Hollywood blacklist

The Hollywood blacklist—as the broader entertainment industry blacklist is generally known—was the practice of denying employment to screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other American entertainment professionals during the mid-20th century because of their suspected Communist sympathy or membership in the Communist Party. Artists were barred from work on the basis of their alleged membership in or sympathy with the Communist Party USA or refusal to assist investigations into the party's activities. Even during the period of its strictest enforcement, the late 1940s through the late 1950s, the blacklist was rarely made explicit or verifiable, but it directly damaged the careers of scores of individuals working in the film industry.

The first systematic Hollywood blacklist was instituted on November 25, 1947, the day after ten writers and directors were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. A group of studio executives, acting under the aegis of the Motion Picture Association of America, fired the artists—the so-called Hollywood Ten—and made what has become known as the Waldorf Statement.

Front (military)

A military front or battlefront is a contested armed frontier between opposing forces. It can be a local or tactical front, or it can range to a theater. A typical front was the Western Front in France and Belgium in World War I.