Who was Joseph McCarthy? Joseph R. McCarthy was born in 1908 on a family farm in Wisconsin. He went to a country school and decided he was done with his education at the young age of 14. After that, he explained to his family that he was finished with his studies and wanted to become a farmer like his father. Joe began a profitable business of raising chickens after borrowing a plot of land from his father. Unfortunately, Joe became very ill and his business perished. Joe decided that he would go to work. At age 19 he became the manager of a grocery store in Manawa, a town thirty miles away. Some friends of his convinced h