In looking at the history of the Hollywood Ten and the resulting blacklist period, there are three major influences to consider: the labor movement during the Great Depression; the impact of the Spanish Civil War; and the ideological flip-flop created when Germany abandoned the Stalin-Hitler Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 and invaded the Soviet Union in June, 1941.

The first influence was the labor movement during the Great Depression. The National Industrial Recovery Act, enacted during the first hundred days of the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, gave employees the right to organize and bargain collectively. This turned out to have a significant impact on the Hollywood studio system just as it did on the rest of America. What was already in place in 1933 was the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Union organizers considered it a company union. Progressive screen writers wanted the existing studio contract system replaced by a royalty system. This was not well received by the studio system.

The Academy was seen by the producers as a means to minimize the conflict experienced by Broadway producers and managers through the Actor's Equity and Dramatists Guilds. Prior to the creation of the Academy, there was also a group called the Writers Club, which was a branch of the Authors League of America (ALA). When wage cuts were imposed in March 8, 1933, triggered by President Roosevelt's bank moratorium, a group of writers organized the Screen Writers Guild (SWG), which was a reorganization of the Writers Club. Both the Screen Writers Guild and the newly formed Screen Actors Guild were included in the National Recovery Act (NRA) Motion Picture Code. Eventually, the NRA was declared unconstitutional in 1935.  Another initiative of the Roosevelt Administration was the creation of the Works Progress Administration which created employment opportunities for artists. Hollywood was also affected by the intensifying labor conflicts in California including the 1934 general strike in San Francisco. It was at this point that communism became linked with labor unrest. As it happened, it was in the summer of 1934 that Budd Schulberg (later the best-selling author of What Makes Sammy Run?) and Ring Lardner, Jr., traveled to Russia to attend the Writers Congress under the sponsorship of the leftist National Student's League. Ring Lardner wrote in his family biography, The Lardners: My Family Remembered: "It was my impression that the best hope for mankind lay with the Soviets."

The second major influence was the Spanish Civil War which united the progressive left and communists against General Franco and led to the creation of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League. At the center of the struggle was the Abraham Lincoln Brigade which recruited volunteers to go to Spain in support of the Loyalists. Three thousand volunteers crossed the French Spanish border to serve in the conflict. Casualties among the Brigade were devastating which shocked those in Hollywood who idealized the cause of anti-fascism.

The third major influence was the non-aggression pact agreed upon by Germany and the Soviet Union which was revealed on August 24, 1939. Talk about shock and awe. The agreement between Hitler and Stalin had an immensely divisive impact on Hollywood progressives and communists. Was it betrayal of the anti-fascist movement; or was it a means to protect Russia and keep America out of the war? Doubts and turmoil within the ranks of the Communist Party prevailed until, on June 22, 1941, Hitler attacked Russia. This resulted in the progressive left circling the wagons to demand a "second front" to protect the "Motherland."

As soon as the war ended in 1945, labor unrest returned to Hollywood. William Z. Foster replaced Earl Browder as the head of the Communist Party and visited Hollywood to redefine the Party line. On June 21, 1946, Attorney General Tom C. Clark warned of a "sinister and deep-seated plot on the part of Communists, ideologists, and small groups of radicals." J. Parnell Thomas, who succeeded Martin Dies as the Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), visited Hollywood and announced that "90 percent of communist infiltration in Hollywood is to be found among screenwriters."  He issued subpoenas to a group of forty-five. Nineteen of those subpoenaed were unified in opposition to providing testimony and they became known as the Unfriendly Nineteen.  

Eventually, the Unfriendly Nineteen transitioned into the Hollywood Ten who were called to testify as unfriendly witnesses. It was resolved among the Ten that they didn't have to testify and that they would invoke the First Amendment. They did so and believed that they had prevailed. However, J. Parnell Thomas, during a special session of Congress calling for financial aid to fight communism in Europe, asked that Congress support his request that the Hollywood Ten be cited for contempt. Out of 463 congressmen present, only 17 voted no. In response, the Association of Motion Picture Producers issued a statement in which they took the positon that "We will not knowingly employ a Communist or a member of any party or group which advocates the overthrow of the government of the United States by force, or by any illegal or unconstitutional method."

So began the blacklist. Questions will linger forever. Did the Hollywood Ten have a right to invoke the First Amendment? If so, were the citations for contempt of Congress unconstitutional? (When the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, the Hollywood Ten began serving one-year prison sentences.)  Did the studios have an economic right or financial interest to enact a blacklist? If not, were the Hollywood Ten entitled to judicial protection and compensation? And what about those who testified as friendly witnesses? Did they deserve the slings and arrows that haunted and tormented them for the rest of their lives?  Or did they have a duty to expose their friends and associates? The blacklist ended in 1960 when Dalton Trumbo, an unrepentant communist living in exile in Mexico, was publicly credited for the screenplay of Exodus. But the debate lingers on. Were there really wars in Hollywood … or was it just … The Way We Were?