“An Object Lesson in Americanism”: Performing Cultural Amnesia in Mosinee's Communist Invasion

Abstract

On 1 May 1950, a communist army invaded the small town of Mosinee in central Wisconsin. Occupying communist soldiers dragged Mayor Ralph E. Kronenwetter from his home at six that morning, interrogated and executed Police Chief Carl Gewess, and exiled other religious, civic, and political leaders to the stockade. They ransacked citizens’ homes and raided the public library in search of capitalist propaganda. Cars parked across the local train tracks isolated the town. Roadblocks disrupted travel, and armed soldiers demanded identification cards from anyone hoping to enter or leave Mosinee. Within hours, the paper mill, the newspaper, and other local businesses had fallen to the invading communist army. Food prices tripled and ration cards were required to purchase potato soup, borscht, and black bread. Nearly half the town—more than a thousand of the twenty-two hundred total Mosinee residents—marched in a parade that led to the town square, renamed “Red Square” by the invaders. The townspeople carried red flags and banners espousing famous communist ideology (Fig. 1). The Red Star, a special edition of the Mosinee Times, issued the official “United Soviet States of America” manifesto and abolished the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.