Freeing Birdman of Alcatraz
Neither the Bureau of Prisons nor the Production Code Administration could stop the production of a movie about murderer and ornithologist Robert Stroud.
G. Legman and the Bawdy Eclectic
A fierce opponent of censorship, Gershon Legman helped legitimize the academic study of erotic folklore as manifested in jokes, limericks, and songs.
Putting an End to Obscene Quackery
When medical professionals joined anti-vice campaigners to censor publications about sex in the 1800s, they found themselves wielding a double-edged sword.
Ulysses Obscenity Decision: Annotated
In December 1933, Judge John Woolsey issued what would become one of the best known legal decisions on obscenity in United States history.
Film and TV Ratings in the Streaming Age
We've got Netflix, AppleTV, YouTube, and Prime literally in the palms of our hands. Do conventional movie and television rating systems matter to us?
Banning The Grapes of Wrath in 1939 California
The Kern County, CA Board of Supervisors got a lesson in the Streisand Effect back in 1939, when they banned The Grapes of Wrath from their libraries and schools.
Censoring Ulysses
In reviewing the UK Home Office files on James Joyce's Ulysses, a historian found baffled officials afraid to bring more attention to it.
Would You Let Your Servant Read This Book?
How the ban on D. H. Lawrence's book Lady Chatterley's Lover was reversed.
Lydia Maria Child and the American Way of Censorship
Facing ostracism by literary elites and attacks from pro-slavery mobs, an abolitionist blunted her politics.
Parental Advisory: The Story of a Warning Label
Songs weren't always labeled for explicit lyrics. The history of how it all came about includes some unlikely bedfellows.