McCarthyism & Red Scare Images

McCarthyism & Red Scare Images

Joe McCarthy

Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy's name became synonymous with the ultra-aggressive style of anticommunism that marked much of the 1950s.

Hollywood Ten

The Hollywood Ten contested their convictions for contempt of Congress.

Committee for the First Amendment

Film industry defenders of the Hollywood Ten formed the Committee for the First Amendment to protest their conviction. Here Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall lead the Committee's delegation of protest to a Washington, D.C., hearing.

Ronald Reagan, Anticommunist Union Head

Ronald Reagan, President of the Screen Actor's Guild and secret FBI informer, testifies before HUAC in 1947.

President Harry S. Truman

President Truman won re-election in the election of 1948, defeating Republican Thomas Dewey, Progressive Henry Wallace, and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond.

Harry Bridges

Harry Bridges, Red leader of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, one of 12 unions expelled from the CIO in 1949 and 1950 for being too soft on communism.

On the Waterfront

Marlon Brando starred in On the Waterfront, Elia Kazan's Oscar-winning cinematic defense of "naming names."

Pod People

Invasion of the Body Snatchers captured Cold War paranoia in a sci-fi milieu. But were the pod people soul-destroying communists or soul-destroying McCarthyite conformists?

Atomic Espionage

Klaus Fuchs, atomic scientist and Soviet spy. This photo taken from his identification badge at the top-secret Los Alamos labs.

Julius Rosenberg

Julius Rosenberg, sentenced to death for violating the Espionage Act by passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.

Ethel Rosenberg

Mugshot of Ethel Rosenberg, sentenced to death for violating the Espionage Act.