Extra, Extra, Read All About It: McCarthy Begins Witch-hunt!

Both the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Army Hearings are examples of what are now referred to as "Witch Hunts", where a culture is afraid of a certain "enemy", and then something happens that leads to a mass panic and using the enemy as the scape-goat, or blaming them without reason. The first connection between these two events was made in 1953, during the McCarthy Era, by Playwright Arthur Miller. In his play "The Crucible", Miller uses the Salem Witch trials as an allegory, or hidden meaning, to say that the McCarthy hearings are wrong. While in this Web Quest you wrote a newspaper article attacking Senator McCarthy, had you really done this in the 1950s you likely would have fallen victim to the same trials that McCarthy was placing celebrities and public figures under. In the trials, McCarthy would offer people a plea deal if they named other Communists, which often led to innocent people being falsely accused.

If you are further interested in this topic, please feel free to read up on either event as both are truly fascinating events. Below I have provided some extra links about the material.

Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" a play written during the McCarthy era that is about the Salem Witch Trials. The play was written as a political piece about McCarthy's own "Witch Hunt".