{"id":1094,"date":"2014-10-20T23:20:04","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T04:20:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/?p=1094"},"modified":"2014-10-20T23:20:04","modified_gmt":"2014-10-21T04:20:04","slug":"how-communists-menace-vital-materials-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/2014\/10\/20\/how-communists-menace-vital-materials-2\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHow Communists Menace Vital Materials”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This map, published in 1956 and produced by Research Institute of America, shows the USSR\u2019s attempts to extract resources from around the world during the early days of the Cold War.\u00a0 Research Institute of America was founded in 1946 as a nonprofit, nonpartisan behavioral and social science research organization.\u00a0 Originally interested in aviation and education, the organization has since expanded research into international development and health.<\/p>\n

This map\u2019s original purpose was to display to Congress how large of a threat the Soviet communists posed to American interests.\u00a0 It is important to note that this map was drawn just following the height of the Red Scare, a period when Americans were wary of communism possibly infiltrating the US or our allies.\u00a0 With Joseph McCarthy\u2019s threatening philosophy at the forefront of Congressmen\u2019s minds, the overbearing bold arrows and large hammer and sickle icon sit ominously at the center of the map.\u00a0 The USSR\u2019s forces extend out like a spider web, reaching the far corners of the world.<\/p>\n

It is essential for us to analyze this map and all its features while remembering the overarching conflict of the Cold War.\u00a0 The long militaristic power struggle between the US and USSR was only still in its early stages at the time this cartographic text was made.\u00a0 The map is a form of propaganda, used by capitalists to showcase the risk communism caused and persuade Congress to act against Soviet power.<\/p>\n

M. J. Heale’s book\u00a0McCarthy’s Americans: Red Scare Politics in State and Nation, 1935-1965<\/em>\u00a0includes this interesting\u00a0tidbit regarding 1950’s-era US policy: Amid tensions within Congress itself, there was a great emphasis on passing anticommunist propaganda in institutes of higher education. \u00a0Heale states, “Education was a major responsibility of state governments, and red scares thus often focused on colleges or schools.” \u00a0He goes on to explain that when the red scare phenomena were at their “most destructive,” congressional committees targeted universities with the intention to “stamp out Communism in out educational system.” \u00a0We can infer from this that the techniques used in Congressional hearings, such as anti-Soviet\u00a0maps and other cartographic texts, were effective enough in communicating their message that legislators fixated on influencing the next generation as well as their peers.<\/p>\n

Heale, M. J. (1998).\u00a0McCarthy’s Americans: Red scare politics in state and nation, 1935-1965<\/em>\u00a0(p. 4, 86, 297). Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This map, published in 1956 and produced by Research Institute of America, shows the USSR\u2019s attempts to extract resources from around the world during the early days of the Cold War.\u00a0 Research Institute of America was founded in 1946 as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1094\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/livesofmaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}