ordered the Palmer raids, a series of violent law-enforcement raids targeting leftist radicals and anarchists. They kicked off a period of unrest that became known as the "Red Summer."

Cold War Concerns About Communism

Did you know? FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was quick to equate any kind of protest with communist subversion, including the civil rights demonstrations led by Martin Luther King Jr. Hoover labeled King a communist and covertly worked to intimidate and discredit the civil rights leader.

Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee

J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI

The information obtained by the FBI proved essential in high-profile legal cases, including the 1949 conviction of 12 prominent leaders of the American Communist Party on charges that they had advocated the overthrow of the government. Moreover, Hoover's agents helped build the case against Julius Rosenberg (1918-53) and his wife, Ethel Rosenberg (1915-53), who were convicted of espionage in 1951. The Rosenbergs were executed two years later.

Hysteria and Growing Conservatism

Public concerns about communism were heightened by international events. In 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested a nuclear bomb and communist forces led by Mao Zedong (1893-1976) took control of China. The following year saw the start of the Korean War (1950-53), which engaged U.S. troops in combat against the communist-supported forces of North Korea. The advances of communism around the world convinced many U.S. citizens that there was a real danger of "Reds" taking over their own country. Figures such as McCarthy and Hoover fanned the flames of fear by wildly exaggerating that possibility.

As the Red Scare intensified, its political climate turned increasingly conservative. Elected officials from both major parties sought to portray themselves as staunch anticommunists, and few people dared to criticize the questionable tactics used to persecute suspected radicals. Membership in leftist groups dropped as it became clear that such associations could lead to serious consequences, and dissenting voices from the left side of the political spectrum fell silent on a range of important issues. In judicial affairs, for example, support for free speech and other civil liberties eroded significantly. This trend was symbolized by the 1951 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dennis v. United States, which said that the free-speech rights of accused Communists could be restricted because their actions presented a clear and present danger to the government.

Red Scare Impact

Americans also felt the effects of the Red Scare on a personal level, and thousands of alleged communist sympathizers saw their lives disrupted. They were hounded by law enforcement, alienated from friends and family and fired from their jobs. While a small number of the accused may have been aspiring revolutionaries, most others were the victims of false allegations or had done nothing more than exercise their democratic right to join a political party.

Though the climate of fear and repression began to ease in the late 1950s, the Red Scare has continued to influence political debate in the decades since. It is often cited as an example of how unfounded fears can compromise civil liberties.

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Red Scare: Cold War, McCarthyism & Facts | HISTORY

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The Red Scare was hysteria over the perceived threat posed by Communists in the U.S. during the Cold War era.

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Prohibition was a nationwide ban on the sale and import of alcoholic beverages that lasted from 1920 to 1933.

Protestants, Progressives, and women all spearheaded the drive to institute Prohibition.

Prohibition led directly to the rise of organized crime.

The Twenty-first Amendment, ratified in December 1933, repealed Prohibition.

The temperance movement

The roots of the temperance movement stretch all the way back to the early nineteenth century. The American Temperance Society, founded in 1826, encouraged voluntary abstinence from alcohol, and influenced many successor organizations, which advocated mandatory prohibition on the sale and import of alcoholic beverages. Many religious sects and denominations, and especially Methodists, became active in the temperance movement. Women were especially influential. The Women's Christian Temperance Union, founded in 1873, was one of the leading advocates of prohibition.

During the Progressive Era, calls for prohibition became more strident. In many ways, temperance activists were seeking to ameliorate the negative social effects of rapid industrialization. Saloons and the heavy drinking culture they fostered were associated with immigrants and members of the working class, and were seen as detrimental to the values of a Christian society. The Anti-Saloon League, with strong support from Protestants and other Christian denominations, spearheaded the drive for nationwide prohibition. In fact, the Anti-Saloon League was the most powerful political pressure group in US history-no other organization had ever managed to alter the nation's Constitution.

Enacting Prohibition: the Eighteenth Amendment

The Eighteenth Amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919, and went into effect one year later, on January 17, 1920. The Eighteenth Amendment reflected the Progressives' faith in the federal government's ability to fix social problems. Because the law did not specifically outlaw the consumption of alcohol, however, many US citizens stockpiled personal reserves of beer, wine, and liquor before the ban took effect.

Though the advocates of prohibition had argued that banning sales of alcohol would reduce criminal activity, it in fact directly contributed to the rise of organized crime. After the Eighteenth Amendment went into force, bootlegging, or the illegal distillation and sale of alcoholic beverages, became widespread. Al Capone was the most notorious of the prohibition-era gangsters who made their fortunes from the illegal distillation and sale of alcohol. Many law enforcement agencies simply lacked the resources to consistently and effectively enforce prohibition.

Repealing Prohibition: the Twenty-first Amendment

Women were just as active in the anti-prohibition campaign as they had been in the campaign to enact prohibition. The Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform led the drive for repeal. The organization framed its campaign in moral terms, arguing that the effects of prohibition-the rise of a criminal class, the corruption of public officials, and a widespread disrespect for the rule of law-represented a serious threat to American homes and families.

Another factor militating in favor of repeal was the onset of the Great Depression. Given the dire economic situation facing the nation, the federal government could not afford to forego the tax revenues from the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages.

The Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, was ratified on December 5, 1933, conclusively ending the nation's ban on the manufacture and distribution of alcohol. Prohibition was a social experiment that had nurtured the very ills that it sought to ameliorate-criminal activity, public corruption, and a casual disregard for the rule of law.

What do you think?

Why did Progressives, and especially women, support the ban on alcohol sales?

Do you think prohibition was an effective solution to the ills of a rapidly industrializing society? Why or why not?

What were the positive and negative consequences of prohibition?

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Prohibition (article) | 1920s America | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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The 1920s and 1930s were formative decades in aviation on many levels. Flight technology rapidly advanced, military and civilian aviation grew tremendously, record-setting and racing captured headlines and public interest, and African Americans began to breach the social barriers of flight. The inte…