Political Climate of the 1950's

 Elia Kazan

HUAC was established in 1937 by a man named Martin Dies. Dies was a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan and therefore had their support behind him in these investigations. HUAC was established to investigate un-American and subversive activities. In 1947 HUAC began to investigate people of Hollywood. 41 people were interviewed by HUAC in September 1947 and during the interviews they gave names of people who were supposedly holding left-wing views. People who held left-wing views were said to believe in communism. Elia Kazan was one of the people who gave names. The reason he gave names of people with left wing views was that he was afraid that he would go to prison. If people did not give names they would be added to the blacklist. The blacklist was a list of people with left-wing views and if people were on the blacklist it made it virtually impossible for them to get a job in Hollywood. HUAC was on a "witch-hunt" in the 1950's of the Hollywood community.

Picture

Source