House Un-American Activities Committee

American  

noun

1. an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Originally created in 1938 to inquire into subversive activities in the U.S., it was reestablished in 1945 as the Committee on Un-American Activities, renamed in 1969 as the Committee on Internal Security, and abolished in 1975. HUAC

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House Un-American Activities Committee British  

noun

1. the former name of the Internal Security Committee of the US House of Representatives: notorious for its anti-Communist investigations in the late 1940s and 1950s

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Example Sentences

Jane Fonda has relaunched the Committee for the First Amendment, a free-expression coalition originally formed by Hollywood stars in 1947 to oppose the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Hollywood blacklist.

From Salon

In the 1940s and 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee and accusations by Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy ruined the lives of many people who were suspected of being members, or simply being member-curious, of the Communist Party.

From Salon

He eventually returned to Europe, after the House Un-American Activities Committee and the FBI began to target him.

From Los Angeles Times

A year earlier, Rep. J. Parnell Thomas, the chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, had begun a sustained campaign against him, first in magazine articles, then in a March 1948 report that called him “one of the weakest links in our atomic security” and accused him of “knowingly or unknowingly” maintaining ties to Soviet spies.

From Slate

“I remember when my mother decided to go to testify at the House Un-American Activities Committee. The three of us were having dinner — my mother, my father and me,” Powell recalls.

From Los Angeles Times