House Un-American Activities Committee facts for kids

Chairman Dies of HUAC proofs his letter replying to President Roosevelt's attack on the committee, October 26, 1938.

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC, or House Committee on Un-American Activities, or HCUA) was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives.

The HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having communist ties. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security". When the House abolished the committee in 1975, its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.

The committee's anti-communist investigations are often associated with those of Joseph McCarthy who, as a U.S. Senator, had no direct involvement with this House committee. McCarthy was the chairman of the Government Operations Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate, not the House.

Images for kids

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  Lee Slater Overman headed the first congressional investigation of American communism back in 1919.

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  Conservative Texas Democrat Martin Dies Jr. served as chair of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, predecessor to the permanent committee, for its entire seven-year duration.

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  Democrat Francis E. Walter of Pennsylvania was chair of HUAC from 1955 until his death in 1963.

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  Whittaker Chambers (1948)

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  Alger Hiss (1950)

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  Democrat Richard Howard Ichord Jr. of Missouri was chair of the renamed House Internal Security Committee from 1969 until its termination in January 1975.

See also

In Spanish: Comité de Actividades Antiestadounidenses para niños