"The American 1950s"The Literature & Culture of the American 1950s
READING LIST | NEWS | FILREIS HOME  Reading list & schedule for English 592Research tools for studying the 1950sthe Fifties site Stalin-Era Research and ArchivesprojectREADINGS IN THE AMERICAN 1950S (roughly alphabetical)ACharles Albertine's music: space-age popAllen, Raymond, "Communists Should Not Teach in American Colleges" (1949)Anticommunism at Columbia University,1953Arendt, Hannah: her relationshipwith Martin HeideggerReview of Hearts and Minds: The Letters of HannahArendt and Mary McCarthyatom bomb, nuclear warfaredisasteranxieties in the 1950s and 2001 comparedculturalaspects of atomic anxiety by Al Filreis (written for use indiscussionsof Michael Frayn's Copenhagen, Penn Reading Project, 1999 Philip Morrison, a Cornell Professor of Physics,expresses doubtsabout atomic warfare and then faces a Congressional anticommunistinvestigating committee (SISS) in 1952Auchincloss, Louis - reviewofThe Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss by Bruce BawerBbaseball: Gerald Early on baseball in the 1950s,with references to Jacques Barzun's 1954 God's Country and Mine: ADeclaration of Love Spiced with a Few HarshWordsthe beatsHerbertGold's review of Kerouac and commentary on the beatnik"movement" (1957)anticommunistgraffiti written on John Clellon Holmes' novel GoDaniel Bell and the "end of ideology," chapter 13 on "The Mood of Three Generations" and the conclusion to the book of that titleDaniel Bell's journey from the CCNYradical alcoveBelfrage, Cedric - from TheAmerican InquisitionBernstein, Carl, "The Case of Emily Geller"interview with WalterBernstein about Elia KazanJohnBerry, blacklisted film-maker (obit)Chester BowlesPaul Bowles web sitePaul BowlesBrooks and Penn Warren, Understanding Poetry: An Anthology forCollege Students (revised, 1950) - excerpts; and a section on Marvell's"The Horatian Ode"McGeorge Bundy remembered (September1996)CAngela Calomiris, Red MasqueradeCCNY (City College of New York) - the "radicalalcove" of the 1930sWhittaker Chambers - review ofbiography by Ann DouglasJohn Cheever, "Goodbye, MyBrother"China: Robert CarlCohen'sdocumentary film, "Inside Red China" (1957)civil defense: CivilDefenseMuseumEdmund Clubb - one of the "Chinahands"Columbia University: anticommunism at ColumbiaUniversity, 1953Communist Control Act of 1954 - excerpts from textcongressional hearings: anuncooperative witnessBrianCaplan's "museum of communism", George Mason UniversityWillis Conover obituary (May 19,1996)Crum, Bartley: his blacklist experience according tohis daughterMatthew Cvetic and I Was a Communist for the FBICommunist takeover dramatizations: "IsThis Tomorrow?" Merle Curti by Allen DavisDChandler Davis, Froman Exile (1960)detective fiction: Mickey Spillane at81 (1999)Thomas E. Dewey, shortbiographicalprofileW. S. DiPiero, "The1950s"Douglas, William O., "JudicialTreatment of Nonconformists" - from The Court Years, 1939-1975:The Autobiography of William O. DouglasDennis v. U.S. Smith Act ProsecutionsHugo Black's dissenting opinion inDennis v. U.S.Excerpts from trial transcript, including Eugene Dennis's openingstatement and Louis Budenz' testimony about the "Aesopian Language Thesis"dialogue on Aesopian languageEssay about anticommunist languagetheory implied by the government's case in prosecuting DennisDalton Trumbo's essay on the Smith Act prosecutions, "TheDevil in the Book"Philadelphia trialShermanLabovitz memoir, Being Red in Philadelphia--by one of thedefendents of the Philadelphia Nine trialinformalreport on the Labovitz program at the Writers House, January 1999 Edward Dmytryk, dead - July 1999domestication -SaturdayReview of Literature cartoon depictinga demonstration of the "home magic set" as more interesting