Republican Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy (1908-1957) grew up on a farm near Appleton, Wisconsin. He moved to Milwaukee in 1930 to attend Marquette University, where he studied engineering and law. A mediocre scholar, McCarthy was active in student government, debate, and men’s boxing. He graduated with a law degree in 1935.[1] He worked a long list of jobs while a Marquette student, including dishwasher, pie baker, and gas station attendant.[2] Throughout his political career, McCarthy relied upon influential Milwaukee Republicans to bolster his political base. After losing a Senate bid in 1944, McCarthy carried Milwaukee in a successful 1946 campaign, the last Republican senatorial candidate to do so.[3] While in the Senate, McCarthy gained national attention for his role in the search for communists in the federal government.
Footnotes [+]
- ^ Arthur Herman, Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America’s Most Hated Senator (New York, NY: The Free Press, 2000), 24.
- ^ Richard Halworth Rovere, Senator Joe McCarthy (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 84.
- ^ Herman, Joseph McCarthy, 33; John Buenker, “Cream City Electoral Politics: A Play in Four Acts,” in Perspectives on Milwaukee’s Past, ed. Margo Anderson and Victor Greene (Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 39.
For Further Reading
Herman, Arthur. Joseph McCarthy: Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America’s Most Hated Senator. New York, NY: The Free Press, 2000.
Rovere, Richard Halworth. Senator Joe McCarthy. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1996.
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