for screenwriters employed by 13 of 18 Hollywood studios, based on elections in which writers chose the Guild over the Screen Playwrights. The film producers acceded to the NLRB ruling in March 1939. Beginning in 1940, the Guild came under attack by the House Committee on Un-American Activities for the radical communist leanings of many of its members. The attacks escalated in 1947, when more than a dozen writers were called to testify. Hellman responded with an essay in the Screen Writer, the Guild's publication, attacking the Committee for its investigation and the film industry's owners for submitting to the Committee's intimidation. It described the Committee's hearings: In 1954, the members of the Screen Writers Guild backed the formation of a national union of a broader organization of writers working in motion pictures, television and radio, divided into two geographical bodies: Writers Guild of America, West and the Writers Guild of America, East. See also Writers Guild of America References Additional sources Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930-1960 (University of California Press, 1983) David L. Goodrich, The Real Nick and Nora: Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, Writers of Stage and Screen Classics (Southern Illinois University Press 2004) Victor S. Navasky, Naming Names (Macmillan, 2003) Nancy Lynn Schwartz, The Hollywood Writers' War (NY: Knopf, 1982) Colin Shindler, Hollywood in Crisis: Cinema and American Society, 1929-1939 (Psychology Press, 1996) Scriptwriters' trade unions Trade unions established in 1933 Trade unions in the United States American writers' organizations