Arthur Miller was accused of being a communist sympathizer during the Red Scare, a period of intense anti-communist hysteria in the United States during the 1950s. Miller was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1956 to testify about communist sympathizers in the entertainment industry. He refused to name people whom he knew to be "fellow travelers" and was cited for contempt of Congress and sentenced to jail, but his conviction was later overturned. Millers experience with HUAC and the Red Scare influenced his writing, including his most successful play, The Crucible (1953), which depicted the mass hysteria of the 17th century witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, and was a thinly veiled commentary about Millers disdain of the communist witch hunts during the 1950s led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy.