The 1950s in America, a favorite period of historians and pop culture enthusiasts alike, was riddled with paradoxes. On the one hand, the decade is remembered by unparalleled prosperity and family stability; on the other, it was rattled by existential nuclear threats and internal communist purges, well-known today as the “Red Scare.” But throughout these purges, the federal government was not only after communists: the government also implemented a tremendous effort to eliminate any perceived homosexuals, or “sex perverts,” from its ranks. They equated the “homosexual menace” with the communist threat in what has become known as the "Lavender Scare." This presentation explores the era’s heightened anxieties around sexuality and gender (non)conformity through specific case of Richard A. Conaway, a civilian Naval employee in Philadelphia who was fired from his job because he wore makeup and clothing “unbecoming of a male employee.
