Banned In Boston The Watch And Ward Societys Crusade Against Books Burlesque And The Social Evil Neil Miller by Neil Miller 9780807051122, 0807051128 instant download after payment.

Tufts journalism professor Miller's (Sex-Crime Panic) examination of Boston's Watch and Ward society, a small but well-funded group of moral do-gooders that reigned for over 80 years, serves as a reminder to not take one's entertainment for granted. Miller painstakingly details the organization's growth, from its first meeting in May 1878, through its high profile heyday (the 20s, 30s, and 40s), to its eventual decline in the late 60s. Miller chronicles the society's battles against perceived indecency in detail, offering blow-by-blow accounts of sting operations against local booksellers and brothels, along with commentary on and insight into the group's battles against H.L. Mencken, Walt Whitman (whose use of metaphor in Leaves of Grass made "the lascivious conception only more insidious and demoralizing," according to the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice) and other literary notables. Many of Miller's tales are alarming, but his legal and procedural meanderings can sap momentum. Still, this is an important and thoroughly researched account of censorship and self-appointed moral watchdogs that will especially appeal to Bostonians and those interested in America's history of free speech.
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Founded as the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1878, the Watch and Ward Society concerned itself with keeping the Hub free from sinful and pernicious influences until after WWII. As a measure of its comprehensive concern, “women were barred from the meeting” at which the society was established, “the discussion . . . deemed unfit for the delicate ears” of the fairer sex. The society was an active force in the early twentieth century, and Miller relates a wealth of historical anecdotes regarding the likes of H. L. Mencken, Upton Sinclair, and Walt Whitman challenging the society’s edicts. Perhaps not unexpectedly, some members exhibited what might be construed as a certain degree of hypocrisy. For instance, society adherent and benefactor Godfrey Lowell Cabot found The Three Musketeers to be “coarse and immoral,” but he also wrote letters to his wife detailing “fantasies of urination” and sex acts “in explicit . . . almost ecstatic detail.” Cabot carefully wrote the naughty parts in German. Later on, the society moved on to other matters of perceived public good, but it left no shortage of entertaining censorship initiatives for Miller to recall here for readers’ enjoyment. --Mike Tribby