The Red Scare (1950s)

For each term or name, write a concise sentence or two explaining its significance.

1. HUAC
The HUAC was one of several organizations that investigated Communist behaviors in the US. It specifically focused on targeting Communist suspicions in the movie industry, under the belief that Hollywood was putting subliminal Communist messages into its films.

2. Blacklist
The blacklist, originating in Hollywood, was a comprehensive list of people condemned of being Communist sympathizers. They were banned form working; the blacklist ruined hundreds of careers.


3. Alger Hiss

Hiss was one of two infamous spy cases that caused hightened anti-Communist panic in the US during the Cold War. Hiss, a State Department official, was accused of being a Soviet spy by a former Soviet agent; he was unable to be tried for espionage, but was able to be sent to jail for perjury.


4. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

The Rosenbergs were accused of supplying information to the USSR about the American atomic bomb; this accusations were fueled by the early development of the Soviet atomic bomb. The Rosenbergs pleaded the Fifth, saying that they were not spies, but were simply being persecuted for being Jewish and holding radical beliefs. They were convicted and sentenced to death despite their pleas; they were the first U.S. citizens convicted for espionage.


5. Joseph McCarthy
McCarthy, a Republican senator from Wisconsin, was one of the most vocal and staunch proponents of the fight against Communism. Around the time Senate elections, McCarthy began adamantly professing that the Communists were taking over the government - and he would most certainly do something about it.



6. McCarthyism
McCarthyism refers to the practice of unfairly accusing someone without valid evidence or acceptable amounts of proof. The term first came into being when McCarthy began his anti-Communism campaign, as he made a habit of wildly accusing citizens and government officials of being Communist sympathizers, even when he did not have the proper proof to back up his claims; McCarthyism works off of people's paranoia and fear of the unknown.

7. In a paragraph, describe the motivations and actions of Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s. What prompted his actions? What did he do? What happened as a result of his actions?
McCarthy was prompted by a combination of his fear of not being re-elected as a Senator (he was a fairly ineffective holder of public office, and the public knew it) and an inherent hatred of Communists as a danger to the U.S.A. He convinced the public that he had information on thousands of Communist spies and sympathizers, and called out various people in the Senate as secretly working to forward the goals of Communism. As a result of his passionate crusade, the paranoia in the U.S. ratcheted up to unheard of levels; people accused their next door neighbors, their school teachers, their best friends of being Communist, simply because propganda had convinced them that the Communists were everywhere. Eventually, though, even this intense parnoia died down, and people began to see McCarthy for what he really was - an over-zealous man who ruined hundreds of careers in order to (ultimately unsuccessly) forward his own.