Censorship - A Guide to the Exhibit

A Guide to the Exhibit

In, 1984, the New York Public Library presented an exhibit on censorship and libraries. The executive committee of the Coalition felt that some of the materials could be adapted and combined with new ideas to present a traveling exhibit for the public libraries, schools and colleges in Nassau and Suffolk counties. With this in mind, we received permission from the New York Public Library to use information from their exhibit in developing one of our own. The exhibit begins with the foundations of freedom of speech and freedom of the press that were established in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Then definitions of censor and censorship are given, which have been extracted from 19th and 20th century dictionaries. This is followed by a description and discussion of the terms ‘bowdlerize’ and ‘comstockery,’ which are closely connected historically to the names of two censors. Next, in chronological order, appear descriptions of selected incidents of censorship that have occurred in the United States for more than 100 years. The exhibit concludes with quotations on censorship, results of a censorship survey, and First Amendment Cartoons. Beginning in the 1990s, the exhibit became available on a national basis.

1. First Amendment

2. Definitions: Censor and Censorship

3. Bowdlerize

4. Comstockery

5. Self-Censorship

6. Literature, Obscenity, and the Courts

7. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

8. The Catcher in the Rye

9. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

10. A Pete Seeger Concert

11. In the Night Kitchen

12. The American Heritage and Merriam-Webster Dictionaries