that an"exotic" "original"W.E.B. DuBoisW.E.B. DuBois - photographof Philadelphia communists protesting thedetention of DuBois, 1951DuBoison why he won't vote in 1956EEisenhower, Dwight D. - "Eisenhowerfor President," 30 second political campaign ad (courtesy PBS) (.mov format)1948election - report on research based on nation-wide surveysconducted during and after the electionEllison, Ralph, Invisible ManEllison siteA chapter summary of the novelIrving Howe, "Black Boys and Native Sons" (a 1963 essay about Wright, Baldwin, and Ellison)Lloyd Brown's negative review of Invisible ManSaul Bellow's review of Invisible ManJohn Corry, "Profile of anAmerican Novelist, A White View of Ralph Ellison" - published inBlack World (December 1970--a special Ralph Ellison issue)Irving Howe review ofInvisible Man - published in The Nation May 10, 1952Review of Juneteenth(May1999)more on JuneteenthThomas H. Schaub (from American Fiction in the Cold War) on Ellison's early leftish reviews in relation to later writing end of ideology: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., "NotRight, Not Left, But a Vital Center" (1948)Executive Suite (1954)Ffall-outshelters: disaster anxieties in the 1950s as compared with 2001James Farrell - biographical profile by Alan WaldJames T. Farrell on James Joyce(1944)Guide toFBIfiles available under the FOIA by Michael Ravnitzky (see also "JamesBaldwin" above)FBI: "Hoover and theUn-Americans" by Kenneth O'ReillyFBI virtual reading room- FOIA filesfifth-ammendment defenses during congressional hearings:anuncooperative witnessFILM: anti-communist filmsRunaway Daughter (1953)I Was a Communist for the FBI(1951) Big Jim McClain (1952)Fifties filmbibliography - a site hosted by BerkeleyCold-war filmsite for Film &Historyradical films, radical imageslistof defense department filmsFreedom of Information Act sitesFOIAand James BaldwinJackFoner dead at 88Anne Frank - 1997 Anne Frank on Broadway, perVincentCanby, is "stuck in the 50s" (December 1997 review)Freud in the 50sSigmund Freud, Civilization & Its Discontents, a brief excerpt Freud's famous couchRussell Kirk on Freudianism circa 1959R. D. LaingJohn Knight, The Story of My Psychoanalysis - "Talking it Out" (a chapter) Howard FastFast, Howard - biographical profile by Alan WaldHoward Fast's account of the Peekskill riotHoward Fast's "An Epitaph for Sidney""TheMartian Shop", by Howard FastFeuer, Lewis, "Beyond Ideology"Filreis, Alan, "Words with All the Effects of Force"Jack Finney - sci fi writer - obituaryJack Finney siteForbidden PlanetForceof EvilBetty Friedan's "secret communistpast"The Fund for the Republic Faces McCarthyism - Thomas C. ReevesGGays in government, 1951 (from the floorof the House ofRepresentatives)being gay in the 1950s per LillianFaderman in 1999Hugo Gellert - symposium (1998)MarthaGellhornAllen Ginsberg's FBI fileAllen Ginsberg and his psychiatristGerald Graff, Beyond the Culture WarsFilreis, Alan, review ofGeraldGraff's Beyond theCulture Wars (with special connection to 1950s-style anticommunism) Graff critical of traditional educationthat"expose[s] [students] to the results of their professors' conflicts"without exploring the conflicts that gave rise to those resultsGraff on "disrespect for theclassics"Response to Filreis on GraffGoode, Mason - per Vivian GornickGuatemala coup, 1954Woody Guthrie - two songsWoody Guthrie museumHJazzes H. Halsey (Pres., Univ. of Bridgeport), "Higher Education'sAppalling Responsibilities" (1951 speech)"Turning 50 in 1950: Harvard Men Reflecton Lives Between the Wars"Hiss-Chambers confrontation - per1948 New York Times articleThe Hollywood Blacklist, by Dan Georgakasblacklist: ChandlerDavis' From an ExileZero Mostel,blacklistedEdward Dmytryk, obit (July 1999)blacklist: theKazan controversy - and a report on theprotest against KazanThe Hollywood blacklist 50 years laterHollywood Blacklist, per the daugther of Bartley CrumI.F. Stone on HUAC in HollywoodScreen Actors Guildremembers theblacklistAlfred Palca and the Hollywood blacklistHow to Learn From the Blacklist, by Walter Goodman (Feb. 1996)Lillian Hellman's FBI fileHodges, Donald Clark, "The End of 'The End of Ideology'"J. Edgar Hoover: "Hoover and the Un-Americans" by Kenneth O'ReillyHooverhad plans for mass arrests (2007 AP story)Hutchins, Robert Maynard (brief bio)Hoge and Hoge, "The Return of theFifties?: Values Trends at the University of Michigan, 1952 to 1989"House Un-American Activities CommitteeI.F. Stone on HUAC in HollywoodHUAC quotes Walter ScottHUAC:example of an uncooperative witness, 1952Irving Howe, by Alan WaldIrving Howe's journey fromthe CCNY radical alcoveClellon Holmes on the Beats, 1952 (more on Holmes)anticommunistgraffiti written on John Clellon Holmes' novel GoIDid you know that Napoleon invented "ideology"?"I LedThree Lives"JJazz in the 1950s:records and photographyJames JonesJournal ofCold War StudiesKIrwin Kahn, "War of Words" (Daily Pennsylvanian editorial, 1952)AlfredKazin according to his sonAlfredKazin on Philip RieffFrances Keene - obituaryKennedy, John F. - at the End of IdeologyKennedy Administration on Vietnam and China - legacy of the red-baiting of the "China hands"The 1988 Presidential elections & the end of ideologyKerouacJack Kerouac photographHerbertGold's review of Kerouac and commentary on the beatnik"movement" (1957)Kerr, Clark, "Avoid Total Involvement" - excerpt from speechKinsey, Alfred: obituary, 1956Kristol, Irving, "Keep up with Ourselves"Irving Kristol's journey from CCNY's radical alcoveKazan"Long, Bitter Debate From the '50's: Views of Kazan and His Critics", by Richard BernsteinKazan gets honorary Oscar (Jan. 1999) --causing protestsKazanaward stirs controversy (March 1999)interview with Walter Bernstein about Kazan'sawardKunstler: William Kunstler's legacyLLabovitz,ShermanR.D. LaingAlfred Levinson, poetliberalism: "The Politics of Scholarship:Liberals, Anti-Communism, and McCarthyism" by Athan TheoharisWalter Lowenfels on trial in PhiladelphiaLowenfelsand Sherman LabovitzLichty, George - cartoon mocking Sovietmusicloyaltyoaths - parody of Gilbert & Sullivan written by a member of theUniversity of California faculty in 1949Luce: Henry Luce & Theodore White - bibliographical noteMJackson Mac Low and Andrew Levy attheWriters House, 1997Jerre Mangione, d. 1998Mickey Mantle - his FBI fileWilliamMeredithArthur Miller"Salem, 1950" by George Marshall(Masses & Mainstream, 1950) "WhyI Wrote The Crucible - an artist's answer to politics," by ArthurMillerCrucible website designed for high-school studentsLeonard Moss on Arthur Miller -an excerpt from an introductory bookMiller, "AreYou Now Or Were You Ever?" (2000)McCarthyism: introduction to JosephMcCarthy - a brief excerpt from Richard Rovere's Senator JoeMcCarthyMcCarthyism: "The Politics of Scholarship: Liberals, Anti-Communism, and McCarthyism" by Athan TheoharisMcCarthy: Joseph McCarthy: amultimedia site including audio files of McCarthy's speechesMcCarthy: "Cohn and Schine in theLibraries" - an excerpt from Richard Rovere's book on Joseph McCarthyMcCarthy, Mary - Was she an anti-communist?McCarthy, Mary: review of Hearts and Minds: The Letters of HannahArendt and Mary McCarthyRobert McNamara on the legacy of the red-baiting of the "China hands" in the making of Vietnam policy - from In Retrospect (1995)Marshall McLuhan, review of TheMechanical Bride (1951)Morris: Robert J. Morris, "crusaderagainst communism" (obit) Philip Morrison, a Cornell Professor of Physics, expresses doubtsabout atomic warfare and then faces a Congressional