Sherry S. answered • 05/20/16
Tutor
4.9
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Because no one should have to say, "I was never any good at math."
Ah, the magic of Google!
"McCarthyists.McCarthyism is the political action of making accusations of disloyalty."
from
http://www.chacha.com/question/what-name-was-given-to-the-artists-and-writers-who-criticized-american-society-during-the-1950's
Ed M.
I agree with Kenneth S. If anything, McCarthyism targeted those who, in the words of your original question, "criticized american [sic] society during the 1950s." Moreover, though the anti-Communist sentiment--some might say hysteria--in U.S. politics and society which was both tapped into and fostered by McCarthyism persisted throughout the decade of the 1950s and beyond, this specific movement named for its most visible agent, Senator Joseph McCarthy, pretty much came to an end following the downfall of McCarthy's power in Washington subsequent to the televised Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954 and McCarthy's censure by the Senate later that year.
I can't think of a specific group or movement comprised of "artists and writers" notable for their stated or effective purpose of criticizing American society during the decade in question, but in many respects the so-called Beat Generation meets these criteria though this was predominantly a literary group and not one with a necessarily radical political nor societal orientation. Still, they stood out in the relatively conformist 1950s, and can be said to have set the groundwork for some of the more robust internal criticism of U.S. society to come in the 1960s.
Report
05/21/16
Kenneth S.
05/20/16