"Enemies from Within"

Introduction

On February 9, 1950, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WI) in a speech proclaimed, "When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be from enemies from without but rather because of enemies from within.” Senator McCarthy dictated this as a quote from "one of our outstanding historical figures," but he was likely either paraphrasing one of the Founding Fathers or actually referring to himself.

These "enemies from within" were Communists. After WWII ended in 1945, many Americans were scared of Communists infiltrating the United States to overthrow the government and claim power. Senator McCarthy led the witch hunt for Communists in all avenues of the United States, including politicians and celebrities. This time in the 1950s became known as the second Red Scare (after the Red Scare of the 1920s). To avoid confusion, this second Red Scare is also referred to as McCarthyism.

Task

Your job in this WebQuest is to discover the gritty details of McCarthyism. You should be able to answer the following questions for a quiz:

Name at least five (5) specific people who were accused and tried for Communism.

What questions were asked of those suspected of Communism in order to determine if these people should be tried in court?

What was the term used for a person or group put on a list to deny employment specifically because he/she/it was suspected or known for Communist sympathies? This was especially an occurrence in Hollywood.

What does HUAC stand for and what was its purpose?

How was McCarthyism like a direct modern parallel of the Salem Witch Trials 250 years before?

Good luck, and have fun!

Process
Evaluation

Go here for a questionnaire to show how much you learned about McCarthyism. Feel free to use your notes and to fill it out as you do your research.

https://docs.google.com/a/stu.clare.k12.mi.us/forms/d/1HzdRMlrM_-awwozK…

Conclusion

After completing this WebQuest, you should know enough background information on McCarthyism to understand how Arthur Miller was so deeply influenced by the McCarthy trials when he wrote The Crucible. The Crucible is not merely a retelling of the Salem Witch Trials. In Miller's own words, "Turning to Salem was like looking into a petri dish, an embalmed stasis with its principal moving forces caught in stillness. One had to wonder what the human imagination fed on that could inspire neighbours and old friends to emerge overnight as furies secretly bent on the torture and destruction of Christians. More than a political metaphor, more than a moral tale, The Crucible, as it developed over more than a year, became the awesome evidence of the power of human imagination inflamed, the poetry of suggestion, and the tragedy of heroic resistance to a society possessed to the point of ruin."

Keep this in mind as we begin reading The Crucible. While an entertaining and scandalous story on the surface, it also stands for much more that is important to understand to fully appreciate what this play meant to Americans when it was published in 1953 in the midst of the heated McCarthy trials that Miller himself fell victim to in 1956.

"Hell and Heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretenses ripped away. God's icy wind will blow." Arthur Miller, The Crucible