Photo of Fried, Richard

Richard Fried

Professor Emeritus

History

About

Until he retired in 2009, Rick Fried taught various courses in Recent US History, primarily focusing on political history with a strong interest in political culture. He published four books:  Men Against McCarthy (Columbia University Press, 1976); Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective (Oxford University Press, 1990); The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! Pageantry and Patriotism in Cold-War America (Oxford, 1998); and The Man Everybody Knew: Bruce Barton and the Making of Modern America (Ivan R. Dee, 2005), a biography of the famous adman, religious writer and political figure.

He is currently working on a biography of Joseph R. McCarthy. He has enjoyed Fulbright lectureships in Spain (1998) and in Vietnam (2006).

Selected Publications

The Man Everybody Knew: Bruce Barton and the Making of Modern America

Men Against McCarthy (Columbia University Press, 1976; paperback edition 1997)

Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective (Oxford University Press, l990; paperback edition 1991)

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! Pageantry and Patriotism in Cold-War America (Oxford University Press, 1998; paperback edition 1999)

“Electoral Politics and McCarthyism: The 1950 Campaign,” in Robert W. Griffith and Athan Theoharis, eds., The Specter: Original Essays on the Cold War and the Origins of McCarthyism (New York: Franklin Watts, 1974)

“John F. Kennedy and the l960 Campaign,” Introduction to Microform Edition of The John F. Kennedy l960 Campaign(Frederick, MD: University Press of America, l987)

“The Red Scare,” in Richard Kirkendall & Meghan Wander, eds., Harry S. Truman: His Life and Times (Boston, 1990)

“Executive Privilege,” in Joel Silbey ed. in chief, Encyclopedia of the American Legislative System (New York, 1994)

“Springtime for Stalin: Mosinee’s ‘Day Under Communism’ as Cold War Pageantry,” Wisconsin Magazine of History77 (Winter 1993-94)

“Madrid Diary: Spain Examines the Splendid Little War,'” Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 9, 1998

“The Fifties We Forget,” in Maria Eugenia Diaz Sanchez and Viorica Patea Birk, eds., Anarchy and Dissent: American Literature in the Sixties (Salamanca, 2000)

“Introduction” to Bruce Barton, The Man Nobody Knows (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000)

“The Idea of ‘Conspiracy’ in McCarthy Era Politics,” Prologue (Spring 2002)

“Voting Against the Hammer and Sickle: Communism as an Issue in American Politics,” in WIlliam H. Chafe, ed., The Achievement of American Liberalism: The New Deal and Its Legacies (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003)

“1950-1960,” in Stephen J. Whitfield, ed., A Companion to American History (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004)

‘Operation Polecat’: Thomas E. Dewey, the 1948 Election, and the Origins of McCarthyism,” Journal of Policy History, 22, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 1-22.

“The New Deal Political Culture” in William Pederson, ed., Blackwell’s Companion to FDR (2011).

Notable Honors

2006, Senior Fulbright Fellow, Vietnam National University, Hanoi

1988-89, Humanities Institute Fellow, UIC

2004, Shirley A. Bill Teaching Award, UIC Department of History