Through a Lens with the Presbyterian Historical Society
Banned Books Week is Oct. 5-11
Banned Books Week is October 5-11, and the American Library Association has organized an initiative to have people read books that have been challenged, in hopes of preventing literary censorship.
Censorship is something we hear about quite often, especially when referring to youth and books that are “allowed” to be explored in an educational environment. The idea of censoring what people, specifically children, can or should read is not a new phenomenon.
There have been several instances while digitizing the Religious News Service collection in which records are processed that cover media censorship in relation to books and movies. While appraising records from the 1950s and 1960s, it became apparent that one specific medium was under especially intense scrutiny: comic books.
The Comics Code Authority (CCA) was created in 1954 by the Comics Association of America to regulate the content of comics and comic books. The CCA was not regulated by the government and thus was not required by law. But many people and places that supplied the books looked for the CCA seal on the covers for assurance. Codes such as these led to instances of moral panic over societal values.
An example of illustrations being criticized can be seen in a before-and-after edit of a comic. In this record, we can see that the illustration of the woman needed to be changed to fit into the Code Authority Guidelines.
Three areas where this illustration possibly went against the 1954 Code criteria include:
- “All scenes of horror, excessive bloodshed, gory or gruesome crimes, depravity, lust, sadism, or masochism shall not be permitted.”
- “All lurid, unsavory, or gruesome illustrations shall be eliminated.”
- “Scenes dealing with, or instruments associated with, walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism are prohibited.”
The CCA also influenced what was being permitted on the shelves in different stores.
In the image to the right, we see pharmacist Harold D. Bean removing horror comic books due to this new code. The code also influenced grassroots efforts in which individual cities and communities started "cleanup campaigns."
From the caption, we learn that Bean was one of "45 druggists, members of the Des Moines Pharmacists Association, [who] have pledged to clear their drugstores' racks of all objectionable comics ... The association has asked all non-member druggists in this city co-operate in the comic book cleanup campaign. Meanwhile, the heads of Des Moines' two magazine distributing agencies have pledged their full co-operation." This illustrates further examples of moral panic and the need to censor content in order to curb certain behaviors or beliefs.
These cleanup campaigns were not limited to merely removing comic books from shelves, but in some cases replacing them with more “suitable” options, creating what was believed to be a better example for the youth.
At left, librarian Omar Bacon is accepting comics that do not fit into the CCA criteria and, in exchange, dispersing comics which do.
In Philadelphia, specific newsstands that adhered to the CCA and cooperated with the city's newly-formed "Citizens' Council for Clean Comics" were awarded seals to show their compliance to the criteria and demonstrate that they only supplied comics which were deemed suitable for youth.
At right, Harry Kreitzer (left) receives his seal from J. Francis Finnegan (right), director of the Philadelphia Youth Service Committee. The city's Council for Clean Comics was intent on "impressing on parents the need for supervising their children's reading material. Cooperating in the Council are ten religious and civic organizations."
In Chicago, the executive secretary of the National Organization for Decent Literature utilized the "bad" comics to create a home-made "zip" gun. Thomas J. Fitzgerald is photographed below holding said firearm, which was capable of shooting .22 caliber bullets. Fitzgerald described these sensation comic books as "how-to-do-it" primers in crime, and used the "instructions" offered in one such comic to create the zip gun. Fitzgerald's argument is that the censorship of these books by the CCA dampens the impacts of their bad influences on young readers.
In an accompanying newspaper column, Fitzgerald is quoted as saying that publications such as these “destroy patriotism, respect for authority, a sense of decency, the sanctity of family life, and the sacredness of religion.”
This last image is yet another example of exchanging the “bad” comic books for the “good” ones. Incentivized by their school's civics club, these students were gifted two "good" comics in exchange for every "bad" comic they brought in to class. The children then proceeded to burn the books that were brought in, in order to destroy what they considered to be indecent.
These days, the seal of the Comics Code Authority is no longer coveted as it once was. By the early 2000s, many publishers had discontinued their use of the code, including Marvel Comics in 2001. In 2011, the remaining three publishers still adhering to the code officially broke away from the CCA, rendering it defunct.
Even though this is the case, many of the same sentiments still exist in our circles today, where certain media is deemed inappropriate solely based on its content and the possible influence it could have on individuals. It is our hope that this October, readers across the globe can enjoy their comic-book-consumption sans censorship.
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