The United States, 1945. The country was beaming with recent victory over the Nazis in Japan in World War II. Millions of American troops, soldiers, and sailors were returning to an America that was stronger than when they had left it. The Allied victory in the Second World War had made the United States a superpower on the world stage, and Americans were reveling in this new feeling of opportunity. However, the defeat of the Nazis and Imperial Japan had paved the way for another superpower to rise, the Soviet Union. The rivalry between the United States, a capitalist democracy, and the Soviet Union, a communist dictatorship, would define world politics for the next 50 years.
Both nations were economically powerful. Both were developing ambitious space programs. Both were competing to prove that their way of life was superior. Most importantly, both nations had nuclear. capabilities.
Americans began to fear anything communist. Posters, advertisements, songs, jingles, and literature convinced the American public that communism, spreading from the Soviet Union, would destroy the American way of life. And so began...
The Red Scare. This distrust was most obvious in the work of Congress, which had established the House Un-American Activities Committee. What could be more un-American than communism? Even if there were only one communist in the State Department, even if there were only one communist in the State Department, there would still be one communist too many. The poster child for investigating un-American activity was a new senator from the state of Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy.
He claimed that Communists were infiltrating America through the government, through the military, and through the entertainment industry. McCarthy was on a mission. He was focused, determined, and ruthless in the name of saving America from Communist takeover.
Millions of Americans cheered his efforts in rooting out anyone with communist sympathies from the government, businesses, universities, and the media. This process of accusing, questioning, investigating, and ultimately imprisoning alleged communists became known as... McCarthyism And I make you this solemn promise, regardless of what this Senate may do about a censure, this fight to expose those who have destroyed this nation will go on and on. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, McCarthy and his congressional colleagues targeted the Hollywood film industry, which was supposedly being run by communists. In 1947, Hollywood actor Larry Parks was questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
He admitted to having been a member of the Communist Party years before, but said he had left the party. When asked to name other members, Parks replied, I would prefer, if you allow me, not to mention other people's names. Don't present me with the choice of either being in contempt of this committee and going to jail, or forcing me to really crawl through the mud to be an informer. The committee was dissatisfied with his response.
Parks went to prison. Other Hollywood writers, directors, and actors, fearing that they too would go to prison, named members of communist organizations. Thus, the Hollywood community was split. Some talked to avoid prison, others on principle.
refused to say a word. To escape the criticism and possible subpoenas from the House Un-American Activities Committee, many Hollywood studio owners performed loyalty checks on their employees. They wanted to certify that they were not hiring any communists or people with communist sympathies.
They hoped these measures would keep the government off their backs. Those writers, directors, and actors who were not cooperative, either with the House Un-American Activities Committee or with the studio loyalty checks, were blacklisted. The blacklist ensured that no one would hire them.
Many never worked in Hollywood again. One Hollywood writer, Arthur Miller, watched these events with interest. Miller was the prize-winning author of the plays All My Sons and Death of a Salesman, and the husband of Hollywood bombshell Marilyn Monroe. While in Massachusetts studying the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, Miller noticed many similarities between the current situation in Hollywood And the Puritans'witch hunt nearly 300 years earlier.
The fear of a perceived threat. The dramatic accusations. The loyalty checks. Targeted communities.
A powerful authority structure passing judgment. and ordinary people facing the choice of naming others or paying a severe penalty. Miller transformed his research into a three-act play, The Crucible. On the surface, Miller's play was about a 17th century community of Puritans weeding out supposed witches from their holy town.
But it was clear to many In the 1950s, Miller's play was actually speaking of McCarthy. The Crucible showed how fear of something real, or even imagined, can drive a community to hysterical lengths. The play showed innocent people confessing to avoid harsh consequences. Although The Crucible was just mildly successful when it opened on Broadway, Senator McCarthy took notice.
And not surprisingly, Arthur Miller was summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. At the hearing, Miller answered many questions on his political involvement. When asked to name others who were previously involved in communist organizations, Miller responded, I cannot use the name of another person to bring trouble on him.
Mr. Miller, about that, the House Committee gave you 10 days, I believe, to give the names of the people you didn't give when you were at the hearing down there. Have you any comment about that at this time? Uh, there's news between the Congress and myself, and I don't think that it is proper for me to make any comment at this time.
But would you answer this, Mr. Miller, at the time you refused to name names, would you tell us why you refused to? It's all in the record. I wonder if you'd see it here. I don't. I'm not in a situation now where I would want to go into that.
I think it's all quite clearly stated in the record of the Congress. I stand by that. The committee was unimpressed by Miller's loyalty to his friends. He was found guilty of contempt of Congress, was refused a U.S. passport, sentenced to a $500 fine, 30 days in prison, and was blacklisted. Nearly 60 years after The Crucible was first performed, it is Arthur Miller's most produced play.
It has been turned into an opera and a 1997 film, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder. The play has proved a timeless classic. It tells the tale of a dark period in early America, a witch hunt that claimed many victims. But it speaks to a more recent era of fear. Prejudice, a 20th century witch hunt that the playwright Arthur Miller experienced directly.