Nov 21st Session 8B

Presentation 1: Fear in the Media: Linking Actual to Perceived Threats of Red Scares, Jonathan McSween

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the link between the real threat of Communism to the United States in the Twentieth Century and how the threat was perceived by average citizens. To demonstrate the link and determine whether this threat was exacerbated, this paper will examine many cultural facets, particularly in film, television and weekly magazines.

In order to examine the perceived threat or any cultural movements through the examination of media, one must first develop a framework for viewing and researching these materials. Art often reflects life, and with the advent of mass media, the art can often be in the driver’s seat of culture. This paper will rely on a Phsychohistorical view of media, and particularly examine how the fears of communism and a command economy led media outlets push consumerism as the driving defense against a communist revolution.

The 1950s are the most notable time of a Red Scare, but the fear of communism had been present throughout the century, waning only during the height of the Great depression. The first major Red Scare occurred soon after the end of the First World War, spurned on primarily by the fall of the Russian Monarchy and the eventual Emergence of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union became in a way a go to scape goat for all possible problems in global politics and trade. While communist revolutions did extend to China, Vietnam, Korea and South America, coming as close to the US or Cuba, the Soviet Union was the primary focus of the fear that people ad of the communist threat, mainly due to the direct competition in weaponry, space exploration and even more cultural pursuits such as music, dance and sports.

This paper will examine clips of films, both created for information and entertainment, plays, advertisements, and propaganda to see how the threat was perceived, and how these perceptions were driven by the creators of these various media. Further, this paper will link these cultural norms and movements to see how they impacted policy, particularly in the field of education, seeking to answer the question of whether or not the fear of a command economy promoted or inhibited free expression, particularly through the instruction of the arts.

The significance of this work is to show the direct and indirect links between international politics and everyday life. It also poses the question to see if we are headed in a similar direction letting the fear of extremism around the globe to drive our cultural norms. This paper seeks to uncover lessons that we did not learn and show how we have evolved as a culture. Mass culture and mass media have flooded the group psyche and yet the presence of a looming threat is a fall back that news, film, advertisements, education and art have clung to well into the twentieth century and being aware of the potential influence on policy will help to ensure that the negative effects of this behavior are minimalized.

Presentation 2: Red Scaring Students: The Cold War’s Effects on American Education, Amanda E. Barbee

The purpose of this historical research is to examine the effects of the Red Scare and McCarthyism to the Art Education in the 1940s and 1950s. Instances of political and societal shifts effecting elementary and secondary students will be addressed and correlated. While the repressive atmospheres on university campuses, blacklists within the entertaniment industry, and widely released propoganda ads have been well-documented and analyzed, the shifts in educational policy that affected younger American students during this time in history remains an implied understanding at best. This paper will offer insight and examples of the creative educational experience of the youth of that era.

Using comparative historical reseach of both archival and secondary sources from reputable historians, events in the day and age will be traced from the overall impact on American society to the reaction or integration of those events as they played out in educational policy and regulation. Outside factors, including censorship affecting youth, legal implications and lawsuits, as well as educational foundations and boards created or reenacted in this era, changed the climate of the classroom, and are distinctly connected in this research.   

With the ample historiography of the Red Scare, this will be a basic culmination and relation between multiple sources and arguments made throughout the analysis of  this era in American history. The illumination of well-established notions of Cold War repurcussions in the United States in K-12 educational contexts is the technique employed to make these connections. Review of prevalent educational theory and pedagogy of the time will anchor the sentiment and universal tone that was certainly prominent in classrooms across the country.  

Supported by the practices of multiple educational agencies, proceedings from prominent court cases, and pervasive legislative agendas of the era, the infiltration of the "Red Scare" agenda in public schools will be argued.  This research will illuminate the ebb and flow of support and perceived importance of art education in the time of the Second Red Scare and McCarthyism. This paper argues that art education was more critically scrutenized, and in some cases viewed as a negative to the educartion of American youth.

This body of work will offer insight to the events and proceedings affecting art education during the 1940s and 1950s, a time that is largely skimmed in prominent art education history texts. This research will also offer clear evidence of the significance that political, legal, and societal factors can impose in an art classroom. As negative sentiments toward North Korea are currently growing in American society, a reminder from our own history, one of the effects of excessive demonizing of other cultures and countries, may be just in time.

Presentation 3: The Detrimental Effects of McCarthyism on African-American Art Institutions, Debra Hardy

The South Side Community Art Center (SSCAC) in Chicago, IL, was one of the first African-American cultural centers in the United States and is one of the last remaining Works Progress Administration-founded Community Art Centers still in its original form and location. Founded in 1939, the SSCAC celebrates its 75th anniversary during 2015, remaining a vital community organization in its Bronzeville neighborhood. Its history, however, has been overlooked by history books outside of the Chicago area, and completely unnoticed after its initial founding. Out of over 100 art centers founded by the WPA, the SSCAC stands as one of the lone survivors, but is forgotten to time, and overlooked in art education.

The history of the South Side Community Art Center, immediately after the removal of funds after Pearl Harbor through its history into the beginning of the Cold War, has been obscured through time and hardship, despite its accomplishments and its longevity. How did this Art Center, out of so many others, survive through some of the most difficult periods of its community? Who were the main players that kept the Center alive during its hardest moments, and what were their strategies for survival? What can we learn as educators from small community centers with such storied histories that have yet to be discovered?

Using feminist, black studies, and black feminist literature as the theoretical backbone into the investigation, the history of the South Side Community Art Center becomes a testament to the power of art within communities, and how willing communities are to support artistic initiatives they believe in. Using the SSCAC’s own archives and other public archives from around Chicago, the evidence (and lack thereof) has formed a picture of the tumultuous history of the Art Center from 1942-1959.

By discussing the beginnings of the South Side Community Art Center, its importance during the Popular Front movement of the early 1940s, its hardship after the removal of funds, and its ability to survive during the 1950s when so many others closed, we gain insight into the Art Center as a cultural institution of great importance to its community. Introducing the history of the South Side Community Art Center into dialogue with the history of art education helps the field to gain an understanding into the art educational history of black Americans and early community art education. By understanding the history of the SSCAC, we gain a valuable tool into the history of art education deserving academic investigation, and come closer to breaking down master narratives that overlook the valuable history of art centers by and for African-Americans.