McCarthy Era
Click here for over 4 hours of McCarthy Era Recordings Joseph McCarthy was the junior senator from Wisconsin for 10 years from 1947 until his death in 1957. McCarthy was born in 1908 on a dairy farm, went to college and earned a law degree from Marquette in 1935. In 1939 he became the youngest elected judge in state history, clearing a massive backlog of cases. When war began, McCarthy left his judgeship and joined the Marines, working mostly in intelligence though he did earn the nickname Tail-Gunner Joe for flying 12 observer missions in the tail-gunner position. After the war, McCarthy ran for senate against Robert M. La Follette, Jr, and won, mostly using innuendo and half-truths to defeat his opponent. He started his senate career in 1947. The first three years were pretty unremarkable. In 1950, however, at a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, McCarthy started making his mark as an anti-Communist crusader. He claimed to have a list of Communists working in the State Dep