Donald A. Ritchie | |
|---|---|
 Donald A. Ritchie in 2011. | |
| 2nd Historian of the United States Senate | |
| In office 2009–2015 | |
| Preceded by | Richard A. Baker |
| Succeeded by | Betty Koed |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 23,1945 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | City College of New York (B.A.,1967) University of Maryland,College Park (M.S.,1969;Ph.D.,1975) |
| Occupation | Historian |
| Known for | Historian of the United States Senate |
Donald A. Ritchie (born December 23,1945) is Historian Emeritus of the United States Senate.
He graduated from the City College of New York in 1967;and received a master's degree,in 1969,and a Ph.D.,in 1975,from the University of Maryland,College Park. [1]
Ritchie served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1969 to 1971. [2]
As associate historian in the Senate Historical Office,beginning in 1976,Ritchie conducted oral history interviews with former senators and retired members of Senate staff as part of the Senate oral history project. [3] In 2009 he became the Senate historian,succeeding Richard Baker,and held that post until his retirement in 2015. [4]
Ritchie was responsible for editing the closed hearing transcripts of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's investigations, [5] and has authored a number of books including Electing FDR. His book Press Gallery:Congress and the Washington Correspondents won him the Richard W. Leopold Prize of the Organization of American Historians. [6] He has served as president of the Oral History Association and on the councils of the American Historical Association and the International Oral History Association, [6] as well as on the board of the Society for History in the Federal Government. [7]
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Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in the United States in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread communist subversion. He alleged that numerous communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers had infiltrated the United States federal government, universities, film industry, and elsewhere. Ultimately, he was censured for refusing to cooperate with, and abusing members of, the committee established to investigate whether or not he should be censured. The term "McCarthyism", coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today, the term is used more broadly to mean demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people who participated in or observed past events and whose memories and perceptions of these are to be preserved as an aural record for future generations. Oral history strives to obtain information from different perspectives and most of these cannot be found in written sources. Oral history also refers to information gathered in this manner and to a written work based on such data, often preserved in archives and large libraries. Knowledge presented by Oral History (OH) is unique in that it shares the tacit perspective, thoughts, opinions and understanding of the interviewee in its primary form.
McCarthyism, also known as the second Red Scare, was the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a campaign spreading fear of alleged communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and of Soviet espionage in the United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s. After the mid-1950s, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who had spearheaded the campaign, gradually lost his public popularity and credibility after several of his accusations were found to be false. The U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren made a series of rulings on civil and political rights that overturned several key laws and legislative directives, and helped bring an end to the Second Red Scare. Historians have suggested since the 1980s that as McCarthy's involvement was less central than that of others, a different and more accurate term should be used instead that more accurately conveys the breadth of the phenomenon, and that the term McCarthyism is now outdated. Ellen Schrecker has suggested that Hooverism after FBI Head J. Edgar Hoover is more appropriate.
A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which are referred to by this name. The First Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War I, revolved around a perceived threat from the American labor movement, anarchist revolution, and political radicalism. The Second Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War II, was preoccupied with the perception that national or foreign communists were infiltrating or subverting American society and the federal government. Following the end of the Cold War, unearthed documents revealed substantial Soviet spy activity in the United States. The name refers to the red flag as a common symbol of communism.
Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) is a liberal American political organization advocating progressive policies. ADA views itself as supporting social and economic justice through lobbying, grassroots organizing, research, and supporting progressive candidates.
Andrew Russell Pearson was an American columnist, noted for his syndicated newspaper column "Washington Merry-Go-Round". He also had a program on NBC Radio titled Drew Pearson Comments. He was known for his approach towards high level politicians, such as senators, cabinet members, generals and American presidents.
Patrick Anthony McCarran was an American farmer, attorney, judge, and Democratic politician who represented Nevada in the United States Senate from 1933 until 1954. McCarran was born in Reno, Nevada, attended Nevada State University, and was a farmer and rancher. In 1902, he won election to the Nevada Assembly but left office in 1905 after an unsuccessful campaign for the Nevada State Senate. He studied law privately and was admitted to the bar in 1905, then won election as Nye County District Attorney. He served a two-year term, after which he returned to Reno. From 1913 to 1919, McCarran was a justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada, serving as chief justice from 1917 to 1919. His support for the aviation industry was well known and resulted in Paradise, Nevada's former McCarran Field being named in his honor.
Stephen Tyree Early was a U.S. journalist and government official. He served as the third White House press secretary under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945 and as the acting press secretary under President Harry S. Truman in 1950 after the sudden death of Charles Griffith Ross. Early served as press secretary longer than any other person.
Millard Evelyn Tydings was an American attorney, author, soldier, state legislator, and served as a Democratic Representative and Senator in the United States Congress from Maryland, serving in the House from 1923 to 1927 and in the Senate from 1927 to 1951.
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, which along with the United States House of Representatives—the lower chamber—comprises the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. Like its counterpart, the Senate was established by the United States Constitution and convened for its first meeting on March 4, 1789 at Federal Hall in New York City. The history of the institution begins prior to that date, at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, in James Madison's Virginia Plan, which proposed a bicameral national legislature, and in the controversial Connecticut Compromise, a 5–4 vote that gave small-population states disproportionate power in the Senate.
Allan Jay Lichtman is an American historian who has taught at American University in Washington, D.C. since 1973.
The Truman Committee, formally known as the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, was a United States Congressional investigative body, headed by Senator Harry S. Truman. The bipartisan special committee was formed in March 1941 to find and correct problems in US war production with waste, inefficiency, and war profiteering. The Truman Committee proved to be one of the most successful investigative efforts ever mounted by the U.S. government: an initial budget of $15,000 was expanded over three years to $360,000 to save an estimated $10–15 billion in military spending and thousands of lives of U.S. servicemen. For comparison, the entire cost of the simultaneous Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bombs, was $2 billion. Chairing the committee helped Truman make a name for himself beyond his political machine origins and was a major factor in the decision to nominate him as vice president, which would propel him to the presidency after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin D. Roosevelt and as a United States senator from Missouri from 1935 to January 1945. Assuming the presidency after Roosevelt's death, Truman implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established both the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. He proposed numerous liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated the Congress.
Max Lowenthal (1888–1971) was a Washington, DC, political figure in all three branches of the federal government in the 1930s and 1940s, during which time he was closely associated with the rising career of Harry S. Truman; he served under Oscar R. Ewing on an "unofficial policy group" within the Truman administration (1947–1952).
This bibliography of Harry S. Truman is a selective list of scholarly works about Harry S. Truman, the thirty-third president of the United States (1945–1953). See also the bibliographies at Harry S. Truman, Presidency of Harry S. Truman, and Foreign policy of the Harry S. Truman administration.
Harry S. Truman's tenure as the 33rd president of the United States began on April 12, 1945, upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, and ended on January 20, 1953. He had been vice president for only 82 days. A Democrat from Missouri, he ran for and won a full four–year term in the 1948 election. Although exempted from the newly ratified Twenty-second Amendment, Truman did not run again in the 1952 election because of his low popularity. He was succeeded by Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953.
William Edward Leuchtenburg is an American historian. He is the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a leading scholar of the life and career of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In American political discourse, the "loss of China" is the unexpected Chinese Communist Party coming to power in mainland China from the U.S.-backed Chinese Kuomintang government in 1949 and therefore the "loss of China to communism."
Katie Louchheim (1903–1991) was a 20th-century American diplomat, Democratic National Committee (DNC) vice chair, poet, and writer.
This bibliography of Franklin D. Roosevelt is a selective list of scholarly works about Franklin D. Roosevelt, the thirty-second president of the United States (1933–1945).
