Event Details
Join the NYC Department of Records and Information Services (DORIS) each month for our virtual Lunch & Learn Series – an intimate conversation with agency staff and special guests focusing on the collections of the Municipal Archives and Library and the history of New York City.
On Tuesday, February 3rd, Dr. Jane S. Smith will retrace the path that began with a mysterious cache of family records and ultimately led her to the Municipal Archives Board of Education Collection and the Communist investigation files where she uncovered a McCarthy-era program designed to purge allegedly leftist teachers from the city’s public schools
A Blacklist Education reveals how Smith discovered that her own father had been one of the targeted teachers, while also exposing the broader anti-communist investigations carried out by the NYC Board of Education and the nationwide campaign against “un-Americanism” that gripped the United States during the 1950s — echoes of which resonate powerfully today.