McCarthyism,
Red Scare,
and Facing the
Bomb
- A play about the Salem witch hunt.
- The author, Arthur Miller, was actually on trial during the McCarthy era for communism.
- "The Crucible" was a satire piece against the McCarthy trials.
McCarthyism
http://www.shmoop.com/mccarthyism-red-scare/
- Communism grew during the 30's because people saw the good deeds Communist were doing, like trying to get rights for African Americans, workers, and the unemployed.
- The party grew from7,500 to 55,000.
- How ever, very quickly the party lost most of it's followers, when communist started looking like a threat.
- People started viewing communist and anachrist as possible Soviet Union spies.
How people were affected...
- There was a Red Scare before in 1919 when communist over threw the Russian government.
- The 1919 Red Scare wasn't as big compared to the one during the cold war.
- Before the Cold War America didn't view communist as threats
- On March 12,1947 President Truman signed Executive Order 9835 also known as the Loyalty Order. The FBI could now check your name and preform investigations about possible disloyalty acts.
- Government loyalty boards investigated millions of federal employees, asking questions like what books or magizines they read and if they went to church.
- The Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) was a guide line to loyalty boards, and was highly publized in the media, many people took it as the absoulute truth and businesses took it as a reason to discriminate towards workers.
- More than 39 states required teacher, and other public empoyes to take a loyalty oath
- Many innocent people lost their jobs
- The practice of accusing someone of disloyalty, or treson without proper regard for evidence.
- Communism!
Questions?
Red Scare
Joesph McCarthy
Black Listed Celebertes
McCarthy Cont.
- Re-election was approuching and he hasn't done anything immpressive.
- His friend Edmund Walsh thought it was a great idea to use the nations fear communist to insure he would get re-elcted.
- On Febuary 9,1950 he came out with a list of 205 people who worked in the state department who were apart of the communist party.
- Innocent people were on that list, but people were still panicking.
- The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was created in 1946 to investigate threats of subversion to the American Constitution.
- This committee created the Hollywood Blacklist. This was a list of Screenwriters, actors, and directors who were suspected to be communist.
- Most of the people listed lost thier job.
- Some people found on this list were: Helen Keller, Burl Ives, and even Charlie Chaplin.
Red Scare Cont.
McCarthy Cont.
- Born on November 14, 1908
- He dropped out of grade school when he was 14, he later went back to complete his education at grade school and then later on at Marquette University he obtained his law degree.
- He became a very unsuccessful lawer, and gambled a lot.
- He was orginally a democrat then switched to republican when he was overlooked for a canidate in the democratic party for District Attorney.
- To seem like a better politician he joined the marines in World War II.
- He then ran for senator for Wisconsin and won against Robert La Folllette after using propaganda.
- This all kept going on until October of 1953 when he started investigating the military, that's when President Eisenhower finally had enough, also the military fought back, and so did some other innocent people, they started writing unflattering articles about him, and the wrong ways he obtained his information
- After that a lot of people didn't like him, which means he lost all his power.
- He was diagnosed with Cirrhosis of the liver, because of heavy drinking, and died in May of 1957.
Propaganda in the media
Literature
Film
Television
- Hollywood was trying to please the HUAC so they started producing anti-communist films that would typically mock the soviet image
- One example is I married a communist
- Rocky and Bullwinkle was a televison show that ran from late 50's to early 60's
- It was about Rocky and Bullwinkle fighting against two steorotypical russian villains named Boris and Natasha, and every time Rocky and Bullwinkle would win.
- This show is the embodiment of typical Cold War anti-Soviet propaganda.
- "Red Channels: The Report of communist influence in radio and television" was a anti-communist pamplet that named 151 artist in the industry that was a communist or supported them.
- Any one on that list would be denied employment
Comic Books
Advertisements
- Comic books were often used for propaganda
- Children would read and love the hero and most of the time hate the villain.
- Captain America!
- America was in a state of super patriotism after WWII
- Due to this, often times people without this level of patriotism were often labeled as communists
By: Spudnic Sunderland
and Carlee Gillespie
- Americans were put on trial for being communists, often with almost no evidense
- these people were also frequently accused of Soviet espionage.
- Many politicians and other famous people (Arthur Miller)
Facing the Bomb
- The threat of nuclear warfare on home land hung over Americans' heads.
- The American people were incredibly afraid of the atomic bomb.
- The true predictions of a nuclear fall out was much worse than previously thought.
- The government wanted to keep the true effects of a fall out to them selves, at first.
- In their fear, the American people started building "Bomb Shelters" (Especially on the west cost)
- Basically concrete basements with emergency supplies (including food)
A Small Part of the Prediction
- Nuclear Winter (pollution, darkness, -13+ *F, crop destruction)
- Giant clouds of radioactive earth, fireballs of thermonuclear blsts, burning forrests.
- radiation on leathal levels, widespred.
- Gov. made it seem short term, but the truth is probably years and years.
- If you want the article...
- A group of scientists pooled their knowledge in order to properly predict the effects of the bombs.
- This included biologists and atmospheric physists.
- the based their predicted on a nuclear extange totaling from 5,000-10,000 megatons ("a realistic possibility")
- The had their findings published in the San Francisco Chronicle, on November 1, 1983