Book contents
- Advance praise for The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder
- The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder
- The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Permissions
- 1 The Censor’s Dilemma
- 2 Anthony Comstock: Professional Anti-vice Crusader
- 3 Comstock’s Legacy: A Dilemma Is Born
- 4 The Comstock Playbook
- 5 Seduction of the Innocent: The Comic Book Menace
- 6 Ya Got Trouble: Censorship and Popular Music
- 7 The Vast Wasteland
- 8 New Age Comstockery: The Indecency Wars
- 9 The Anti-free Speech Movement
- 10 Freedom of Speech and the Spirit of Liberty
- Epilogue
- References
- Index
2 - Anthony Comstock: Professional Anti-vice Crusader
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2021
- Advance praise for The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder
- The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder
- The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Dedication
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Permissions
- 1 The Censor’s Dilemma
- 2 Anthony Comstock: Professional Anti-vice Crusader
- 3 Comstock’s Legacy: A Dilemma Is Born
- 4 The Comstock Playbook
- 5 Seduction of the Innocent: The Comic Book Menace
- 6 Ya Got Trouble: Censorship and Popular Music
- 7 The Vast Wasteland
- 8 New Age Comstockery: The Indecency Wars
- 9 The Anti-free Speech Movement
- 10 Freedom of Speech and the Spirit of Liberty
- Epilogue
- References
- Index
Summary
Chapter 2 follows the rise of Anthony Comstock from being a dry goods clerk and vigilante against all things he deemed immoral, to becoming the nation’s most prominent and powerful censor. He was responsible for enacting federal legislation banning obscene materials from the US Mail and served as a special agent for the Post Office, enforcing the law. He founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an anti-vice organization that was emulated in numerous other states. From this position, he waged a lifelong crusade against contraceptives, free love, free thought, literature, art, and everything that offended his Puritan sensibilities. The chapter describes the key events in his long career, including his rise to prominence, his prosecution of Victoria Woodhull for revealing Reverend Henry Ward Beecher’s affair with a parishioner, his various campaigns against free thought, art, and literature, and his prosecution of birth control advocates.
Keywords
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- Information
- The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the BeholderThe First Amendment and the Censor's Dilemma, pp. 14 - 54Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021