Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age

520 Pages·2002·21.88 MB·English

by  Paul S. Boyer

Purity in Print
Print Culture History in Modern America
James Danky and Wayne Wiegand, General Editors
Paul Boyer
Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded
Age to the Computer Age
Purity in Print
book censorship in america from
the gilded age to the computer age
Paul S. Boyer
Second Edition
THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS
The University of Wisconsin Press
1930 Monroe Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53711
www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/
3 Henrietta Street
London WC2E 8LU, England
Copyright © 2002
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved
5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Boyer, Paul S.
Purity in print : book censorship in America from the Gilded Age to
the Computer Age / Paul S. Boyer.—2nd ed.
pp. cm.—(Print culture history in modern America)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-299-17584-7 (paper : alk. paper)
1. Censorship—United States—History. 2. Obscenity (Law)—
United States.
I. Title. II. Series.
KF4775 .B6 2002
363.3(cid:1)1(cid:1)0973—dc21 2002001066
For ann, once again

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface to the Second Edition xi
Acknowledgments to the First Edition xv
Acknowledgments to the Second Edition xvii
Introduction to the First Edition xxi
One The Vice Societies in the
Nineteenth Century 1
Two The Vice Societies in the Progressive Era 23
Three The First World War 53
Four The First Postwar Clash—1918–22 69
Five The “Clean Books” Crusade 99
Six The Latter 1920s 128
Seven “Banned in Boston” 167
Eight The Onslaught Against Federal Censorship 207
Nine The Thirties 244
vii
viii contents
Ten The Shifting Rhythms of Censorship from
the 1950s to the 1970s 270
Eleven 1980 to the Present: Symbolic Crusades,
Embattled Libraries, Feminist Interventions,
New Technologies 317
Notes 363
Index 443
List of Illustrations
between pages 98 and 99
1. Anthony Comstock
2. Comstock’s Commission and the seal of the
New York Vice Society
3. Two cartoons of Comstock
4. J. Franklin Chase, Morris K. Jesup, and the
Reverand Philip Yarrow
5. Senator Reed Smoot
6. William Allen White
7. John Sumner burning confiscated literature
8. Judge John Ford
9. The record book of the New York Vice Society
10. Hamlin Garland
11. Elinor Glyn
12. James Branch Cabell
13. H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan
14. Theodore Dreiser
15. Una Lady Troubridge and Radclyffe Hall
16. A cartoon satirizing the “Clean Books” Bill
17. H. L. Mencken during the “Hatrack” controversy
ix