House Un-American Activities Committee

House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC)
   HUAC had its origins in a House committee formed in 1934 by John W. McCormack, a Democrat from New York, and Samuel Dickstein, a Democrat from Massachusetts, to investigate the influence of Nazi propaganda in the United States. It was reestablished in 1938 by Martin Dies, a Republican from Texas, ostensibly to investigate Nazi influences and the role of the Ku Klux Klan. However, it was dominated by conservative opponents of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, some of whom were themselves Klan members or sympathizers, who, finding no evidence relating to the Ku Klux Klan, instead charged that federal agencies, particularly the Works Progress Administration and the Federal Theater Project, were dominated by communist sympathizers. Such charges helped contribute to the Republican Party’s resurgence in the 1938 midterm elections, and the charges reappeared after World War II. In 1946, HUAC became a permanent committee, and in 1947 it began to investigate communist influence in the film industry, issuing 43 subpoenas to a variety of people working in Hollywood. The subsequent Hollywood hearings resulted in the jailing of 10 screenwriters and directors, known as the Hollywood Ten, for contempt and led to a blacklist of more than 300 people in show business. During the course of the hearings, Whittaker Chambers named former State Department official Alger Hiss as a former Soviet agent. The investigation and trial resulted in Hiss being jailed for perjury, brought Richard M. Nixon, a committee member, to national attention, and contributed to the rise of McCarthyism. Later investigations into trade unions and atomic scientists did not attract as much interest, and in 1969 the committee was renamed the Committee on Internal Security. It was finally abolished in 1975.

Historical Dictionary of the Roosevelt–Truman Era . . 2015.

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  • House Un-American Activities Committee — House Committee on Un American Activities (HCUA) (1938 1975) est une commission d investigation de la Chambre des représentants des États Unis. Également appelé House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC), son nom signifie littéralement… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • House un-american activities committee — House Committee on Un American Activities (HCUA) (1938 1975), est une commission d investigation de la Chambre des représentants des États Unis. Également appelé House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC), son nom signifie littéralement… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • House Un-American Activities Committee — HUAC hearing The House Committee on Un American Activities (HCUA) or House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC)[1] (1938–1975) was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the… …   Wikipedia

  • House Un-American Activities Committee — an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Originally created in 1938 to inquire into subversive activities in the U.S., it was reestablished in 1945 as the Committee on Un American Activities, renamed in 1969 as the… …   Universalium

  • House Un-American Activities Committee — an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Originally created in 1938 to inquire into subversive activities in the U.S., it was reestablished in 1945 as the Committee on Un American Activities, renamed in 1969 as the… …   Useful english dictionary

  • (the) House Un-American Activities Committee — the House Un American Activities Committee UK US a committee of US politicians who, in the 1950s, accused many writers and other artists of being Communists and therefore enemies of the US http://www.macmillandictionary.com/med2cd/weblinks/house… …   Useful english dictionary

  • House Un-American Activities Committee — committee set up during the late 1940s and early 1950s in the U.S. House of Representatives to investigate citizens that were thought to be communists, HUAC …   English contemporary dictionary

  • House Un-American Activities Committee — House Un A|mer|i|can Ac|tiv|i|ties Com|mit|tee, the the full name of HUAC …   Dictionary of contemporary English

  • House Un-American Activities Committee — noun the committee of the US House of Representatives which initiated divisive anti communist investigations in the late 1940s and 1950s …  

  • House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) — Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, established in 1938 under Martin Dies as chairman, that conducted investigations through the 1940s and 50s into alleged communist activities. Those investigated included many artists and… …   Universalium

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