The American antivice crusader Anthony Comstock (1844-1915) fought what he personally defined as immoral and obscene acts and publications. Though his crusades were somewhat fanatic, he did help clarify issues in civil liberties relating to art and...

From Comstockery To Helmsmanship The morals of the nation's youth are threatened by "obscene, lewd and indecent" photographs "commonly, but mistakenly, called art." So-called artists, under the cloak of free expression, are producing material that "fans the flames of secret desires." In...

By Nicola Beisel (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997. x plus 275pp. $35.00). Nicola Beisel has written an important book that will be of interest to historians and sociologists of childhood, family, obscenity, nineteenth-century reform movements, and the process of cultural...

In the following essay, West explores the psychological tensions behind the censorship campaign of the American reformer, Anthony Comstock.