anticommunistinvestigating committee (SISS) in 1952Modern Art & AnticommunismWalter Pach, "The Stake of the Arts in the Democratic Way of Life"Anticommunism and Modern Art--Arthur McQuern of Laguna BeachAnticommunism and Modern Art--Notes from the George Dondero PapersDid cars with fins have to anything to do with 1950s attitudes toward modernism?New Yorker cartoon on modern artAnother New Yorker cartoon on modern art kitsch wallpaperZero Mostel,blacklistedRobertMotherwell, Mural Fragment, 1950, oil on composition board, 96" x 144"Pauli Murray museums: the amazing 1950s museumobileof IllinoismusicSpace-agepop--the music of Charles AlbertineGeorge Lichty's cartoon mocking SovietmusicDwight Macdonald, "The Book-of-the-Millennium Club" - published in The New Yorker, November 29, 1952 Nancy MacDonald - aided Spain exilesHarvey Matusow - professional excommunist anticommunist witnessMcCarran Act, or Internal Security Act (1950) and its special way of outing those named in anticommunist testimonyNNabokov, Lolita (1955) - "Net Companion"Naeve, Lowell, Field of Broken StonesNavasky, Victor, Naming Names (excerpts)New Criticism: Brooks and Penn Warren, Understanding Poetry: An Anthology forCollege Students (revised, 1950) - excerpts; and a section on Marvell's"The Horatian Ode"Nixon: the "Checkers" speechnoir: MiklosRozsa wrote scores for many class Hollywood noir filmsOPhil Ochs - select quotationsPhil Ochs, I'm Gonna Say It NowClifford Odets in the 1950s (review of Odets exhibit)  Richard Ohmann's "Teaching and Studying Literature atthe End of Ideology""Hoover and the Un-Americans" by Kenneth O'ReillyOverstreet, Harry and Bonaro, "Tactics and Stratagems: The United Front" - from the book What We Must Know about Communism (1958); an excellent position paper on this reading.Overstreet, Harry and Bonaro, introduction to The Strange Tactics of Extremism - and chapter three, "A READING LESSON"P Vance Packard, The Status Seekers (1959) -excerptsAlfred Palca and the Hollywood blacklistPeekskill: Howard Fast's account of the PeekskillriotPhiladelphia Smith Act trialPhilbrick,HerbertThe BroadcastPioneers of PhiladelphiaNorman Podhoretz - a reviewof his memoirThe Polk Conspiracy - review of a book by Kati MartonAbePolonsky - obituary (October 1999)posterart - Miro on Spain, a poster bearing the words "Aidez Espagne"RRonald Radosh criticizes CNN's "cold war"series, 1999RonaldRadosh on Reagan and the reds (a 1960 letter by Reagan discovered)John Crowe Ransom - on the coolness of art and the danger of moral fervorDavid Reisman's idea for a nylon warRieff and the triumph of the therapeuticPhilip Rieff, "Politics & the Individual," an excerpt from Freud: The Mind of the MoralistJohn Knight, The Story of My Psychoanalysis - "Talking it Out" (a chapter)JohnRocker pathologizedPaul Robeson, centennial in 1998Rock 'n RollElvis Presley home pageJeromeRothenberg at mid-century (an introduction to a reading by Rothenbergand Pierre Joris, September 28, 1998)Rebel without a CauseRebel without a Cause (and positions)Rebel gossipKey lines from the Rebel screenplayEthel and Julius Rosenberg - Michael Meeropol on new evidence (7/95)Greenglass says he lied in Rosenberg casedocumentary film on theRosenberg caseHenryRoth papers open (June 1999)Rousseas and Farganis, "AmericanPolitics and the End of Ideology"MiklosRozsa wrote scores for many class Hollywood noir filmsSAlexanderSaxton's novel The Great MidlandMeyer Schapiro - New York Times obit, March 1996Another MeyerSchapiro obitphotograph MeyerSchapiroArthur Schlesinger, Jr., "NotRight, Not Left, But a Vital Center" (1948)Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Vital Center (1949) - brief excerptsArthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Politics of Hope (1962) - two essays:"The