Guardians of Morality.

From the days of the early nickelodeon, conservatives and protectors of morals had been concerned about motion pictures and their impact on their viewers, particularly the young. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Chicago, New York, and later other cities established local censorship boards to review films to ensure that their content did not corrupt the morals of the young. A variety of censoring boards with a variety of views came into being, but none was able to impose a national standard on the movie industry.

The Hays Office.

This situation threatened to change when a series of scandals, including rape, murder, drug use, and general sexual misconduct, swept through Hollywood in the early 1920s. In the face of demands for some sort of government regulation, in 1922 the industry created the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors...