Boston Herald Rumor Clinic
| Frances Sweeney | |
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Sweeney in 1942
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| Born | c. 1908 Boston, U.S. |
| Died | June 19, 1944 (aged 36) Boston, U.S. |
| Resting place | Holy Cross Cemetery, Malden, Massachusetts |
| Education | Mount Saint Joseph Academy |
| Occupation | journalist |
| Known for | anti-fascism, anti-antisemitism |
Frances Sweeney (c. 1908 – June 19, 1944) was a journalist and activist who campaigned against fascism, antisemitism, and political corruption in 1940s Boston. She edited her own newspaper, the Boston City Reporter, and started the Boston Herald Rumor Clinic to combat fascist disinformation. Seeking to counteract the influence of the priest Charles Coughlin, whose antisemitic broadcasts were popular with Boston's Irish Catholics, she led protests and wrote editorials condemning the Christian Front and similar organizations. She was secretary of the American-Irish Defense Association of Boston and vice chairman of the Massachusetts Citizens' Committee for Racial Unity. A Catholic herself, Sweeney was threatened with excommunication when she criticized Cardinal O'Connell for his silence on Catholic antisemitism.
Sweeney was born in Boston ca. 1908. The only daughter of James Sweeney, an Irish-American saloon keeper, she grew up in Brighton, Boston and attended Mount Saint Joseph Academy. Little is known about her early career except that she worked for a Boston advertising agency.
In the 1930s she founded a small muckraking newspaper, the Boston City Reporter, which she edited and mimeographed herself. Originally she focused on political corruption, but in the late 1930s she expanded its mission to fighting pro-fascist, antisemitic propaganda.
Boston, at that time, was one of the most antisemitic cities in the United States. Jewish residents, businesses, and synagogues were frequent targets of what would now be called hate crimes: gangs of mostly Irish Catholic youths, incited by Father Coughlin and the Christian Front, roamed the streets of Jewish neighborhoods, vandalizing property and assaulting residents. Many victims were seriously injured with blackjacks and brass knuckles. As columnist Nat Hentoff recalled, "Riding by Franklin Field on this trip, I remembered losing some teeth there back then to a gang of readers of Charles Coughlin's Social Justice, who recognized me as a killer of their Lord." Boston's predominately Irish police, politicians, and clergy were of little help, and the local press largely ignored the problem. Boston's popular Irish mayor, James Michael Curley, once proudly proclaimed Boston "the strongest Coughlin city in the world."
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