bad taste in literature. Part I, line 6, critiques the
involvement of Columbia University scholars in
the research and development of atomic bombs.
The cold war spread across the world as the
United States sought to contain Communism and
enlisted other countries as its allies. One of the
best-known examples of this spread was the Viet-
nam War (1959–1975), in which the United States
supported the Republic of Vietnam (South Viet-
nam) against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
(North Vietnam), which was Communist. Many
American writers, artists, and intellectuals, includ-
ing Ginsberg, opposed their country’s involvement
in the Vietnam War.
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is a term describing a period of
American history from the late 1940s to the late
1950s characterized by intense anti-Communist
suspicion. The period is sometimes called the
Second Red Scare (the first being immediately
after the birth of the Soviet Union in 1917).
Fears of Communist influence on American
institutions and of Soviet espionage abounded.
McCarthyism took its name from Senator
Joseph McCarthy, who between 1947 and
1957 investigated a large number of politicians,
artists, writers, actors, intellectuals, govern-
ment employees, and other Americans for
alleged Communist sympathies. The term
McCarthyism later came to refer more gener-
ally to any aggressive anti-Communist activ-
ities, whoever pursued them. Ginsberg refers
to the Communist sympathies of hipsters in
part I, line 32, of ‘‘Howl.’’The Sexual Revolution
The United States in the 1950s was characterized
by a morality that disapproved of sex outside
marriage, interracial sex, and homosexuality.
Homosexual men were persecuted and were in
danger of losing their jobs if their sexual orien-
tation was revealed. (Lesbians largely escaped
such attention because of a relative lack of
awareness of their existence.) From 1947 to
1957, Senator Joseph McCarthy used accusa-
tions of homosexuality as a smear tactic in his
anti-Communist crusade, combining the RedCOMPARE
&
CONTRAST 1950s: In the United States, sexual acts
between men are illegal in most states under
sodomy laws. Homosexuals are stigmatized
as threats to national security and are often
viewed as diseased.
Today:While stigmatization continues in
some regions, antihomosexual laws are
invalidated. In 2007, the U.S. House of
Representatives approves the Employment
Nondiscrimination Act, outlawing discrim-
ination against employees because of sex-
ual orientation.
1950s:In 1955, Ginsberg’s public reading of
‘‘Howl’’ brings the cultural phenomenon of
the Beats to public notice. Two years later
the work becomes the target of an obscenity
trial.Today:In 2007, fifty years after a court ruled
that the poem is not obscene, the New York
radio station WBAI decides not to broad-
cast the poem, fearing that the Federal
Communications Commission would judge
it obscene and fine the station.
1950s:Beats and other cultural rebels oppose
escalation of the cold war between the
United States and the Soviet Union. They
also demonstrate against the ongoing devel-
opment of atomic and hydrogen bombs.
Today:TheSocialist Workerreports that
according to the French political scientist
Dominique Reynie ́, about 36 million people
took part in protests around the world
against the war in Iraq between January 3
and April 12, 2003.Howl