The Gordon Kahn Papers are organized into three series--CORRESPONDENCE, RESEARCH FILES, WRITINGS--and deal primarily with the Hollywood Ten, those prominent screenwriters summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. HUAC was investigating communism in Hollywood and the Ten were cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer the Committee's questions. Most of them were subsequently blacklisted by the movie industry.
CORRESPONDENCE is of a general nature and covers the years 1946 to 1948.
Kahn's RESEARCH FILES deal with the background work for his book, Hollywood on Trial, the story of the Hollywood Ten which was written with their collaboration. Here are notes on the hearings, legal documents, clippings, articles from The Screen Writer, and papers from the Screen Writers Guild.
WRITINGS contains a manuscript and reviews of Hollywood on Trial and two articles that Kahn wrote for Script Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly.
