Canwell Committee

The Interim Committee on Un-American Activities or Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, most commonly known as the Canwell Committee, (1947–1949) was a special investigative committee of the Washington State Legislature which in 1948 investigated the influence of the Communist Party USA in the state of Washington. Named after its chairman, Albert F. Canwell, the committee concentrated on communist influence in the Washington Commonwealth Federation and its relationship to the state Democratic Party, and the alleged Communist Party membership of faculty members at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The Canwell Committee is remembered as one of a number of state-level investigative committees patterned after the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) of the United States Congress. The committee ultimately published two printed volumes collecting the testimony of witnesses before it. The committee was terminated by the Washington legislature in 1949, following the electoral defeat of its chairman and several of its members in the 1948 elections.