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Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform, and Pro-Censorship Activism, 1873-1933
"Purifying America" explores the widespread middle-class advocacy of censorship as a popular reform around the turn of the century and provides a historical perspective on contemporary debates over censorship, morality, and pornography that continue to divide women. 'Makes significant contributions not only to our knowledge of the WCTU and of pro-censorship activism, but more broadly to our understanding of progressivism and of cultural dynamics of gender and class as they intersected with reform efforts in the sixty years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century' - Nancy K. Bristow, H-Net Reviews.
304 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1997
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May 12, 2026
Man, it took me a while to read this book. That’s because I was limiting my reading of it to afternoons on my patio and also because it is extremely dense.
And it wasn’t bad. The author explores the work of the WCTU during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era to censor literature, art, and eventually film. And this was not considered a bad thing. While I thought the WCTU was strictly limited to temperance, and that focus ran like a through line through their censorship efforts, it was actually bigger than that. These middle-class women took on any and all issues that they saw as befitting mothers. Responsible for the next generation, they worked to keep “impure” cultural products out of the hands of impressionable youngsters. Because they were not in any way political and because they fulfilled the maternal role women were expected to play, their actions were deemed acceptable and even desirable.
And the censorship did not necessarily focus on sex, the way today’s censorship crusades do. The aim of these middle-class women reformers was to stop kids (especially boys) from reading about glorified and sensationalized crime. And the WCTU ladies were joined by the growing ranks of women in the American Library Association serving as children’s librarians (actually a new thing at the time). Another interesting thing about the WCTU approach was that they produced their own “pure” works to offer an alternative to the smut.
While I admire the author’s ability to show me a new side of WCTU activism, the book could have delivered the same information in maybe 100 fewer pages. The author had a tendency to repeat, with microscopic differences, the same points over and over again. I’m not a fan of historians who constantly have to beat me over the head with their findings.
Anyway, this was book three of my self-imposed “directed readings” in American club women in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. I look forward to whatever book I find next.
And it wasn’t bad. The author explores the work of the WCTU during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era to censor literature, art, and eventually film. And this was not considered a bad thing. While I thought the WCTU was strictly limited to temperance, and that focus ran like a through line through their censorship efforts, it was actually bigger than that. These middle-class women took on any and all issues that they saw as befitting mothers. Responsible for the next generation, they worked to keep “impure” cultural products out of the hands of impressionable youngsters. Because they were not in any way political and because they fulfilled the maternal role women were expected to play, their actions were deemed acceptable and even desirable.
And the censorship did not necessarily focus on sex, the way today’s censorship crusades do. The aim of these middle-class women reformers was to stop kids (especially boys) from reading about glorified and sensationalized crime. And the WCTU ladies were joined by the growing ranks of women in the American Library Association serving as children’s librarians (actually a new thing at the time). Another interesting thing about the WCTU approach was that they produced their own “pure” works to offer an alternative to the smut.
While I admire the author’s ability to show me a new side of WCTU activism, the book could have delivered the same information in maybe 100 fewer pages. The author had a tendency to repeat, with microscopic differences, the same points over and over again. I’m not a fan of historians who constantly have to beat me over the head with their findings.
Anyway, this was book three of my self-imposed “directed readings” in American club women in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. I look forward to whatever book I find next.
Displaying 1 of 1 review