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The Hollywood Ten: Cold War Resistance

The authors chose to research the Hollywood Ten due to their interest in American history and the Cold War, as well as how political rhetoric has been used to incite fear. They conducted research using both primary and secondary sources to develop a synthesized perspective on the Hollywood Ten within the context of the American Communist and anti-Communist movements. Their website project aims to provide an in-depth and multifaceted presentation of the topic through a mix of text and images. The Hollywood Ten refused to cooperate with HUAC but failed to counter anti-communist campaigns effectively, allowing HUAC to establish the Hollywood Blacklist that escalated the Red Scare, though Dalton Trumbo took steps to challenge the blacklist's constraints. Scholars

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Caitlin Barr
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6 views1 page

The Hollywood Ten: Cold War Resistance

The authors chose to research the Hollywood Ten due to their interest in American history and the Cold War, as well as how political rhetoric has been used to incite fear. They conducted research using both primary and secondary sources to develop a synthesized perspective on the Hollywood Ten within the context of the American Communist and anti-Communist movements. Their website project aims to provide an in-depth and multifaceted presentation of the topic through a mix of text and images. The Hollywood Ten refused to cooperate with HUAC but failed to counter anti-communist campaigns effectively, allowing HUAC to establish the Hollywood Blacklist that escalated the Red Scare, though Dalton Trumbo took steps to challenge the blacklist's constraints. Scholars

Uploaded by

Caitlin Barr
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Process Paper

Word Count: 499

Our choice of topic, the Hollywood Ten, stems from a common interest in both American
history and the Cold War, as well as a belief that this topic retains its historic significance due to
the fact that inciting societal fear through political rhetoric has shown to be a recurring theme in
American politics.
We began our research with an exploration into the history of the American Communist
and anti-Communist movements in order to fully comprehend our topics political context. We
consulted a wide variety of relevant secondary sources, from larger contextual pieces to books
focused specifically on the Ten; however, we proceeded with caution, as having studied the
historiographical debate over Cold War repressions, we recognized the presence of partisan
divides over how historians address certain aspects of American Communism and
anti-Communism. Picking up on these nuances allowed us to better develop our own,
synthesized perspective and provided us with a strategy to consciously seek out a wider range of
interpretations. As our research progressed, we delved into primary sources, ranging from Ayn
Rands A Screen Guide for Americans and contemporary articles in Time and the New York
Times to old paperwork from the Catholic National Legion of Decency and the transcript of the
1947 HUAC hearings in Hollywood. We also found a particularly useful interview with Albert
Maltz, in which he extensively cited his own recollections, and Dalton Trumbos collection of
letters, which illuminated his blacklist experiences. Our interviews included two prominent
historians: Harvey Klehr and Paul Buhle. On opposite sides of the historiographical and partisan
divide, Klehr and Buhle each provided us with their own perspective on the events covered and
the debate they were embroiled in, in addition to information regarding the motivations of
anti-communist institutions such as the FBI and HUAC.
We chose a website as our category for the project, as the scope of it allows for us to go
into greater depth about our topic and its mix of text and image allows for quite a multifaceted
display. We tried to organize our main arguments in a manner that flowed naturally, in order to
give improve the experience of the reader, and incorporated a wide range of visuals for the same
reason.
In their refusal to cooperate with HUAC, the Hollywood Ten took a stand against the
culture of political suppression that had become entrenched in American governance through the
Red Scares. However, the Tens stand during the HUAC hearings failed to provide an effective
counter-narrative to the anti-communist campaigns, allowing HUAC to respond by setting
precedents, such as the establishment of the Hollywood Blacklist, which escalated the Red Scare.
Nonetheless, one of the Hollywood Ten, Dalton Trumbo, took a stand to loosen the constraints of
the blacklist. The American public is still emotionally moved by the HUAC hearings and the
subsequent blacklist, considering the situation a dark spot on American history, while scholars
are starkly divided, interpreting the event through the lens of a larger historiographical conflict
over American Communism and anti-Communism.

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