Joseph McCarthy

fear and repression began to ease in late 1950s, The Red Scare has continued to influence political debate over the decades. It is often cited as an example of how unfounded fears and accusations can compromise civil liberties. On February 9, 1950, McCarthy claimed he had…

The Red Scare was the widespread, overwhelming fear that communists were trying to overthrow the American government in the early 1920’s. The recent end of World War I and the Russian revolutions, along with various other communist revolutions around the world helped promote their paranoia. This paranoia led to those in power at the time taking advantage of the people’s frantic state and exploiting their rights and freedoms. They did this simply to further their own agenda, even though many…

During American history, the red scare event that parallels that of the witch trials in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The Red Scare was an event when the United States was scared of communism and Soviet spies in America. In the Salem witch trials people were afraid of witchcraft the same way that Americans were of communism. Parallels are infallible between the Crucible by Arthur Miller and the Red Scare in American history. During the witch trials in The Crucible, people are forced to either…

The McCarthy era is a time where thousands of Americans were accused of being affiliated with communists or communism and brought before the government for investigations and trials. In the Salem Witch Trials innocent people were accused of being witches. People were brought before the courts where in order to save their own lives they accused others of being witches and using witchcraft to take the blame off of themselves. In both instances, many people's lives were destroyed and the social,…

The Red Scare appeared directly subsequent to the closing of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution that took place in Russia. These occurrences bolstered fear of communism, socialism, and anarchism while depleting a major component of the United States economy. The widespread trepidation settled in the hearts of many Americans. Many factors in the Red Scare would result in a massive decrease in labor leading to higher wages, violation of civil rights and decreased profits. The Red Scare…

In the 1930’s, Hoover was instructed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to investigate various activist activities in the United States, such as Nazi and Communist espionage. Hoover despised any sort of “activist” activities, causing him to investigate the “Ku Klux Klan and Martin Luther King, Jr” (John Edgar Hoover). Hoover would go on to commit numerous illegal surveillance on those suspected to be a threat to the public (J. Edgar Hoover). The Media Creates a False Interpretation of Hoover…

The Crucible and 12 Angry Men are two differing plays that unite in the aspect of the justice system. In both plays, we have the conflict that the accused are seen as guilty before the evidence is thoroughly looked into. A difference that sets the two plays apart is that the young girls accused of being witches are not given as much of a chance as the young boy accused of murder. This is due to the differing time periods in which both plays took place in. These similarities and differences are…

Sylvia Plath clearly embeds the story of Esther Greenwood into the political situation of the time. The Bell Jar introduces its setting by referring to the execution of the Rosenbergs. In the summer of 1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused of and electrocuted for espionage. It was believed that they had passed secret US military information on nuclear weapons on to Soviet Intelligence. The fear of the so-called “red scare” was omnipresent, and it was believed that more and more people…

“The Red Scares were fears when government officials and other groups promoted a fear of communism in the United States” (article 1) The Red Scares brought fear over the United States when communism was brought to topic by groups of people that were angered by it, and eventually the government. These rumors of communism brought change in the US, and constant fear and preparation was a result. “Forty-four out of the 48 state governments in the United States passed laws between 1949 and 1955…

The major influencers of the 1940’s and 1950’s American film scene were the landmark anti-trust case with Paramount and the initiation of the Hollywood blacklist. Beginning in the run-up to World War II and lasting until the 1960’s these two elements shaped the persona of film in the United States. These two events caused the direction of Hollywood to favor independent filmmakers, reduce Hollywood’s influence on the motion picture distribution and presentation chain and removed qualified actors,…