Hollywood blacklist facts for kids

Anticommunist tract from the 1950s. It encourages people to drive the "Reds" (Communists) out of Hollywood and Broadway

The Hollywood blacklist was a system of denying employment to Hollywood actors, producers, screenwriters, directors, and other people in entertainment who were suspected of undesirable political connections or other undesirable associations. Communist sympathies and homosexual tendencies were two of the connections considered most undesirable. It mostly occurred through the middle of the 20th century, in the 1940s and 1950s.

Images for kids

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  Members of the Hollywood Ten and their families in 1950, protesting the impending incarceration of the ten

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  The May 7, 1948, issue of the Counterattack newsletter warned readers about a radio talk show that had recently expanded its audience by moving from the Mutual network to ABC: "Communist Party members and fellow-travelers have often been guests on [Arthur] Gaeth's program."

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  The first Hollywood movie to overtly take on McCarthyism, Storm Center was released in 1956. Bette Davis "plays a small-town librarian who refuses, on principle, to remove a book called The Communist Dream from the shelves when the local council deems it subversive".

See also

In Spanish: Lista negra de Hollywood para niños