The American Heritage Center, in cooperation with the Wyoming Partnership for Civic Education and the UW College of Education, and funding from the U.S. Department of Education, has available six CDs filled with photographs, correspondence, transcripts, and other documents related to various topics refl ected in our diverse collections. The CDs are intended for use by teachers in Wyoming and across the country.

The topics for the CDs are Water Resources Development of Cody, Wyoming; the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, one of the ten World War II internment camps, which held Japanese and Japanese Americans from the West Coast; Nellie Tayloe Ross, the nation’s first woman governor; the Wagon Wheel Project, an attempt to utilize nuclear weapons to assist with natural gas collection near Pinedale, Wyoming, during the early 1970s; the Black 14, a group of University of Wyoming football players, who in 1969 were dismissed from the team because they wished to protest against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by wearing armbands in a game against Brigham Young University; and the Hollywood Ten, film producers, screenwriters, and directors, who were summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 and later blacklisted. The Hollywood Ten CD features items from four AHC collections: Adrian Scott and Albert Maltz, both members of the Hollywood Ten; Larry Adler, an internationally-known, classical harmonica player, who was blacklisted and then moved to London to continue his career; and Albert Dekker, a character actor in various movies and California state legislator from 1944 to 1946, who was accused of being a communist in the early 1950s.

Albert Maltz, one of the so-called "Hollywood Ten," served nearly a year in a federal prison for contempt of Congress. In this photo, Maltz' son leads a protest in support of the Hollywood Ten during his father's imprisonment in 1950. Albert Maltz Papers, American Heritage Center.

The members of the group labeled the Hollywood Ten were denied employment because of their political beliefs or associations. When they testifi ed before HUAC and were asked if they were or ever had been members of the communist party, the ten refused to answer and claimed the question invaded their right to privacy guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. HUAC charged the ten with contempt of Congress. Then the motion picture studios, acting under the Motion Picture Association of America, announced the firing of the Hollywood Ten in what is called the Waldorf Statement. Many members of the Hollywood Ten were fined and served federal prison sentences. Others traveled to Europe where they found work. The blacklist was effectively broken in 1960, when screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten, was publicly acknowledged for the films Spartacus and Exodus. A number of those blacklisted, however, still found it difficult to find work for years afterward.

The everyday life of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center was captured in the many sketches created by internee Estelle Ishigo. The Heart Mountain camp was located in northwestern Wyoming and was one of ten camps to intern Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. Ishigo was Caucasian, but in 1928 she married Arthur Ishigo, a San Francisco-born Nizei. Both were interned at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center.

The Hollywood Ten CD contains an introduction; timeline; letters from members of the Hollywood Ten; photographs; HUAC documents, including testimony and witness statements; prison documents; a lesson plan; and descriptions of the Scott, Maltz, Dekker, and Adler collections. Using the documents on the CD, teachers and students can examine the events that took place during the mid-1940s to the early 1970s to develop a better understanding of the issues and principles involved in the blacklisting of the Hollywood Ten and others. The six CDs will soon be available and will be distributed to Wyoming history and social studies teachers as well as teachers across the nation upon request.

Nellie Tayloe Ross from the Nellie Tayloe Ross Papers, American Heritage Center.

One copy of the entire set of CDs will be sent free of charge to every Wyoming High school, Middle school, and K-12 school. If you are a teacher at one of these schools and have a question regarding to whom the set was sent, please contact Dick Kean at rkean@uwyo.edu. Out of state educators or other individuals interested in obtaining a set of the discs, please contact Mr. Kean for pricing.