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“The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown”: Newspapers, Op-eds, and American Responses to Antisemitism

Campus Lecture
A crowd looks at Washington, DC, newspapers on September 1, 1939. Library of Congress

A crowd looks at Washington, DC, newspapers on September 1, 1939. Library of Congress

There were nearly 1,900 daily newspapers in the United States read and shared by millions of Americans in 1940. These periodicals give us a glimpse into the intense struggles in the American heartland surrounding racism, discrimination, antisemitism, and isolationism during the 1930s and 1940s.

Eric Schmalz, community manager for the Museum’s History Unfolded project, will discuss the media landscape of the United States from the end of World War I to 1941, examining the historical and social context in which Americans lived. He will focus on three prominent and problematic individuals—Henry Ford, Charles Coughlin, and Charles Lindbergh—and their antisemitic rhetoric. 

Speaker
Eric Schmalz, Community Manager, Digital Learning Tools, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

This program is made possible by the Campus Outreach Lecture Program of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, supported by the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund. It is sponsored by the Principal Center for Global Citizenship, Drake University School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, Iowa Council for Holocaust Education, and Drake Hillel.

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