In this episode, NYPL's Melanie Locay and Amy Sohn, New York Times bestselling author of The Man Who Hated Women: Sex, Censorship & Civil Liberties in the Gilded Age, discussed Sohn's research into a critical moment in the history of anti-censorship and reproductive rights activism in America. In 1873, the Comstock law passed, penalizing the mailing of contraception and obscenity with harsh sentences and steep fines.  Anthony Comstock, special agent to the Post Office and the law's namesake, viewed reproductive rights as a threat to the American family. Between 1873 and the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, eight remarkable "sex radicals" who supported contraception, sexual education, gender equality, and a woman’s right to sexual pleasure were tried under the Comstock Law.  Amy and Melanie's discussion included highlights of how Sohn drew from The New York Public Library's collections for her research.

Episode Recording and Transcript

A transcript of this event is available here.

Related Resources

• The Man Who Hated Women: Sex, Censorship, and Civil Liberties in the Gilded Age by Amy Sohn. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.

• Advice to a Bridegroom by Ida Craddock. Chicago, 1909. Craddock's pamphlet on sexual health.

• "Comstock Act of 1873 and Related Law," guide authored by the University at Albany Libraries.

• Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America by Carroll Smith-Rosenberg. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1985.

• "Finding Women in the Archives: The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and Anthony Comstock’s War on Contraception" by the Center for Women’s History at the New-York Historical Society.

• Licentious Gotham: Erotic Publishing and Its Prosecution in Nineteenth-Century New York by Donna Dennis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.

• Living My Life, Volumes 1 and 2 by Emma Goldman. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1931.

• Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York by Luc Sante. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991.

• Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock by Amy Werbel. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.

• New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV): early annual reports available digitally through the Library’s access to the Crime, Punishment and Popular Culture database (requires active  NYPL card)

• Nineteenth Century Crime: Literature, Reports, and True Crime from the American Antiquarian Society database (requires active  NYPL card)

• Paul Rand: His Work from 1946 to 1958, ed. by Yusaku Kamekura. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1959. An influence for the cover design of Sohn's book.

• Photographic Portraits of "Old-Time Radicals and Friends of Liberty" and pamphlets from the Benjamin R. Tucker papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

• The Sex Radicals: Free Love in High Victorian America by Hal D. Sears. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1977.

• Vice Wars: Researching New York City's Scandalous Censorship Past by Rhonda Evans, from the NYPL Blog.

About the Work/Cited Series

Work/Cited is a program series that showcases the latest scholarship supported by the rich collections of The New York Public Library with a behind-the-scenes look at how the finished product was inspired, researched, and created. Catch up on previous episodes on the NYPL blog, where videos and links to related resources are posted shortly after each program. Sign up for NYPL's Research Newsletter or view the events calendar to hear about future programs as they are announced.