Book Burning in America?

When you think of book burning, it automatically conjures up visions of Hitler's Germany and Ray Bradbury's science fiction masterpiece, "Fahrenheit 451." You don't think of 20th century America - or even 19th century America, but book burning DID happen here and, in a few rare cases, is happening now.

A brief history of book burning in America

In the late 19th century, a former U.S. postal inspector Anthony Comstock appointed himself America's censor, creating the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. One of his primary targets was "obscenity" in literature along with birth control materials written by the likes of Margaret Sanger. In 1873, Comstock wielded enough political influence to get the U.S. Congress to pass the Comstock Law, making it illegal to transport and deliver "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" materials. Comstock claimed to have been responsible for burning 160 tons of "obscene" literature and causing the arrest of over 3000 perpetrators in his lifetime.

In 1918, the United States Post Office burned four issues of publisher Margaret Anderson's "Little Review" magazine because they contained excerpts from James Joyce's then unpublished novel, "Ulysses." Anderson was later indicted and fined for obscenity.

In 1935, the library trustees of Warsaw, Indiana ordered that all copies of Theodore Dreiser's novels in their libraries be burned for its obscene and leftist content. As a boy, Dreiser went to school in Warsaw, Indiana.

In 1939 John Steinbeck's landmark novel, "Grapes of Wrath", about the tragic plight of migrant farm workers from the Oklahoma "dust bowl" were burned all over the country for both its political content and "vulgarity."

In the early fifties, Senator Joseph McCarthy sent his aides to search U.S. Information Service libraries for "subversive" books. This led to some of these books to be burned U.S. Information Service libraries overseas. To his credit, President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a speech condemning these acts. "Don't join the book burners," he said.