While the State Department exploited the map’s propaganda potential abroad—its playful characterization of America as a fun-loving, welcoming, and, most important, free land—librarians and teachers took advantage of its educational usefulness at home. Throughout the late ’40s and early ’50s, newspapers from coast to coast ran stories about students studying literature with the help of America: Its Folklore. Municipal libraries even lent framed copies, making it easy for students to show off their newfound knowledge at home.
But the cartographic darling fell from grace in the spring of 1953, when attorney Roy Cohn toured State Department libraries around the world as part of his and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s crusade against Communism. Cohn identified William Gropper as one of the “fringe supporters and sympathizers” whose supposedly Communist-directed works had infiltrated the Overseas Library Program. Gropper was promptly subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations—and earned the dubious distinction of being among the first blacklisted artists in McCarthy-era America.
Gropper arrived on Capitol Hill looking “as rumpled as the sofa in front of the television set,” as one commentator observed. Surrounded by Klieg lights, television cameras, police, and press, his interrogation began simply, with chief counsel Cohn asking, “Are you a member of the Communist Party?” As far as Cohn and McCarthy were concerned, they already knew the answer. But after the artist invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer so as not to bear witness against himself, Cohn pressed:
Mr. Cohn: Are you the William Gropper who has prepared various maps?
Mr. Gropper: I don’t understand that question. Prepared various maps?
Mr. Cohn: Did you prepare a map entitled “America, Its Folklore”?
Mr. Gropper: Have you got the map here?
Mr. Cohn: No; I don’t have the map here. Did you prepare a map entitled “America, Its Folklore”?
Mr. Gropper: I painted a map on American folklore, yes.
Gropper explained that he had received an advance from Associated American Artists, but that “no royalties came in.” Cohn wanted to know if part of Gropper’s advance had supported Communist causes. Again, Gropper pleaded the Fifth Amendment. When Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri asked the painter if an individual “could be a member of the Communist party and at the same time be a good, loyal American,” Gropper demurred: “I would rather talk about my field, where I am equipped. I don’t understand these things.” Moments later, Gropper tried to distance himself further from his celebrated pictorial map, explaining, “I don’t even make maps. I am a painter.”