A. Mitchell Palmer (1872-1936)
Stroudsburg, Monroe County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
US Congressman, 1909- 1915, US Attorney General, 1919-1921, and contender for Democratic presidential nomination, 1920. As Attorney General, led "Palmer Raids" during the "Red Scare," prosecuting those suspected of being anti-American. He practiced law in Stroudsburg.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
A. Mitchell Palmer built his career in Stroudsburg, where he practiced law before serving in Congress and, from 1919 to 1921, as U.S. Attorney General. His name became fixed to the "Palmer Raids," the sweeping arrests of suspected radicals, anarchists, and immigrants during the postwar "Red Scare" that gripped the nation after World War I. A 1920 contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, Palmer embodied both the anxieties and the civil-liberties controversies of his era.
Why it matters
The Palmer Raids remain a defining episode in the long American tension between national security and civil liberties, making Palmer a pivotal — and cautionary — figure in the nation's political history.
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Related people
- · A. Mitchell Palmer
Related events
- · Palmer Raids
- · First Red Scare
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jacob Stroud (1735-1806)
Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1991
Jacob Stroud (1735-1806) was a militia colonel and Revolutionary patriot who fortified his home on this frontier as Fort Penn during the dangerous years of the war. He served in Pennsylvania's 1776 constitutional convention and later in the state legislature, then in 1799 founded the town that bears his name, laying out its streets with his son Daniel. His life spans the transformation of this Pocono country from exposed frontier to settled community.
Monroe County
Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1983
Monroe County was formed in 1836 from Northampton and Pike counties and named for President James Monroe. The land had earlier been a frontier battleground, marked by Indian raids between 1755 and 1782 and crossed by part of General Sullivan's 1779 march against the Iroquois. In later generations its Pocono Mountains blossomed into one of the Northeast's most famous resort regions.
Fort Penn
Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1967
Named for Governor John Penn and built to replace the abandoned Fort Hamilton, Fort Penn stood nearby as a provincial stronghold on the Pocono frontier. Garrisoned in 1763 amid renewed frontier warfare, it later became a haven for terrified settlers fleeing the raids that followed the Battle of Wyoming on July 3, 1778. In two different conflicts it served the same essential purpose: shelter on a dangerous frontier.
Fort Hamilton
Stroudsburg, PA · est. 1967
Built on Benjamin Franklin's direction and named for provincial councilman James Hamilton, Fort Hamilton guarded the Pocono frontier from 1755 to 1757 as part of a defensive chain raised during the French and Indian War. When violence threatened the scattered settlers of the region, forts like this one offered the only refuge. It was abandoned in 1757 and later succeeded by Fort Penn.