House Un-American Activities Committee

Freedom of speech has always been a topic of conversation on whether or not we really have it, or it’s portrayed like we do so the American people can be content. There is plenty of proof on the fact that our freedom of speech is actually being taken away from us. Even now as our generation is more open minded, it doesn’t mean that we allow for anyone to have what they think is right, heard. Then whenever we question that our right is being taken away, we are meant with critiques that we are…

hearings and blacklisting’s discouraged Hollywood from producing politically controversial films for fear they would be regarded as communist propaganda. In 1952, the release of Limelight, by Charlie Chaplin was hurt by a pressure campaign led by the American Legion. Chaplin was accused of both immorality and Communist sympathies. Picketing of other films in the 1950’s put fear into the studios, and led to restrictions on subject matter in Hollywood studio films. Anything to do with social…

to prosper, individuals need to be united and working together towards a common goal, which was hindered by suburbanization. In Perlstein’s book, he mentions how the suburbs changed American…

During the infamous Age of McCarthyism, Communism was avoided as if it were some strange virus instead of an ideology. Being accused of being a communist, or even a someone who sympathized with the party was not something to be taken lightly. Even today, the word communism has a bit of a negative connotation to it. So why would anyone be a communist? And looking past the mass hysteria and fear, what did it really mean to be a communist in the 1950s? Looking through different first hand accounts…

D). This led to the Berlin blockade where Stalin closed all roadways into east berlin, so they could not get supplies. This really increased American anxiety because this was the first act of power or hostile act performed by the soviets. Although this was the first act of aggression. The fall of China is really something that caused anxiety for many Americans. Because China is a big country like us and resembled us in a lot of ways. So, them falling to communism made a lot of people think that…

Soviet Union, and finally the Korean War of 1950 - which prompted then President Truman to send in American troops to help push back communist ideology, so began the great communist fear known as the Red Scare in the United States. The Red Scare was an American fright response to the ideology that Communists had the capability to, and would - invade the country, take over, and permanently change the American way of life. As the Red Scare heightened, government involvement…

Senator McCarthy and his committee accused massive numbers of people of being sympathetic to the communist cause, with really no evidence to support them. In such a situation, where the government overplays its hand, the people have a responsibility to stand up to the government and…

describe the majority of the people he comes into contact with, as they desperately attempt to fit into the norms of society without drawing any suspicion onto themselves. The Second Red Scare ignited this way of life as it was described to be an American Anti Radicalism movement. Senator Joseph McCarthy introduced the idea of McCarthyism in order to bring communism to justice. McCarthyism was viewed as a form of political bullying as it proceeded to conduct witch hunts for communists, shut down…

miles from downtown Los Angeles. Chavez Ravine is “named for Julian Chavez, one of the first Los Angeles County Supervisors in the 1800s” (PBS, 2017). A “self-sufficient and tight-knit community” (PBS, 2017) that is home to generations of Mexican Americans. Chavez is an example, which is rare, of small town life within a large urban city. According to PBS (2017), “its residents ran their own schools and churches and grew their own food…

wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory; where, the first Nuclear bombs used in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II were developed and tested. After the war ended, Oppenheimer was appointed the chairman of the General Advisory Committee of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, where he lobbied extensively for the international control of nuclear power to prevent the apparent probability of Nuclear Proliferation and an arms race with the Soviet Union. (Hewlett)…