Which 1st Amendment Challenge Are You?

The Well of Loneliness (1928) may be the first lesbian novel, and challenges to its publication in the United States focused on its supposed "obscenity," due primarily to its topic rather than its imagery and language. A book by a male author--Mademoiselle de Maupin by Théophile Gautier--which was considerably more explicit in its depiction of a relationship between women, had been cleared of obscenity in a 1922 trial, but unlike Gautier's novel, The Well of Loneliness was written by a lesbian, and for the purposes of self-expression and social protest, rather than the titillation of a male audience.

Just as many entries in the ALA's current list of frequently banned and challenged books were challenged simply due to their LGBT+ content, so The Well of Loneliness drew the ire of social conservatives who felt that any publication which presented homosexuality as legitimate was "obscene." Ultimately, after multiple legal challenges, the book was permitted to be circulated in the United States; one court remarked that it did not contain "one word, phrase, sentence or paragraph which could be truthfully pointed out as offensive to modesty."

Thanks in part due to the efforts of psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, a moral panic regarding the effect of violent imagery on young people erupted between 1948 and 1954. Although the comics of the time were often deliciously pulpy, violent, schlocky affairs (with titles such as "The Vault of Horror," "Shock SuspenStories," and the famous "Tales from the Crypt," to name only three), Wertham dug deeper than the surface narratives and images, suggesting that Batman, for instance, promoted homosexuality, or that nude female figures were hidden in background patterns in some pages. Wertham's claims that such reading material caused children to behave in violent and aberrant ways were based almost entirely on conjecture and anecdote, and have been thoroughly debunked. At the time, however, his crusading on the subject created such a furor that the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency collected hundreds of comic books for analysis and investigation.

Although no official government intervention in the comics industry was undertaken, the entire episode had a tremendous chilling effect on comics publishing for decades; the Comics Code Authority was created as an internal censorship board for the industry, suppressing not only content that was violent or horrific, but which was critical of social ills such as racism. Although the surge of underground comics starting in the 1960s, as well as mature-themed graphic novels and other materials that became popular in the 80s and 90s, contributed to the gradual erosion of the CCA, it was not until 2011 that it finally ended its hold on the industry.

Although the Haymarket Affair (1886) specifically refers to a labor-rights protest which turned violent due to the actions of the police, as well as the notoriously unjust trial and execution of the protest organizers, the general climate surrounding the incident and its aftermath is itself rich with violations of First Amendment rights. In that era, it was common for strikes to be "broken" by police and private investigators using brutally violent methods, and for meetings and protests regarding labor rights to be raided and the organizers jailed. To learn more about the Haymarket Affair and its context, you can visit the Illinois Labor History Society's website, which features an excellent article by William Adelman on the topic: http://www.illinoislaborhistory.org/the-haymarket-affair/

When Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States in 1916, she was harassed and arrested by the police, and charged with "maintaining a public nuisance." She, her fellow activist Emma Goldman, and others who tried to make contraception and sexual education materials available (particularly to working-class women) had been arrested before for similar work, and would continue to be targeted by law enforcement over the next decade. Goldman's advocacy for free speech rights began much earlier, but the issue of contraception and bodily autonomy for women was close to her heart. When she and Sanger came into contact, both began systematically challenging the Comstock Laws (which prohibited "obscene" materials--such as birth control information--from being distributed through the mail) by distributing birth control pamphlets and periodicals by mail, as well as delivering lectures on birth control. Goldman herself was also arrested in 1916 on charges related to this undertaking.