Ellen Schrecker
Ellen Wolf Schrecker, born August 4, 1938, in Philadelphia, is an American historian and professor emerita at Yeshiva University. She is best known for studying the history of McCarthyism and has been described as "the dean of the anti-anti-Communist historians."
Schrecker graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1960, earned her MA in 1962 and her PhD in 1974 from Harvard University, and has taught at Harvard, Princeton, New York University, the New School for Social Research, and Columbia. She edited Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors, from 1998 to 2002.
She has spoken about her opposition to McCarthyism and its impact on free speech, and she has identified with the ACLU. Schrecker has faced criticism from some Trotskyists for defending people associated with the Stalin-era Communist Party USA. She has also criticized David Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights and supported academic freedom in controversial cases, such as Sami Al-Arian’s dismissal from the University of South Florida.
Schrecker’s best-known book is Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998), praised for bringing new life to the study of the era. Her scholarship also covers political repression, academic freedom, Soviet espionage during the Cold War, Franco-American relations in the 1920s, and Chinese cuisine.
Personal life: Schrecker was married to John E. Schrecker (1962–1979) and later to Marvin E. Gettleman (1981–2017).
Awards and honors include the Bunting Institute Fellowship (1977–78), Research Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Library (1987), the History of Education Society Outstanding Book Award (1987), Fellow at the National Humanities Center (1994–95), and the Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award (1998).
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 05:39 (CET).