6 options
Imperiled innocents : Anthony Comstock and family reproduction in Victorian America / Nicola Beisel.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Beisel, Nicola Kay.
- Series:
- Princeton studies in American politics.
- Princeton studies in American politics
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Comstock, Anthony, 1844-1915.
- Comstock, Anthony.
- Child rearing--Moral and ethical aspects.
- Child rearing.
- Censorship--United States--History--19th century.
- Censorship.
- Social mobility--United States.
- Social mobility.
- United States--Moral conditions--History--19th century.
- United States.
- United States--Social life and customs--1865-1918.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (x, 275 pages) : illustrations
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1997.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- Moral reform movements claiming to protect children began to emerge in the United States over a century ago, most notably when Anthony Comstock and his supporters crusaded to restrict the circulation of contraceptive devices, information on the sexual rights of women, and "obscene" art and literature. Much of their rhetoric influences debates on issues surrounding children and sexuality today. In a book filled with Victorian accounts of pregnant girls, prostitutes, abortionists, Free Lovers, and others deemed "immoral," Nicola Beisel argues that rhetoric about the moral corruption of children speaks to an ongoing parental concern: that children will fail to replicate or exceed their parents' social position. In a rare analysis of Anthony Comstock's crusade with the New York and New England Societies for the Suppression of Vice, Beisel examines how the reformer worked on the anxieties of the upper classes. Showing how a moral crusade can bring a society's diffuse anxieties to focus on specific sources, Beisel offers a fresh theoretical approach to moral reform movements.
- Contents:
- Front matter
- CONTENTS
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ONE. Introduction: Family Reproduction, Children's Morals, and Censorship
- TWO. The City, Sexuality, and the Suppression of Abortion and Contraception
- THREE. Moral Reform and the Protection of Youth
- FOUR. Anthony Comstock versus Free Love: Religion, Marriage, and the Victorian Family
- FIVE. Immigrants, City Politics, and Censorship in New York and Boston
- SIX. Censorious Quakers and the Failure of the Anti-Vice Movement in Philadelphia
- SEVEN. Morals versus Art
- EIGHT. Conclusion: Focus on the Family
- NOTES
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [255]-268) and index.
- Description based upon print version of record.
- ISBN:
- 9786612753114
- 9781400800506
- 1400800501
- 9781400800520
- 1400800528
- 9781282753112
- 1282753118
- 9781400822089
- 1400822084
- 9781400810970
- 1400810973
- OCLC:
- 700688434
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.