Date of Award
5-2011
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Program
History
Department
History
Major Professor
Bichof, Gunter
Second Advisor
Kennedy, Albert
Third Advisor
Mizell-Nelson, Michael
Abstract
This thesis seeks to show the pattern of red-baiting used in the United States to counter various forms of "subversive" social change. The paper illustrates how the issue of anti-communism was used as a political tool on the national level, and this tactic would trickle down to the state and local level, specifically into the public school systems. Focusing on Orleans Parish public schools, the narrative of red-baiting and anti-communist rhetoric is brought to life through the trials of Fortier High School. This study will chronicle how teachers became the tools of nation-building through state-sponsored "Americanism" programs. Students of Fortier and other high schools in the region were taught that to be American means specifically not to be Communist. This then is a contribution to the continuity of the politics of anti-communism in the United States from the New Deal to the Cold War eras.
Recommended Citation
Prechter, Ryan Buchanan, ""The Highest Type of Disloyalty": The Struggle for Americanism in Louisiana During the Age of Communist Ascendency, 1930s-1960s" (2011). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 1340.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1340
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.