Anthony Comstock - References in fiction and culture

Reformer, born in New Canaan, Connecticut, USA. A Civil War veteran, he worked as a shipping clerk and retail salesman (1865–73), eventually in New York City, and pursued legal actions against book dealers selling allegedly obscene material. In 1873 he won passage of federal legislation prohibiting the mailing of obscene material. As secretary to the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (from 1875), he zealously opposed activities he considered immoral, often conducting sensational raids. His targets included writers and publishers, abortionists, dispensers of contraceptives, and art galleries with ‘indecent’ pictures;. In later years he also fought quacks and purveyors of patent medicines, and as such was a precursor of the consumer protection movement. He lost a legal battle to ban a production of George Bernard Shaw's play Mrs Warren's Profession in New York (1905), and it was Shaw who coined the word ‘comstockery’ from Comstock's name. Comstock boasted of having destroyed 160 tons of obscene literature in his lifetime and driven 15 people to suicide.

Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 - September 21, 1915) was a former United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality.

He was born in New Canaan, Connecticut.

In 1873 Comstock created the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public. Later that year, Comstock successfully influenced the United States Congress to pass the Comstock Law, which made illegal the delivery or transportation of both "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" material as well as any methods of, or information pertaining to, birth control. George Bernard Shaw coined the term comstockery, meaning "censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality" , after Comstock alerted the New York police to the content of Shaw's play Mrs. Warren's Profession. It confirms the deep-seated conviction of the Old World that America is a provincial place, a second-rate country-town civilization after all."

Comstock's ideas of what might be "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" were quite broad.

Comstock aroused intense loathing from early civil liberties groups and intense support from church based groups worried about public morals.

Comstock is also known for his persecution of Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, and those associated with them.

The men's journal The Days Doings, having popularised lewd images of the sisters for three years, was instructed by its editor (while Comstock was present) to stop producing images of "lewd character".

He had numerous enemies, and in later years his health was affected by a severe blow to the head from an anonymous attacker. Before his death, Comstock attracted the interest of a young law student, J.

During his career, Comstock clashed with Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger.

A biography of Comstock written in 1927, "Anthony Comstock: Roundsman Of The Lord" by Heywood Broun and Margaret Leech of the Algonquin Round Table examines his personal history and his investigative, surveillance and law enforcement techniques.

References in fiction and culture

Comstock is one of many prominent New Yorkers of his time that appear in the historical fiction novel The Alienist, by Caleb Carr.

The protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Beautiful and Damned is named for Comstock.