The Red Scare and Anti-immigrant impact

The Palmer Raids
Four essays chronicle the raids executed by the Attorney General in response to fears of a growing socialist populace in the US.

Prejudice at Work: The 1920s Case of Sacco and Vanzetti
On April 15, 1920, two men robbed and murdered a paymaster and his guard as they transferred $15,776 from the Slater and Morrill Shoe factory.  Three weeks later, Italian immigrants and known anarchists, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were accused and arrested for the crime, despite the little evidence against them.  Following, a seven-week trial, Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted, on circumstantial evidence, of murder and sentenced to death.  Seven years later, after numerous appeals, and immense public outcry, both men were executed for their "crimes."

Sacco and Vanzetti Trial
Shortly after the end of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Red Scare took hold in the United States.  A nationwide fear of communists, socialists, anarchists, and other dissidents suddenly grabbed the American psyche in 1919 and held the nation in the grips of fear. In this atmosphere, the arrest and eventual trial of Sacco and Vanzetti took place.

The Red Scare in Political Cartoons
A visual record of a time of national hysteria, the political cartoons of the "Red Scare" show how radicalism was presented to the American people in this medium and provide insights into the beliefs, attitudes, and fears that climaxed in the Palmer raids and deportations of 1919-1920. This has advertisements.

Between the Wars: The Red Scare
Selection taken from the forthcoming CD Rom Who Built America,v. II, it chronicles the Palmer Raids and links to documents such as an essay by Attorney General Palmer, a essay about deportee Emma Goldman, an essay about the arrest of a Connecticut man for sedition, a story in the Washington Post which noted with approval how in Chicago, a sailor shot another man merely for failing to rise during the national anthem and finally, a satirical essay by the humorist Robert Benchley mocks the public's hunger for enemies, invented enemies if necessary.

Immigration Restrictions in the 1920s
The 1920s witnessed the coming of the "Second Wave" of immigrants to the United States.  These immigrants differed from the "First Wave" of  European immigrants to the United States in that the  majority of them  were  from Southern or Eastern Europe, whereas in the past the majority  had been from Western European nations such as Great Britain, France, and Germany. Links take the reader to more details information about the experiences of Irish and Italians.