Banned in Boston
The Watch and Ward Society's Crusade against Books, Burlesque, and the Social Evil
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“I want to be intelligent, even if I do live in Boston.”
—an anonymous Bostonian, 1929
In this spectacular romp through the Puritan City, Neil Miller relates the scintillating story of how a powerful band of Brahmin moral crusaders helped make Boston the most straitlaced city in America, forever linked with the infamous catchphrase “Banned in Boston.”
Bankrolled by society’s upper crust, the New England Watch and Ward Society acted as a quasi-vigilante police force and notorious literary censor for over eighty years. Often going over the heads of local authorities, it orchestrated the mass censorship of books and plays, raided gambling dens and brothels, and utilized spies to entrap prostitutes and their patrons.
Miller deftly traces the growth of the Watch and Ward, from its formation in 1878 to its waning days in the 1950s. During its heyday, the society and its imitators banished modern classics by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Sinclair Lewis and went to war with publishing and literary giants such as Alfred A. Knopf and The Atlantic Monthly. To the chagrin of the Watch and Ward, some writers rode the national wave of publicity that accompanied the banning of their books. Upton Sinclair declared staunchly, “I would rather be banned in Boston than read anywhere else because when you are banned in Boston, you are read everywhere else.” Others faced extinction or tried to barter their way onto bookshelves, like Walt Whitman, who hesitantly removed lines from Leaves of Grass under the watchful eye of the Watch and Ward. As the Great Depression unfolded, the society shifted its focus from bookstores to burlesque, successfully shuttering the Old Howard, the city’s legendary theater that attracted patrons from T. S. Eliot to John F. Kennedy.
Banned in Boston is a lively history and, despite Boston’s “liberal” reputation today, a cautionary tale of the dangers caused by moral crusaders of all stripes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tufts journalism professor Miller's (Sex-Crime Panic) examination of Boston's Watch and Ward society, a small but well-funded group of moral do-gooders that reigned for over 80 years, serves as a reminder to not take one's entertainment for granted. Miller painstakingly details the organization's growth, from its first meeting in May 1878, through its high profile heyday (the 20s, 30s, and 40s), to its eventual decline in the late 60s. Miller chronicles the society's battles against perceived indecency in detail, offering blow-by-blow accounts of sting operations against local booksellers and brothels, along with commentary on and insight into the group's battles against H.L. Mencken, Walt Whitman (whose use of metaphor in Leaves of Grass made "the lascivious conception only more insidious and demoralizing," according to the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice) and other literary notables. Many of Miller's tales are alarming, but his legal and procedural meanderings can sap momentum. Still, this is an important and thoroughly researched account of censorship and self-appointed moral watchdogs that will especially appeal to Bostonians and those interested in America's history of free speech.
