American writer blacklist and the age of McCarthyism

The post-World War II political and economic conditions in the U.S. which provided the seed bed for McCarthyism and related anti-Communist repression, real or imagined, have been well-documented by historians.

The effects were profound in the entertainment industry, notably for Hollywood and the movies. Less known were the effects on journalism and book publishing, industries which consented to quietly police themselves. In the course of this pressure, journalism and, indeed, the entertainment industry were re-shaped to the point the effects still remain influential.

Ironically, in plot, substance, and presentation, Hollywood movies of the day were addressing themes similar to productions in other countries, notably Britain, France, and Italy. Many screenwriters and journalists blacklisted in the U.S. moved to Europe for a time, where they were able to continue to work. Indeed, even musicians and singers--Paul Robeson among them--found welcoming audiences and an absence of repression in Europe.

For writers, repatriation has been slow coming. The situation of novelist and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was unexceptional. A ten-year veteran screenwriter with such credits as Kitty Foyle and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Trumbo was blacklisted in 1947 and, subsequently, in 1950, he was sentenced to ten months imprisonment for refusing to testify in hearings of the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). At no time was he proved to be a Communist.

Using pseudonyms, Trumbo continued to write screenplays, one of which, The Brave Ones, won an Oscar in 1956. In 1960 Trumbo was finally reinstated in the Writers Guild of America. He was also able to obtain proper credit for his work on the Kirk Douglas movie, Spartacus, and later for Exodus. For other writers, repatriation took longer; for some, well into the Seventies. Not until 1997 did the Writers Guild officially change many film credits. Among these were works by Lester Cole, Donald Ogden Stewart, Joan Scott, Julian Zimet, Carl Foreman, and Alfred Palca.

Lester Cole, a writer since he was sixteen, and a co-founder of the Screen Writers Guild, moved to London after he was blacklisted. He returned to the U.S. in 1961, where for several years he continued to write screenplays, but still had to use pseudonyms.

The loss of Albert Maltz to American literature cannot be measured. Maltz began writing screen plays in 1941, when he was already well-known as a novelist and short story writer. In 1942 and again in 1945 his writing earned Academy Awards. In 1947 he was blacklisted and jailed. Over the years Maltz's work has been read in the same light as some of the best work of John Steinbeck, Richard Wright, and James Farrell. After the blacklisting he did continue some writing, but not until 1969 did he ever receive credit, and that was for his last screenplay, Two Mules For Sister Sara.

Along with Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner Jr. may perhaps be best known among the blacklisted film writers. He too was banned from working in Hollywood; he too continued to do so pseudonymously. Finally, in 1970, he was let back into the fold when he wrote the script for the blockbuster, M*A*S*H*.

One very noteworthy American man of letters did not stop working, nor cloak himself in a pseudonym, even when some of his books were banned in schools. Howard Fast was an admitted card-carrying Communist until 1956. Jailed in 1950 for refusing to name names, blacklisted of course, Fast formed his own publishing house and continued to write. In 1997 he published "The Immigrants," still a bestseller. His historical novels remain significant contributions to American fiction.

Because many of the blacklists in the communications and entertainment industries were secret, the number of playwrights, script writers, novelists, and journalists who were forced to stop writing permanently is unknown. Conservative estimates suggest hundreds.

Contemporary attitudes are now different. Efforts are being made to sort through the many films, articles, and books written pseudonymously, and giving actual writers their appropriate credit. What was not written, potentially a great body of American literature, however, will never be known.