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Photograph of Jean Muir

Before There Was Jimmy Kimmel, There Was Jean Muir

The "Red Scare" echo in the Kimmel suspension.
by Clay Risen via Politico Magazine on September 20, 2025
Book cover with the title "A Blacklist Education" written on a black and red background.

Legacies of Teacher Persecution and Resistance

Historian Jane Smith understands her childhood differently after discovering that her father had been pushed out of his profession during the Red Scare.
by Joan Wallach Scott via Academe on September 9, 2025
Charlie Chaplin stands fearfully in a hall of mirrors.

No Way Out

In broadcasting, the Red Scare turned into a stupid hall of mirrors.
by Julia Barton via Continuous Wave on September 4, 2025
A still from the Sound of Fury of two men fighting.

Dangerous Work

Cy Endfield, film noir, and the blacklist.
by Imogen Sara Smith via Current [The Criterion Collection] on May 21, 2025
Protestors hold anti-communist picket signs outside of a theatre

The Grim Timeliness of “Noir and the Blacklist”

A new Criterion series of McCarthy-era noir films is a timely collection for an era of rising government repression.
by Eileen Jones via Jacobin on May 4, 2025
Actress moves away from a microphone held a red hand.

How the Red Scare Shaped American Television

The fear of communism silenced actors, writers and producers, altering the entertainment industry for decades.
by Carol Stabile via PBS on February 28, 2025
A still from the 1960 film Spartacus of two Roman gladiators fighting.

How Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus Broke the Hollywood Blacklists

The 1960 film was penned by two blacklisted Communist writers. Its arrival in theaters was a middle finger to the McCarthyist witch hunt in Hollywood.
by Taylor Dorrell via Jacobin on September 14, 2023
Director Edward Dmytryk and actress Jean Porter.

The 1950s Hollywood Blacklist Was an Assault on Free Expression

The blacklist didn’t just ruin many workers’ careers — it narrowed the range of acceptable movies and contributed to the conservatism of the 1950s.
by Larry Ceplair via Jacobin on May 18, 2023
Pickets supporting and opposing a House subcommittee on Un-American Activities hearing in 1964.

Reading, Writing, and Redbaiting

When McCarthy stalked the groves of academe.
by Alan Wald via Boston Review on October 1, 1986
Hollywood screenwriter Samuel Ornitz speaks before the House Un-American Activities Committee

First Amendment in Flux: When Free Speech Protections Came Up Against the Red Scare

The congressional anti-communist hearings of the 1940s are a reminder that freedom of speech today is even more fragile than it may seem.
by Jodie Childers via The Conversation on November 20, 2025
The author and other children picketing the Board of Education in protest of her father's firing.

A General Air of Anxiety

The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.
by Joan Wallach Scott via Boston Review on September 10, 2025
Gertrude Berg.

The Forgotten Inventor of the Sitcom

Gertrude Berg’s “The Goldbergs” was a bold, beloved portrait of a Jewish family. Then the blacklist obliterated her legacy.
by Emily Nussbaum via The New Yorker on June 9, 2025
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his aide Roy Cohn.

Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump

The target then was the nonexistent threat of Communist teachers; today, it’s the supposed radicalism of the academy.
by Ellen Schrecker via The Nation on April 3, 2025
Senator Joseph McCarthy speaking into microphones.

Newly Declassified Documents Reveal the Untold Stories of the Red Scare

In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation.
by Sara Georgini, Clay Risen via Smithsonian Magazine on April 1, 2025
A propaganda poster of an American flag on fire and white American citizens struggling against Communist officials, with the caption: "Is this tomorrow? America under Communism!"

What Happened the Last Time a President Purged the Bureaucracy

The impact can linger not just for years but decades.
by Clay Risen via Politico Magazine on February 6, 2025
Frank Oppenheimer holding prism up to face

The Atomic Bomb, Exile and a Test of Brotherly Bonds: Robert & Frank Oppenheimer

A rift in thinking about who should control powerful new technologies sent the brothers on diverging paths.
by KC Cole via Knowable Magazine on March 5, 2024
Fred Dube at a 1981 UN meeting, “South African Women and Labour under Apartheid.”

