McCarthyism Prepare to be schooled by Ms. Hanzlick!!

WHAT IS COMMUNISM? In a nutshell: the belief that everybody should have an equal share of wealth. Example: Instead of me having $90 and you having $10, we both have $50.

WHO WAS COMMUNIST?

COMMUNISTS IN AMERICA IN THE 1950s Even though America as a whole as anti- communist, there were still some people in our country that supported its ideology. Extreme Liberals African Americans Jews Technically, they have the right to believe in whatever political ideas they wanted, but some people disagreed with this fact.

SENATOR JOSEPH MCCARTHY Ex-Marine From Wisconsin Hated Communism Thought he could gain popularity and power by finding and imprisoning suspected Communists in America

MCCARTHYISM The irrational fear of the spread of Communism and the government’s attempt to rid the United States of people who allegedly supported it; a.k.a. The Red Scare.

MCCARTHYISM = ANTI-COMMUNIST PROPOGANDA

MCCARTHYISM = HUAC HUAC = House Un-American Committee – Special group of Senators whose sole purpose was to identify suspected Communists in the US and try them for treason.

MCCARTHYISM = VICTIMS The Rosenburgs – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a young couple living in New York, were – arrested for conspiracy to commit treason in helping Soviet agents ferret atomic secrets out of the United States. – While they were both members of the Communist Party, the espionage charge was far more dubious. – All the same, they were convicted of treason. – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in the electric chair on June 19, 1953.

MCCARTHYISM = VICTIMS Alger Hiss – Alger Hiss was a bright up and coming State Department attaché. – Time Magazine editor Whittaker Chambers accused him of passing secrets to the Soviets. – At trial, Hiss was twice acquitted of treason, though he was convicted of perjury. – This distinction did not matter to many of Hiss’ critics on the right, who continued to label him a traitor.

MCCARTHYISM = VICTIMS The Hollywood Ten – In October 1947, 10 members of the Hollywood film industry publicly denounced the tactics employed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, during its probe of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business. These prominent screenwriters and directors, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, received jail sentences and were banned from working for the major Hollywood studios. Their defiant stands also placed them at center stage in a national debate over the controversial anti-communist crackdown that swept through the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

THE DEMISE OF MCCARTHY On 2 December 1954 the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy. The Republican leadership stripped McCarthy of his committee chairmanship. When the Democrats took control, McCarthy was marginalized further; when McCarthy would enter a room, any other Senators present would leave. McCarthy continued to serve in the Senate until his death in 1957 at the age of 49 from complications of alcoholism.