The Red Scare (1950s)

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


1. HUAC
The HUAC stands for the Hou Un-American Activities Committee. They investigated the communist influence being leaked into American movies.

2. Blacklist
The blacklist was a list of people in the Hollywood Movie industry that were thought to have communist influence. If they were on this list, their whole career was ruined even if they weren't a communist.

3. Alger Hiss
He was accused of being a communist and sent to jail. Future Vice President Nixon tried to prove than Hiss was innocent.

4. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were minor activists in the Communist party. They were also Jewish. When thought to be guilty of Espionage the pleaded the fifth amendment and thought they were being discriminated against because they were Jewish. They were found guilty and the judge said it was a crime "worse than murder"... they were sentenced to death.

5. Joseph McCarthy
Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin was very anti-communist. In order to get elected again he used Mccarthyism, saying that people in the government were communist and that he would help find them.

6. McCarthyism
Led by Joseph McCarthy, he led a hunt to find communists in the goverment. He said that the democratic party was very communist but he never actually produced a name of a so-called communist.

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?
Senator Joseph McCarthy was a republican from Wisconsin. He said that he knew that there was communists in the government and if he was re-elected, he would help find them. Using the publics fear as a weapon, he wielded the publics fear of the communists to his advantage. Using a tactic that came to be known as Mccarthyism, he led "hunts" to find communists. But he never even produced a name of one single communist, but using the fear of the public, he just said that the democrats were guilty of "20 years of communism." The Republicans did little to stop his accusations because they wanted a republican in office. However when Mccarthy started calling the US army communists, he lost some public support, and thus began his downfall. Mccarthy got tied up in his false accusations and quickly lost favor with the public and several years later died of alcoholism.