McCarthyism

General Bill McCollum said, “A trial without witnesses, when it involves a criminal accusation, a criminal matter, is not a true trial” (“Accusation Quotes”). This quote relates to all the untrue allegations of the McCarthyism cases and the book The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. McCarthyism was led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, they were accusations made by him during the 1950s against people that had a chance of being a communist. In the book, The Crucible, Abigail Williams, the main antagonist,…

Imagine being an innocent person accused of being a communist and jailed. In the article about McCarthy and the Red Scare, Alan Brinkley states how the Red Scare started rumors that affected the way people acted. Alan Brinkley states in the article, “The Red Scares were fears when government officials and other groups promoted a fear of communism in the United States, which would overthrow capitalism and democracy” (Brinkley). The government starts to fear that there were communists in the…

extremes. The destructions of reputations or even lives in consequence of these trials were paralleled in the McCarthy Hearings and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Arthur Miller uses The Crucible as a comparison between the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism by showing how the accusers in both situations used their power to stir mass hysteria, harbored corrupt motives, and dictated unjust trials and punishments.…

The Front written by Walter Bernstein and directed by Martin Ritt is a dramatic-comedy which was released in 1976. It attempts to explore McCarthyism in the 1950’s, the work of The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and the effect backlisting had on Hollywood and the entertainment business. During the ‘red scare’ when there was a fear of communism senator Joseph McCarthy produced a series of investigations in an effort to expose communism. Hollywood was subject to these…

accused of practicing witchcraft taking place in colonial Massachusetts in the 1690’s. The McCarthy Era, also known as McCarthyism, was a campaign against alleged communist in the United States government and other institutions carried out under Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950’s. Both events were fueled by fear and both ruined countless lives thanks to false allegations. Both McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials have a couple different similarities. For one, in both events innocent people…

McCarthyism and the Crucible Imagine living during a time period full of widespread paranoia, where a job that you had worked so hard for all of your life was taken away from you in the blink of an eye. The constant fear of being accused of being a communist based off the opinion of another, and having no say in whether their claim is true or not. A time where your basic rights as a free man come out of question and your back is always against the wall. The fear of communism spread across…

Hysteria is a exaggerated emotion or excitement especially among a group of people. The Salem Witch Trails began in 1692, by a group of young girls who claimed to be possessed by the devil, and accused many innocent woman of witchcraft. McCarthyism named after Joseph McCarthy, refers to act of making an allegation that someone is a communist or spreading communism. Joseph McCarthy a republican, claimed that 200 communist had become part of the government, and started the House Un-Amercian…

“Unfaithful lover long since dead. Life is sweet, be not shy. On thy feet. So sayeth I”- Hocus Pocus, 1993. McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials were both times of great shame for this country. Both featured charismatic individuals who orchestrated the delirium in service of their own malevolent goals. The two were fueled by two different types of fear, the fear of sin and the fear of nuclear war. They exemplified how the prejudice that divides society can leave everlasting scars. Together the…

history is learned to make sure the same mistakes are not repeated. However, this is not the case for American history; in America, citizens have experienced similar negative events. For instance, the Salem Witch Trials occurred in the 1690s, and McCarthyism arose in the 1950s. These time periods both involve people inaccurately accusing others, being put on trial, and often having innocent citizens punished or put to death. Arthur Miller saw how unfair and unreasonable the government was being,…

PATTERSON HYDER, "Mccarthyism." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2008, "McCarthyism." The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009, and Elizabeth Knowles. "McCarthyism." Encyclopedia.com. HighBeam Research, 01 Jan. 2003. Web. 04 Dec. 2015. This article on McCarthyism explained several things for me. It explained how McCarthyism was misnamed after Wisconsin senator Joseph R. McCarthy while it was really controlled by many groups and people. It explained how McCarthyism…