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A Blacklist Education
American History, a Family Mystery, and a Teacher Under Fire
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2025
About this book
In A Blacklist Education, a mysterious file of family papers triggers a journey through the dark days of political purges in the 1950s. Jane S. Smith tells the story of the anticommunist witch hunt that sent shockwaves through New York City’s public schools as more than a thousand teachers were targeted by Board of Education investigators. Her father was one of them—a fact she learned only long after his death.
Beginning in 1949, amid widespread panic about supposed communist subversion, investigators questioned teachers in their homes, accosted them in their classrooms, and ordered them to report to individual hearings. The interrogations were not published, filmed, open to the public, or reported in the news. By 1956, hundreds of New York City teachers had been fired, often because of uncorroborated reports from paid informers or anonymous accusers.
Most of the targeted teachers resigned or retired without any public process, their names recorded only in municipal files and their futures never known. Their absence became the invisible outline of an educational void, a narrowing of thought that pervaded classrooms for decades. In this highly personal story, family lore and childhood memory lead to restricted archives, forgotten inquisitions, and an eerily contemporary campaign to control who could teach and what was acceptable for students to learn.
Beginning in 1949, amid widespread panic about supposed communist subversion, investigators questioned teachers in their homes, accosted them in their classrooms, and ordered them to report to individual hearings. The interrogations were not published, filmed, open to the public, or reported in the news. By 1956, hundreds of New York City teachers had been fired, often because of uncorroborated reports from paid informers or anonymous accusers.
Most of the targeted teachers resigned or retired without any public process, their names recorded only in municipal files and their futures never known. Their absence became the invisible outline of an educational void, a narrowing of thought that pervaded classrooms for decades. In this highly personal story, family lore and childhood memory lead to restricted archives, forgotten inquisitions, and an eerily contemporary campaign to control who could teach and what was acceptable for students to learn.
Author / Editor information
JANE S. SMITH's books include The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants, winner of the Caroline Bancroft Prize in Western American History, and Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology.
Reviews
"An engrossing personal account of the McCarthy-era purges that goes beyond her father's experience in the New York City public school system and extends to classrooms across the nation. . . . An elegant. eloquent personal narrative that only Smith could write, A Blacklist Education unspools like a mystery with the nuance of great social history. It is also the story of disillusionment.”
— The National Book Review"A beautifully written account of Smith's discovery of the impact of McCarthyism on her father, forced to resign his position as a New York City school teacher because of his early political affiliations. The book reads like a mystery as Smith plumbs the archives to uncover a long-held family secret. Part memoir, part historical account, A Blacklist Education has striking resonance with the attacks on education we are witnessing today."— Joan W. Scott, Institute for Advanced Study
"The year Jane S. Smith entered kindergarten, the Red Scare came for her father, a talented teacher whose only crime was to believe that public schools ought to be fair and just. In her moving new book, Smith sets her father's story inside a searing history of those dangerous times, which bear a terrifying resemblance to our own."— Kevin Boyle, author of The Shattering: America in the 1960s
"A short, powerful book. . . . A carefully wrought analysis of power and of different kinds of resistance to it. A Blacklist Education reminds us that the stakes we have in a democratic system of education are always under threat and that, for those of us who value it, the fight for its preservation is a never-ending challenge."
— Academe"In this chilling and timely investigation of her father's experience as a New York City public school teacher blacklisted for his political beliefs, Smith meticulously uncovers a family mystery—personal, political, and searing in its resonance. A Blacklist Education is gorgeous and sad; as it turns out, it is also very urgent."— Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger
"With uncanny timing, acclaimed author Jane S. Smith recently discovered her deceased father's long-hidden wound: as a devoted teacher, he was driven from his calling by the 'fear profiteers' of the McCarthy era. A Blacklist Education is a must-read for anyone seeking to make sense of the venomous attacks on educators in our time—and for all those who appreciate a well-told detective tale."— Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America
"[A] devastating and dogged research investigation. . . . Smith evocatively ties her impressive archival sleuthing to memories of her father's disillusionment. . . . Readers will be engrossed."— Publishers Weekly, starred review
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Frontmatter
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Contents
vii -
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Introduction
1 -
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chapter 1 Terrestrial Navigation
11 -
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chapter 2 Under the Big Flag
17 -
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chapter 3 In the Palace of Education
23 -
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chapter 4 A Crash Course in Scandal
33 -
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chapter 5 Save Our Schools
37 -
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chapter 6 Fascist America
41 -
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chapter 7 Accusing the Accusers
49 -
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chapter 8 Wars Hot and Cold
57 -
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chapter 9 So Many Ways to Offend
63 -
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chapter 10 A Seat for Every Child
69 -
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chapter 11 Life Comes to School
77 -
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chapter 12 Man of the Year
83 -
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chapter 13 Hidden Records
87 -
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chapter 14 The Superintendent of Schools
95 -
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chapter 15 The Student Strike
103 -
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chapter 16 The Assistant Corporation Counsel
113 -
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chapter 17 The Interview
125 -
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chapter 18 Informers
137 -
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chapter 19 The House I Live In
143 -
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chapter 20 What Made Them So Afraid?
151 -
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chapter 21 The Fear Profiteers
159 -
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chapter 22 Outcast and Wanderer
167 -
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chapter 23 When the Enemy Becomes a Joke
177 -
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chapter 24 Teaching Under the Radar
181 -
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chapter 25 The Past Is Always Pre sent
191 -
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Acknowledgments
195 -
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Note on Sources
197 -
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Index
201 -
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About the Author
213
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
June 12, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781978845077
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781978845077
Keywords for this book
Blacklist Education; anticommunist witch hunt; political purges; 1950s history; Jane S. Smith; New York City public schools; teacher interrogations; family papers; communist subversion; Board of Education investigations; anonymous accusers; paid informers; educational void; thought control; teacher firings; restricted archives; municipal files; classroom censorship; freedom to teach; educational history; childhood memory; historical suppression; McCarthy era; political repression; academic freedom; unreported hearings; personal narrative; contemporary relevance; history of education; ideological control; public education crises; teacher resignations; educational impact; hidden histories; archival research; educational policy; political scapegoating; family legacy; social panic; Cold War history.
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
