The California Un-American Activities Committees (CUAC) files (identification numbers 93-04-12 and 93-04-16) span the period 1935-1971 and consist of eighty cubic feet. The files document legislative investigations of labor unions, universities and colleges, public employees, liberal churches, and the Hollywood film industry. Later the committee shifted focus and concentrated on investigating communist influences in America, racial unrest, street violence, anti-war rallies, and campus protests.

The growth of international communism in the 1930s had an enormous impact on American politics. Coupled with the rise of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, the threat of communism during the period leading up to World War II was very real and pervasive. In response to allegations that communists had infiltrated the State Relief Administration, the California Legislature created in 1940 what was to become a thirty-one year investigation into un-American activities in California.

48 cubic feet and 13 boxes

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