Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism

Andrew Feffer

Published by Fordham University Press 2019

Bad Faith

Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism

Andrew Feffer

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823281183

Overview
Contents

About this book

Bad Faith recounts the history of the Rapp-Coudert investigation into communist subversion in the public schools and municipal colleges of New York City, lasting from 1940 to 1942. This study explores how prominent depression-era liberals, as they joined in accusing Communists of “bad faith” and branded them enemies of American democracy, anticipated and made McCarthyism possible.

A groundbreaking study that sheds new light on the Red Scare and its origins in anti-Communist
liberalism, 1930s American fascism, educational reform, and the movement for unionization
among teachers

Author / Editor information

Feffer Andrew :

Andrew Feffer is Professor of History and Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Film Studies at Union College, Schenectady, New York.Andrew Feffer is Professor of History and Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Film Studies at Union College, Schenectady, New York.

Reviews

Feffer... captures the mania of the time, and it will shock readers as it details this dark time in our history.

...when the Rapp-Coudert committee hearings get underway in New York City’s federal courthouse in October 1940... Seven hundred teachers and school personnel will be questioned–and scores of City College professors fired—in a purge of the New York City school system cheered on by the New York Times and the rest of the city’s media. Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism, by Andrew Feffer, is a thoroughgoing examination of this two-year inquisition authorized by the state legislature.

Ground-breaking and insightful. Bad Faith makes important contributions to our knowledge of mid-twentieth century America, in particular its history of political repression, the union movement among teachers, and the roots of McCarthyism in the anti-communist liberalism of 1930 and 40s. A prodigious work of scholarship.---Marjorie Heins, Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge

Thoroughly researched and well-written, Bad Faith is an original and brilliant narrative history of the impact of anticommunism on New York City municipal colleges and public schools during the mid-twentieth-century.---Erik S. McDuffie, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I: The Hearings
1 The Threshold Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
2 The Stooge Grebanier Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
3 Coudertism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
4 Vichy’s Lawyer? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
PART II: Class War
5 The Dewey Trial Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
6 The Educational Front Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	108
7 Far from the Ivory Tower Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
PART III: The Mortal Storm
8 Bad Faith Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
9 CCNY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	174
10 Flirting with the Right Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
11 Communism on Trial Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	212
12 Aftermath Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
Conclusion: The Coudert Legacy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
Abbreviations Used in the Endnotes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	317

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 320
Illustrations
- Other: 8
Keywords: teachers unions; McCarthyism; anticommunism; Red Scare; New York City school system; the union movement; anti-communist liberalism; political ideology; Rapp-Coudert investigation; 1940s

eBook

Published: January 8, 2019
ISBN: 9780823281183