The Puritan religion is rooted in a movement to “purify” the Church of England, formed in 1534 when King Henry VIII withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church. Puritan beliefs were largely based on the teachings of John Calvin (1509-64), which preached the ideas of predestination.
When they were unable to implement the reforms they sought to freely practice their religion in England, many Puritans left, with 20,000 settling in the Massachusetts Bay Colony between 1630 and 1640. The colony, which had centers in Boston and Salem, was governed by a theocracy, with religious leaders ruling in the name of God. In Arthur Miller’s opinion, it was the judgemental nature of the government and repression of emotional expression that led to the Salem Witch trials.
The Salem witch trials first began in 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. A group of Puritan girls, after beginning to exhibit disturbing symptoms such as screaming and contortions, were diagnosed with demonic possession. While the suspected demonic possession spread to more Puritan girls, three women were accused of bewitching them, and were later tried in court for witchcraft.
Throughout 1692, hundreds of men, women and children were similarly accused and tried and 20 convicted witches were hanged. In 1702, the General Court condemned these trials as unlawful.
The Red Scare was a period of time characterised by widespread paranoia and fear of the spread of communism. In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy circulated a document that he believed named 205 government employees who were secretly Communist.
These claims were investigated and could not be substantiated, but this did nothing to stop McCarthy from making accusations against suspected Communists and sympathizers, which included respected politicians and academics – including President Harry Truman, who was criticised for being “soft on and in league with Communists”.
In 1938, the House of Un-American Activities (HUAC) was formed to monitor, investigate and expose suspected communists, subversives and sympathizers in the film industry. With the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover, HUAC issued subpoenas to suspected writers and directors, summoning them to testify before the committee in televised hearings. Those who, in their trial, maintained silence by evoking their First Amendment right (freedom of speech) or their Fifth Amendment right (protection from self-incrimination) were backlisted from the film industry or imprisoned. One group that chose to became silent were known as the ‘Hollywood Ten’ – they were blacklisted, held in contempt of Congress and sent to federal prison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N35IugBYH04&ab_channel=TED-Ed
In 1954, when McCarthy’s investigation spread to the United States Army and their position on Communism, the Senator was charged by the army for attempting to influence the treatment of a former employee of his, leading to a widespread loss of support for McCarthy and ultimately, the end of McCarthyism. McCarthy died soon after (1957) and the HUAC became the Internal Security Committee, operating until its abolition in 1975.