The House Un-American Activities Committee (huac) was formed in 1938 to root out disloyalty and subversion among U.S. citizens of all political persuasions, but it focused almost exclusively on those it suspected of having communist ties. It was responsible for producing a blacklist of left-wing screenwriters, actors, and directors who were denied work in Hollywood in the 1940s and ’50s. Although huac’s peak years coincided with the McCarthy era, Senator Joseph McCarthy was not directly involved in its work, because it was a House committee.