Lust on Trial

Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-0-231-17522-7
Verlag: Columbia University Press

Buch, Englisch, 408 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 238 mm x 164 mm, Gewicht: 786 g

Anthony Comstock was America’s first professional censor. From 1873 to 1915, as Secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Comstock led a spirited crusade against lasciviousness, salaciousness, and obscenity that resulted in the confiscation and incineration of more than three million pictures, postcards, and books he personally judged to be obscene. But as Amy Werbel shows in this rich cultural and social history, Comstock’s campaign to rid America of vice in fact led to greater acceptance of the materials he deemed objectionable, offering a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of censorship.

In Lust on Trial, Werbel provides a detailed and colorful journey through Comstock’s career that doubles as a new history of post-Civil War America’s risqué visual and sexual culture. Born into a puritanical New England community, Anthony Comstock moved to New York in 1868 armed with his Christian faith and a burning desire to rid the city of vice. Werbel describes how Comstock’s raids shaped New York City and American culture through his obsession with the prevention of lust by means of censorship, and how his restrictions provided an impetus for the increased circulation and explicitness of “obscene” materials. By opposing women who preached sexual liberation and empowerment, suppressing contraceptives, and restricting artistic expression, Comstock drew the ire of civil liberties advocates, inspiring more open attitudes toward sexual and creative freedom and more sophisticated legal defenses. Drawing on material culture high and low, courtroom transcripts, and numerous examples of the “obscenities” Comstock seized, Lust on Trial provides fresh insights into Comstock’s actions and motivations, the sexual habits of Americans during his era, and the complicated relationship between law and cultural change.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Werbel, Amy

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften Mediengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Kultursoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Introduction
1. Anthony Comstock, From Canaan to Gotham
2. Onward Christian Soldiers: Creating the Industry and Infrastructure of American Vice Suppression
3. Taming America’s “Rich” and “Racy” Underbelly (Volume I: 1871–1884)
4. Artists, Libertarians, and Lawyers Unite: The Rise of the Resistance (Volume II: 1884–1895)
5. New Women, New Technology, and the Demise of Comstockery (Volume III: 1895–1915)
Conclusion: Postmortem
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Notes
Selected Books, Articles, and Digital Resources
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Amy Werbel is associate professor of the history of art at the Fashion Institute of Technology. She is the author of Thomas Eakins: Art, Medicine, and Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia (2007).