Dinner in support of the Hollywood Ten, Los Angeles, ca. 1950

Photograph of Jeanne Prior Cole speaking at a dinner in support of the Hollywood 10, a group of screen writers and film makers who were jailed for their refusal to cooperate with the House Committee on Un-american Activities (HUAC). This photograph was published in the California Eagle with the following caption: "Jeanne Prior Cole, wife of Lester Cole, imprisoned writer who is one of the Hollywood Ten, addresses a huge Los Angeles community dinner in honor of the novelists, playwrights and motion picture creators who were sentenced to prison as the result of their courageous defense of American constitutional liberties challenged by the J. Parnell Thomas Committee (HUAC). Mrs. Cole discusses the effect of their fathers' imprisonment on young children unable to understand why their distinguished fathers should be jailed for their defense of basic law rather than for an offense against the law. At speakers' table are seen: Mrs. Ring Lardner, Jr.; Dr. Thomas I Emerson, professor of law at Yale; Mrs. Alvah Bessie; Howard Koch, chairman of the Hollywood Arts, Sciences and Professions Council (at Mrs. Bessie's right); Mrs. John Howard Lawson; Robert W. Kenny, former California attorney-general and chief counsel for the Hollywood Ten; Mrs. Edward Dmytryk; and David Robison of the ASP (Hollywood Arts, Sciences and Professions Council).