Proletarian spirit, Bourgeois pocketbook: Thomas A. Hickey and perceptions of a socialist oil company, 1917-1925

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2020-05

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Abstract

After the suppression of his newspaper, The Rebel, in 1917, Thomas Aloysius Hickey was left adrift. The First Red Scare would soon arrive, and government suppression of the Socialist Party of America destroyed the Party's strength west of the Mississippi. But with the 1918 Ranger and Desdemona oil booms in Eastland County, Texas, Hickey saw an opportunity to make enough money to fund a new version of The Rebel. Using letters, advertisements, pamphlets, and newspaper accounts, this thesis shows that the oil company Hickey helped to found, the National Workers Drilling and Production Company, used the language of socialism to market itself to socialist and radical audiences. In addition, the reactions to the Company by those socialists and radical shows the various ways these same people navigated the First Red Scare. Finally, the reaction in the national mainstream press shows methods, outside fomenting hysteria, the press used to suppress socialism in the United States.

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Socialism, Texas, Oil companies, First Red Scare, Thomas A. Hickey, National Workers Drilling and Production Company, Desdemona, TX

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