Understanding a National and Global Red Scare/Red Summer Through the Local Invention of Solidarities

Abstract

As the centennial of the First Red Scare arrives, the time has come to revisit our understanding of it. This methodological article makes the case that the field still struggles with the fundamental problem that the incidents we have collected as the “Red Scare” and “Red Summer” and made national, manifested often as disparate local events that responded to immediate conditions. It argues that responding to the local events of the Red Scare/Red Summer to better understand regional history is not an inadequate response that distracts us from a more worthy attempt to synthesize national currents. Through analyzing smaller-scale strikes and incidents of racial violence, looking at the variance in form and response of local governments, and seeing the global interconnections of the Red Scare through the lens of localities, we can gain new ground toward a broader, more multifaceted understanding of this transformative era.

Introduction: Reassessing the Red Scare of 1919–20 at Its Centennial

“…Through analyzing smaller-scale strikes and incidents of racial violence, looking at the variance in form and response of local governments, and seeing the global interconnections of the Red Scare through the lens of localities, we can gain new ground toward a broader, more multifaceted understanding of this transformative era. 14…”