The Silencing of Fred Dube

Forty years ago, the exiled South African activist dared to teach Zionism critically. A furious backlash ensued.
by Abena Ampofoa Asare via Boston Review on January 18, 2024
Bud Schulberg testifying before HUAC.

During the 2023 Writers Strike, This Book Helped Me Understand the Depravities of Hollywood

A 1941 novel by a former Communist Party member about the dog-eat-dog scumbaggery of movie executives and the lying and artless bragging that Hollywood runs on.
by Alex N. Press via Jacobin on December 8, 2023
French photographer Catherine Leroy in between two soldiers in Vietnam

Catherine Leroy Parachutes into Danger

When the Pentagon wanted a photographer to record the largest airborne assault in the Vietnam War, the most qualified candidate was a young French woman.
by Elizabeth Becker via American Heritage on November 6, 2023
Performers at the 1963 Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Ron Patterson, a co-founder of the event, appears in orange at the far right.

The Surprisingly Radical Roots of the Renaissance Fair

The first of these festivals debuted in the early 1960s, serving as a prime example of the United States' burgeoning counterculture.
by Gillian Bagwell via Smithsonian Magazine on September 28, 2023
Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo with his wife Cleo at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in 1947. Bertoldt Brecht can be seen in the background.

Monopolywood: Why the Paramount Accords Should Not Be Repealed

If studios can again harness the income from exhibition, we may see a return of traditional vertical integration.
by Vaughn Joy via Red Pepper on March 13, 2023
Eartha Kitt engaged in conversation with Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House

When Eartha Kitt Disrupted the Ladies Who Lunch

The documentary short “Catwoman vs. the White House” reconstructs an unexpected moment of activism during the Vietnam War.
by Scott Calonico, Lauren Elyse Garcia via The New Yorker on February 16, 2022
partner

McCarthyism at the Oscars

As José Ferrer was being handed his Oscar—making him the first Latino actor to win—he was being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
by Kristin Hunt via JSTOR Daily on January 30, 2020
Illustration of Peurifoy and others attempting to find homosexuals within the federal government.

The Homophobic Hysteria of the Lavender Scare

Despite a thriving queer community in Washington, the 1950s State Department fired gay and lesbian workers en masse.
by Kazimir Lee, Dorian Alexander via The Nib on May 31, 2019
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel gives a speech celebrating ADL’s centennial in 2013.

The Anti-Defamation League Is Not What It Seems

The ADL's influence on U.S. politics mobilizes against Black and Arab leaders, enforces pro-Israel stances, and capitalizes on anti-hate efforts.
by Emmaia Gelman via Boston Review on May 23, 2019

Before Colin Kaepernick, There Was Eartha Kitt

How the entertainer was blacklisted for standing up to the President.
by Hilal Isler via Medium on June 6, 2018
Will Lee as Mr. Hooper

Spotlighting Communism & Hollywood in the Papers of Sesame Street’s Mr. Hooper

The actor who played the loveable grocer found his way to Sesame Street after being blacklisted during the Red Scare.
via American Heritage Center Blog on April 18, 2018
Jean and Joseph McCarthy reading the Daily Worker.

McCarthyism Is Back. You Can Thank This Woman.

History has overlooked the real architect of Joe McCarthy’s purges: his wife.
by Joshua Kendall via Politico Magazine on November 9, 2025
Jane Fonda at the 2025 SAG Awards.

History’s Lessons for the Second Committee for the First Amendment

Jane Fonda is reviving the Hollywood advocacy group to meet the high-stakes challenges to free expression in the Trump era.
by Ben Schwartz via The Nation on October 20, 2025
Joseph McCarthy.

The Red Scare Is American Past and Present

If we want to understand how we arrived in this authoritarian moment in 2025, we need to understand one of the central pathways that brought us here.
by Benjamin Balthaser via Jacobin on October 19, 2025
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