New Mood in Politics" (1960)"Liberalism in America: A Note for Europeans" (1956)Stilwell & the American Experience in China - an annotated bibliographical noteHistorical overviews from EllenSchrecker's The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History withDocuments (1994)INTERPRETING McCARTHYISM: A BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY"Communism and National Security: TheMenace Emerges""The Growth of the Anti-Communist Network""The State Steps In: Setting the Anti-Communist Agenda""Congressional Committees and Unfriendly Witnesses"anuncooperative witness, 1952"Blacklists and Other Economic Sanctions"The Legacy of McCarthyismDr. Fred Schwarz, You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists) (1960) Pete Seeger - bio and brief interviewPete Seeger - bioSeeger has often sung WoodyGuthrie standardsFrederick SommerStephen Spender in 1960Mickey Spillane at 81 (1999)Gertrude Stein ad in 1957AdlaiStevenson - archiveI.F. Stone onHUAC in HollywoodStorm Center - contemporary responses, cast list, related controversiesstudent movement:KennethRexroth on the student movement, 1960Tteenagers / youth culture / "delinquency"posterfor the teenpic Teenage Crime Wavementalhygiene filmsRebel without a Cause (and positions)KennethRexroth on the student movement, 1960television50s televisionThe BroadcastPioneers of PhiladelphiaDianaTrilling - obituary, October 1996Truman, Harry - excerpt from speech dated July 29, 1951Dalton Trumbo - brief bioDalton Trumbo, "The Devil in the Book" (Thisdocument is password-protected.)Tucker's People, by Ira Wolfert (paperback published 1950; first published 1943); the film, Force of Evil, was made from the novel (directed by Abraham Polonsky).Uuniversityloyalty oaths - parody of Gilbert & Sullivan written by anonymousmember of the University of California faculty, 1949VVideo - a 1950svideography, hosted by BerkeleyPeter Viereck, The Unadjusted Man - excerptsWAlan Wald: an interview with Alan Wald about theRadical NovelReconsidered seriesAlan Wald: my reviewof Trinity of Passion (2007)MargaretWalker dies (December 1998)James Wechsler, "The Age of Unthink" - the Center takes on the Beats; be sure to read this excerpt from Kerouac's On the RoadWhitman's style according to communist critic Samuel Sillen in 1955Whyte, William, The Organization Man - excerptsWilliam H. Whyte, obituary, Jan. 1999Wrong, Dennis, "Reflections on the End of Ideology"IraWolfertWouk, Herman, The Caine Mutiny - excerpts from play and novel; and a somewhat negative reviewWomen in the 1950s"the nylon war""A Liberal Trade-in," ad for Ohrbach's"The Iron Curtain Look Is Here!" (Life, 1952)Newsweek on women, March 7, 1960"Women--Russia's Second Class Citizens" (Look, 1954)Linda Allen's song, "Rosy the Riveter--Revisted"Harriet Eager Davis, "How Not to Raise Children", Parents Magazine, August 1945 All about Eve"Books for the Family", 1946advertisement from Harper'sA Santa Fe railroad ad celebrating women in wartime railroadingYThe YaltaConferenceSamuel Yellen, "The Mystic Presences"ZHoward Zinn, A People's History of the United States - Chapter 16, "A People's War?"OTHER MATERIALSMario Savio, obituaryMario Savio's Pagescompiled by anya@mail.hooked.netBerkeley Free Speech Movement, 1963-64 - anarrative summary by David BurnerBerkeley's archive ofFree Speech Movement materialsMario Savio, 1988 speechNotes from the Savio memorialservice, 12/8/96"See Jane Run": A student fleeing from mountedpolice during an anti-warprotest, c. 1970 (photograph captioned: "We're the people our parents warned usagainst. See Jane Run. Run Jane Run" - mocking the ubiquitous early readerbooks on which sixties-era student protestors were raised in the fifties)KennethRexroth on the student movement, 1960Photographs,posters, and