ABSTRACT
In the late 1940s a fear of communism swept through the United States. This phenomenon, reminiscent of a similar hysteria that permeated American society after World War I, became known as the "second red scare." The fear was that communism would spread to the United States and destroy democracy and capitalism. Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass were born in the same poor New York City neighborhood. Each was the child of Jewish immigrants from Europe- Julius's parents were from Poland, Ethel's from Austria and Russia. In 1940 Julius became an engineer with the US Army Signal Corps. When the first of the Rosenbergs' two sons was born in 1943, Ethel quit her job and settled down to domestic affairs in the couple's housing project apartment. They supported the war effort and in 1943 quit the Communist Party. In 1945, however, the US government fired Julius when it learned of his past political affiliations.
