The post-WWII anticommunist mobilization centered on the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC, established 1938; ascendant 1947–1956), Senator Joseph McCarthy’s 1950–1954 investigations, and Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450 (1953), which made “sexual perversion” — meaning suspected homosexuality — a basis for federal dismissal alongside Communist sympathies. The Senate Committee on Government Operations identified more than 30,000 books for removal from State Department libraries abroad; teachers and professors were dismissed for refusing loyalty oaths. McCarthy was censured by the Senate in December 1954.

Why it’s been targeted

Educators and PEN America have explicitly framed 2021–26 book-ban campaigns — particularly Texas Rep. Matt Krause’s 850-title list and Florida’s HB 1467 mandatory book reviews — as functionally analogous to McCarthy-era purges. Publishers Weekly’s reporting on Llano County (TX), and The Washington Post’s September 2022 “Today’s book bans might be more dangerous than those from the past,” document the comparison. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (allegory for McCarthyism) has been challenged in districts across Pennsylvania and Texas per the ALA.