other visual documents from anti-war protests in thesixtiesWilliam Kunstler's legacyCointelpro siteTom Hayden on the "house of theory" (from a draft version of The Port Huron Statement, 1962)The Graduate thirty years laterNelson Rockefeller on VietnamAmerican StudiesCrossroads Project sponsored by the American Studies Association andGeorgetown UniversityDeclassified newsreels (in MPEG and .mov format) of the Nixon-Khruschev "kitchen" debate and several failed ICMB tests at the Nevada Test Site (the latter is available to the public here for the first time).Laswell, Harold D. - a brief bibliography Linocut by Ned Hilton, depicting the Passaic Textile Strike of 1926Academic Freedom - a selected bibliography pertaining to the 1950sKorean War Project, by Hal Barker (be patient; big file)IWW's "One Big Union" Wheel of Fortune (image)Renewed alliance of labor and academics (September 1996 article), with several references to the history of this relationship, which thrived in the 1930s and declined in the 1950s.Office of War Information Collection at the Library of Congress (broadcast recordings, photographs, and research files assembled by the OWI,early 1940s)Hints of my current project, "The Fifties Thirties"OED entry on "communism"Saccoand Vanzetti - guilty?Spanish Civil War and its legacyThe Spanish Civil War in these pagesdeathof an Irishman who fought in SpainMiro paints Spain--art review,December 1998Spanish Civil War spiritlives--New York Times article, Nov. 6, 1998Eugene W.Plawiuk's well-linked site about the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil War in Spain todaySpanish Civil War veterans meet for reunion (Nov. 1996)Review of book on Bertolt BrechtAlan Filreis's 'Beyondthe Rhetorician's Touch': Stevens's Painterly Abstractions" (publishedin American Literary History), an essay about Stevens, the ColdWar, American attitudes toward Europe, and Abstract ExpressionismNew Deal Muralists in the federal"Section of Fine Arts" - a brief introduction with reference toFletcher Martin's rejected mural, MineRescue "Crowds around post office. LowerEastSide, New York," by Dorothea Lange 1936 REPOSITORY:Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540USA New Deal Network: The New Deal Network is an educational web site sponsored by the Franklinand Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and the Institute for LearningTechnologies at Teachers College/Columbia University. Funding for NDN isprovided by a grant from the National Endowmentfor the Humanities. Additional funding was provided by the Digital LibraryDivision of the I.B.M. Corporation. WPAexhibit, 1998thephotographic realism of the Farm Security Administration is compared toSoviet propaganda photos - "Propaganda, the Sly Art That MakesOpposites Look Alike" (October 1999)A song from the 1930s: Harold Rome and the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, "Sing Me a Song with Social Significance" (1937)A poster encouraging women to work in wartime (WWII).Other wartime posters as exhibited by the National Archives under theexhibit title"Powers ofPersuasion" "You're NOT just one of a crowd"- an advertisement of The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S.(be patient: large-ish .gif file)IWW (Industrial Workers of theWorld) organizational home page, including a subscription form forjoining IWW "news" discussion"The Ghost of Tom Joad," Bruce SpringsteenStuart Davis, "House and Street"The1921 Oklahoma City race riots - businessman finally cleared of charges in1996Meridel LeSeuer, obituary (Nov. 1996)Best-sellers in the1960sBob Dylan - review of his 1961 appearanceat Gerde's Folk City Glossary of oft-used terms _uacct = "UA-2249536-4";urchinTracker(); |
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