Dirty works : obscenity on trial in America's first sexual revolution / Brett Gary.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gary, Brett, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Trials (Obscenity)--History--United States--20th century.

Trials (Obscenity).

Obscenity (Law)--History--United States--20th century.

Obscenity (Law).

Ernst, Morris L. (Morris Leopold), 1888-1976.

Ernst, Morris L.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (434 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2021]

Summary:

"This book focuses on a series of courtroom cases that were all represented by the same lawyer: Morris L. Ernst. Ernst's clients included European and American literati and sexual activists, among them Margaret Sanger, James Joyce, and Alfred Kinsey. They, along with a cast of burlesque theater owners and bookstore clerks, had run afoul of strict obscenity laws, and became actors in Ernst's legal theater that ultimately forced the law to recognize people's right to freely consume media. In this book, Brett Gary recovers the critically neglected Ernst as the most important legal defender of literary expression and reproductive rights by the mid-twentieth century. Each chapter centers on one or more key trials from Ernst's career battling censorship and obscenity laws, using them to tell a broader story of cultural changes and conflicts around sex, morality, and free speech ideals. These trials sets the stage, legally and culturally, for the sexual revolution of the 1960s and beyond. In the latter half of the century, the courts had a powerful body of precedents, many owing to Ernst's courtroom successes, that recognized adult interests in sexuality, women's needs for reproductive control, and the legitimacy of sexual inquiry"--Provided by the publisher.

Contents:

Moral guardians and sexual modernists

Fighting for sexual education : Mary Ware Dennett vs. postal power

Women's right to sexual pleasure : Marie Stopes vs. Customs Authority

The taboo of inversion : Radclyffe Hall and literary censorship

The vomit school of literature : fighting censorship in NYC

Defending literary genius : James Joyce's Ulysses on trial

Battles for birth control : Margaret Sanger and the moral authority of doctors

The allure of the erotic : Alfred Kinsey and sexual science, 1947-1957

From the first to the second sexual revolution

Epilogue : Morris Ernst's complicated legacy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Gary, Brett. Dirty works.

ISBN:

9781503628694

1503628698

OCLC:

1265460899