BOOK DESTRUCTION;  Lost History
Works by Thomas Paine and the best of Spiritualism: 
Censorship  under the  guise of the Comstock Pornography Postal Laws
During his career for example, Comstock clashed with George Bernard Shaw, Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger and other progressive reasoning thinkers.     Read These Articles and Books:

Note: Winner of the 1998 Distinguished Scholarship Award of the Collective Behavior and Social Movement Section of the American Sociological Association:

Book Info & Reviews From Princeton University Press:
Moral reform movements claiming to protect children began to emerge in the United States over a century ago, most notably when Anthony Comstock and his supporters crusaded to restrict the circulation of contraception, information on the sexual rights of women, and "obscene" art and literature. Much of their rhetoric influences debates on issues surrounding children and sexuality today. Drawing on Victorian accounts of pregnant girls, prostitutes, Free Lovers, and others deemed "immoral," Nicola Beisel argues that rhetoric about the moral corruption of children speaks to an ongoing parental concern: that children will fail to replicate or exceed their parents' social position. The rhetoric of morality, she maintains, is more than symbolic and goes beyond efforts to control mass behavior. For the Victorians, it tapped into the fear that their own children could fall prey to vice and ultimately live in disgrace.

In a rare analysis of Anthony Comstock's crusade with the New York and New England Societies for the Suppression of Vice, Beisel examines how the reformer worked on the anxieties of the upper classes. One tactic was to link moral corruption with the flood of immigrants, which succeeded in New York and Boston, where minorities posed a political threat to the upper classes. Showing how a moral crusade can bring a society's diffuse anxieties to focus on specific sources, Beisel offers a fresh theoretical approach to moral reform movements.

Reviews:

"An exemplary work of cultural analysis--as well as a delightful read.... Imperiled Innocents persuasively demonstrates the empirical power of cultural analysis and its significance for at least one core theoretical question in the discipline, the production and reproduction of class.... Beisel has constructed both an elegant work of cultural analysis and a powerful theoretical lens through which to reconsider the moral controversies of our own time."--Elisabeth S. Clemens, American Journal of Sociology

"This provocative, clearly written addition to the literature on comparative urban reform illustrates the insights that a historical sociologist can bring to a familiar topic.... Challenging conventional interpretations of comstockery, it sheds new light on the process of upper-class formation and the role of gender and sexuality in reform."--Steven Mintz, Journal of American History

"A thoughtfully provocative work of analysis."--Choice

Endorsement:

"Not only is Imperiled Innocents good sociology and good history, it also addresses timely public issues and is a pleasure to read. This is an exemplary work of historical sociology."--William H. Sewell, Jr., University of Chicago

The Champ Article.. THE CHAMP 
                       Author: Rick Russell
                       Published on: May 19, 1998

                       Related Subject(s): Censorship -- History ,  Comstock,
                       Anthony, 1844-1915
                        [ About The Comstock Law ]

Burning books is a long standing favorite of reformers, politicians and tyrants. No society has ever escaped it, but, may I say with a certain amount of misplaced pride, an American did it best.

His name was Anthony Comstock, and he was born in 1844, in Connecticut. After a stint as a soldier in the Civil War, he became a dry goods salesman in New York and a mainstay in the YMCA by dragging saloon keepers who defied Sunday blue laws into court. In 1866, young Comstock found his true calling in the proliferation of printed material coming out of the new  technology. Dime novels, yellow dailies, he called: "Feeders for brothels." He formed the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, and, as secretary of the organization, started  lobbying.

In 1873, he succeeded in getting the U.S.Congress to pass the "Act of the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use" using such slogans as: "Morals not art and literature." The act was popularly named after him.  It was  called The Comstock Law.

For the next 42 years, until his death in 1915, Anthony was a special, unpaid postal inspector,  with the power to enter any post office and confiscate any material he deemed obscene.  Tirelessly, he invaded publishers' pressrooms, pursued such people as Margaret Sanger, for  her ideas on birth control, and Bernard Shaw for his "smutty" plays.

Under Anthony's personal direction, more than120 tons of literature was burned. Added to the more than 80 tons of literature by such authors as Dos Passos, Hemingway and others burned  after his death under the act that bears his name, Anthony weighs in at over 200 tons of burned books. The world's greatest tyrants have yet to match that figure.

The Comstock Law remains on the books. The portly, side-whiskered ghost of Anthony Comstock remains a threat to anyone who pushes the envelope of literature or journalism,  determined to remain in death what he was in life, the world's greatest book burner.

The God-Given Heirs of Anthony Comstock
              Author: Rick Russell 
                     Published on: November 17, 1998

                      Related Subject(s): Book burning ,  Comstock, Anthony,
                      1844-1915 ,  Censorship -- United States

Anthony Comstock is the world's greatest book burner. Under his direction, the U.S. Post Office burned more books than any other political entity in history. Can anyone catch up?  Let's look at the religious contenders:

The Wildmons, Donald, Tim and Mark, run American Family Radio among other enterprises in a sort of religious oligarchy based on saving your soul, whether or not you want to be saved.  Among their targets are: Walt Disney, President Clinton, abortion, homosexuals and, well, pretty much everything. When you contend that Mickey Mouse has betrayed us all, there's probably not a lot you're in favor of. Can the Wildmons catch Anthony? Probably not, they're too far out of the mainstream. 

Pat Robertson, Don Hodel, and Randy Tate head The Christian Coalition. Of course, they're not really ministers, they just play them on TV. Protecting young people and our communities from the pollution of pornography is a big deal with them. They spoke out about Ellen and are really  homophobic. They like CDA II and hailed restrictions on the NEA. They'd probably be happy in  the Bible belt in 1930. The modern world is a bit above their heads. Catch Comstock? These three wisemen are the court jesters of the censorship issue. 

Gary Bauer heads the Family Research Council, which is a great front. Dedicated to Inform and educate citizens on how they can promote Biblical principles in our culture. And the traditional family unit and the Judeo-Christian value system upon which it is built. They come off like some sort of think tank. Dogma presented as research. Gary as a challenger to Anthony? Comstock didn't need to hide behind a front. 

I once heard a phrase: "Once there were Giants." I've forgotten where, but, on the religious end of this issue, it seems to sum up the case. Comstock was a giant. Dedicated, single-minded,  in a way that we all admire. That's why he was the best. He actually burned more books than any despot ever has, and he did it in a country where freedom of the press is a law. Do those pretenders above measure up? Don't kid yourself.

                       Related Subject(s): Shaw, Bernard, 1856-1950 ,  Censorship
                       -- United States ,  Comstock, Anthony, 1844-1915

In 1905, the Lord Chamberlain of England banned the proformance of Mrs. Warren's Profession, the same month the New York Public Library removed Man and Superman from its shelves. George Bernard Shaw, the author of both, and a man who turned a good phrase, decided his best chance was to attack the action in America, rather than in England.

He convinced the backers of Mrs. Warren to move the play to New York, and then proceded to attack America as a "...second rate, country-town civilization." During this campaign he coined the term "comstockery" to characterize censorship in the United States. All of which came as a surprize to Anthony Comstock who didn't have a clue as to who Shaw was. Ignorance, however, never stopped Anthony. After a hurried conference with a few advisors, Comstock blasted  back against Shaw as an "Irish smut dealer." He further warned that any of Shaw's "filthy productions" would meet with the full severity of the law.

The result being that the producers raised the prices of the play and sold it out. True to his word, Comstock and the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice moved against the play, losing in court, thereby assurring the play a profitable run and establishing Shaw as a major playwrite. In short, censorship doesn't always work the way it is intended to. 

 

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