Following the confessions of the multiple Americans on trial for treason and revealing the United States’ government secrets, McCarthyism was born. Senator McCarthy was so focused on keeping communism out of the United States; he had government officials and Hollywood’s “A” list interrogated to see if they supported communism and to see if they were Russian spies. I mean, even the wealthiest of them all at the time couldn’t get around these interrogations. Also, Senator McCarthy had full support of J. Edger Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence at that time in history. In Salem in 1962, power struggling leaders wanting to disperse of
This particular phase in history of the United States is referred to as either ‘The Red Scare’ or ‘McCarthyism’ because of the government-initiated propaganda against Communism. This era’s anti-communist hearings destroyed lives and friendships as paranoia swept America, according to Arthur Miller (Miller “Are You”). “The Crucible” evokes a lethal brew of illicit sexuality, and a fear of the supernatural and political manipulation, a combination that was similar to McCarthyism. When Miller wrote it, Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities wanted him to sign an anti-communist declaration because the object was to destroy the least credibility of any and all ideas associated with socialism and communism (Miller “Why I”). Whether McCarthy was right or wrong, people can learn some important lessons from the past, present, and future.
Two passages highlight tremendous fault in judgment pertaining to witch hunting, both of which I will explain and reflect upon throughout this essay. During the first act, upon Mr. Hale’s entry, Miller exposes the connections between communism vs. capitalism and good vs. evil. As Mr. Hale holds that “the devil is a wily one” (Miller, 35) and must be stopped, there were many in both the United States and communist Russia who condemned the opposite party of espionage in an effort to undermine what they believed to be “good” in the battle of “good” vs. “evil”. Russia, for example, during the years of Stalin’s reign, held military tribunals for those accused of conspiring with the capitalists. The average duration of these trials was three minutes (class notes, POL 334) and, most always, the tribunal
When comparing the "Red Scare" in America in the 1950s to the Salem Witch trials in America at the end of the 1600s, some similarities are obvious. Both events created hysteria by stirring up people's irrational fears. The "Red Scare" refers to the fear of communism in the 1950s. This was actually the second "Red Scare." The first took place earlier and referred to the fear that a Bolshevik revolution would take place in America.
Similarly to the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism started in a time of great fear, but instead of fearing witches that made pacts with the Devil, the people of the 1950’s feared communism. A virtually unheard of senator named Joseph McCarthy was driven into infamy on February 9, 1950, when while at a conference at the Republican women’s group of Wheeling, West Virginia, he accused 205 people in the U.S. State Department of being a part of the communist party. Later, McCarthy claimed to have the names of 57 State Department communists, and called for an investigation. In a place where the fear of such a prospect was already present, the idea that so many high officials
Terror and panic rose in the Salem community as the paranoia and terror about the communists did in the era of McCarthyism during the late 1940s to the late 1950s. Because of terror, people behaved irrationally and foolishly, which led to imprisonment of many innocent people. Both, the Witch Trials and the Red Terror spread thanks to the snowball effect. McCarthyism and the general terror of the soviets came from the affairs of Igor Gouzenko and Elizabeth Bentley, which raised the public’s conscience about the threat and the general terror spread across the US. In the Crucible, the paranoia and fear about the witches spread after the unexplainable illnesses of number of local
It says in the textbook that it’s estimated that between on million and nine million Europeans were executed as witches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Again, also people from the British colony were doing what they wanted to do, But in there colony witchcraft is bad and you get hung for it, my thing is that the people they locked up for witchcraft and killed, Judge Hawthorne would not let the people tell there part because some of them did it and some didn’t. it also says in the book, small parish of Salem village many were quick to blame witchcraft when the ministers daughter and several other girls were afflicted by seizures and lapses. I just think its crazy how judge Hawthorne and Judge Kaufman could really execute people without getting the full story on both parts of the
The Red Scare was the second, and it focus on the national communists influence about the government. After the World War II the Red Scare, also known as, was the outbreak of threats that came from the communism. This is also a following about foreign policies because of the war that was going on. Threats came from many foreign countries and scared many American. The Cold War lead too many of today’s most spoke of history.
SALEM WITCH HUNTS VS MCCARTHYISM The Salem Witch Hunts that occurred in 1692 had many similarities to the Red Scare known as McCarthyism that occurred in 1950’s. The Salem Witch trials began after one girl Abigail Williams along with her friends spread rumors of witchcraft. This caused panic and major disorder in the town of Salem. The Red Scare began after Senator Joseph McCarthy began accusing Americans of being communist, this caused chaos and hysteria across the United States. While these two events were decades apart they had many similarities.
At the start of 1692, two adolescent girls from Salem village started to ail from mysterious fits. Seventeen months afterwards, after lawful action was taken on 144 individuals, with 20 of them being sentenced to death, the humiliating Salem witchcraft court proceedings ended at long last. (Norton, 2003 pg. 3 -4) During those times, the magistrates who headed court cases paid no attention to women as well as girls who were aged below twenty five years old but in that witch case, things took a different turn as women were the prevalent accusers and the magistrate gave them opportunity to air their views (Norton, 2003 p.7). Norton's supposition regarding the 1692 hunt for witches at Salem village support a clash of traditions thesis and some