A sense of moral panic had gripped the country that everyone in the room at the Republican Women’s Club could feel. The audience fell silent as the senator walked to his podium and organized his notes. He had been in the upper house for only three years, and few outside his home state of Wisconsin knew of his service as a tail gunner on bombers in the Second World War. His fingers brushed across his main prop, a long list of names, while he took a breath and raised his hands for silence. As he prepared to deliver what became a career-defining address, Joseph McCarthy could not have known that his name would soon be among the most reviled in modern American history.

Join us as we teach you about Joseph McCarthy, McCarthyism, and the threat of cultural evils.