Guide Note

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was formed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 1934 to investigate domestic radicals including Nazis, Communists and members of the Ku Klux Klan. The committee eventually focused almost exclusively on identifying Communists and, beginning in the late 1930s, HUAC launched a number of controversial investigations into alleged Communist infiltration of various cultural and governmental entities.

Fast Facts

Often confused with the Senate committee chaired by Sen. Joseph McCarthy
Contributed to blacklisting over 300 artists from the motion picture industry
Investigation of Alger Hiss, an accused Communist spy in the U.S. State Department, was inconclusive
Considered to have reached a nadir in the 1960s, during sessions with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman¹
In 1975, the Committee's functions were transferred to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary
Committee was denounced by Harry S. Truman in 1959
Notable members: Richard Nixon, John W. McCormack and Karl Earl Mundt

Categories

History | U.S. Government

View Note History

House Un-American Activities Committee

The Mahalo Top 7

Wikipedia: House Un-American Activities Committee
CNN.com: Cold War: Excerpts from HUAC Hearings
Authentic History Center: Screenwriter's Testimony Before HUAC
Objectivism Reference Center: Ayn Rand's HUAC Testimony
The National Archives: "Prelude to McCarthyism: The Making of a Blacklist" (2006)
Hollywood Renegades Archive: 50 Years: SAG Remembers The Blacklist
Video: Committee On Un-American Activities (Time 43:51)

HUAC Background and Causes

Ku Klux Klan, Nazis and Japanese-Americans

Wikipedia: Ku Klux Klan
Wikipedia: German American Bund
Densho: Causes of the Japanese-American Incarceration

Communists

Wikipedia: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
Wikipedia: Executive Order 9835
SovietHistory.org: Khrushchev's Secret Speech
CNN.com: Testimony of J. Edgar Hoover Before HUAC (Excerpts)

HUAC Central Figures

Hollywood Blacklist

Wikipedia: The Hollywood Blacklist
Classic Movies: The Hollywood Blacklist

Eisler Music: Testimnony Before the First HUAC Hearing

Alger Hiss

Wikipedia: Alger Hiss
University of Missouri-Kansas City: The Alger Hiss Trials
CourtTV Crime Library: The Promising Mr. Hiss
New York University: The Alger Hiss Story
PBS: NOVA Online: Alger Hiss

Richard Nixon

Wikipedia: Richard Nixon
The White House: Richard M. Nixon
University of Missouri-Kansas City: The Nixon Tapes and the Alger Hiss Case
AmericanHeritage.com: Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon

HUAC Images and Media

William Mandel's Official Site: Audio and Video of Mandel's Speech to HUAC
YouTube: The HUAC Hearings (Time 0:55)
YouTube: Katharine Hepburn's speech 1947 against HUAC (Time 10:06)
YouTube: Hollywood 'Red' Probe Begins, 1947/10/20 (1947) (Time 1:51)

HUAC Books and Research

The Guardian: "After The Purge" (2005)
African-American Involvement in the Vietnam War: House Un-American Activities Committee
Pearson Education: Reagan and Maltz Testimonies Before HUAC
UMKC School of Law: Testimony of Whittaker Chambers before the HUAC
Questia: HUAC Books | Alger Hiss's Looking-Glass Wars: The Covert Life of a Soviet Spy

Academic Writing

FIU Research Paper: "How the Film and Television Blacklists Worked"
Free Speech Movement Archives: "HUAC: May 1960 - The Events; The Aftermath"
University of Pennsylvania: "Congressional Committees and Unfriendly Witnesses"

HUAC Blogs and Message Boards

The History Blogger: The Roots of the HUAC Committee
American Social History: My Review of The House Committee on Un-American Activities
Telleris' Blog: HUAC and the Motion Picture Industry

HUAC Timeline

1934: McCormack-Dickstein Committee (also called "Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities") is formed to investigate a plot to seize the White House.
1938: A special committee called the House Committee Investigating Un-American Activities, or the Dies Committee, is formed to investigate Nazi and KKK activity. From this committee, the HUAC is born.
1937: The head of the Federal Theatre Project testifies before the HUAC to answer charges of communism in the project.
1946: The HUAC became a standing committee.
1947: HUAC held hearings investigating Communism in the motion picture industry, resulting in the blacklisting of the "Hollywood Ten."
1948: HUAC investigated Alger Hiss, leading to his trial and conviction for perjury.
1969: Name changed from HUAC to Committee on Internal Security.
1975: Committee abolished, duties transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.

Related Searches

U.S. House of Representatives | U.S. Senate | Watergate Break-In | Richard Nixon | Communism | Ku Klux Klan | Nazism | Hollywood Blacklist | Alger Hiss | House Judiciary Committee | Red Scare

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