McCarthyism

U.S Senator Joesph McCarthy is the man behind the -ism, McCarthyism. The -ism came to be in the 1950's at the height of the Red Scare with the Soviets. There was a huge Communist witch hunt against Americans whom were assumed to be undercover spies for the Soviet Union, or of whom were followers of the Communist Party. The actual term, McCarthyism, can be defined as accusing people of disloyalty or treason without any proper evidence against them. McCarthy would take people without any evidence that they were actually spies or Communists and put them on trial. A particular and popular trail had to deal with the Hollywood Ten, a group of ten Hollywood actors, writers and directors that were accused of being Communists. Another popular couple that were put under trial for espionage were the Rosenbergs. I did a presentation on the Rosenbergs when I was in 10th grade. I don't remember much about it though. McCarthyism affected thousands of Americans, most of whom were wrongly accused of being Communists. I did, in fact, have to read The Crucible while we were studying the Red Scare in 10th grade. At the time I remember it being an extremely difficult book to get through, but I was only 16 years old.