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Banned In Boston
"Banned in Boston" is a phrase that was employed from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, to describe a literary work, song, motion picture, or play which had been prohibited from distribution or exhibition in Boston, Massachusetts. During this period, Boston officials had wide authority to ban works featuring "objectionable" content, and often banned works with sexual content or foul language. This even extended to the $5 bill from the 1896 "Educational" series of banknotes featuring allegorical figures that were partially nude. History Boston was founded in the early 17th century by Puritans, who held strict moral standards. Boston's second major wave of immigrants, Irish Catholics, began arriving in the 1820s and also held conservative moral beliefs, particularly regarding sex. Early instances of works being "banned in Boston" extend back at least to the year 1651. That year, William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts—Massachusetts' great ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role. Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, letters, and the essay. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other printed information on a particular subject.''OED'' Etymologically, the term derives from Latin ''literatura/litteratura'' "learning, a writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from ''litera/littera'' "letter". In spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lillian Smith (author)
Lillian Eugenia Smith (December 12, 1897 – September 28, 1966) was a writer and social critic of the Southern United States, known for both her non-fiction and fiction works, including the best-selling novel ''Strange Fruit'' (1944). Smith was a White woman who openly embraced controversial positions on matters of race and gender equality. She was a southern liberal who was unafraid to criticize segregation and to work toward the dismantling of Jim Crow laws at a time when such actions virtually guaranteed social ostracism. Early life Smith was born on December 12, 1897, to a prominent family in Jasper, Florida, the seventh of nine children. Her life as the daughter of an upper middle-class civic and business leader took an abrupt turn in 1915 when her father lost his turpentine mills. The family was not without resources, however, and relocated to their summer residence in the mountains of Clayton, Georgia, where her father had previously purchased property. There, the fami ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strange Fruit (novel)
''Strange Fruit'' is a 1944 bestselling debut novel by American author Lillian Smith that deals with the then-forbidden and controversial theme of interracial romance. Its working title was ''Jordan is so Chilly'', but Smith retitle it ''Strange Fruit'' prior to publication. In her 1956 autobiography, singer Billie Holiday wrote that Smith named the book after her 1939 song "Strange Fruit", which was about lynching and racism against African Americans. Smith maintained the book's title referred to the "damaged, twisted people (both black and white) who are the products or results of our racist culture." After the book's release, it was banned in Boston and Detroit for "lewdness" and crude language. ''Strange Fruit'' was also banned from being mailed through the U.S. Postal Service until President Franklin D. Roosevelt interceded at his wife Eleanor's request. Plot ''Strange Fruit'' takes place in a Georgia town in the 1920s and focuses on the relationship between Tracy Deen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Restraint Of Trade
Restraints of trade is a common law doctrine relating to the enforceability of contractual restrictions on freedom to conduct business. It is a precursor of modern competition law. In an old leading case of ''Mitchel v Reynolds'' (1711) Lord Smith LC said,''Mitchel v Reynolds'' (1711) 1 P Wms 181 it is the privilege of a trader in a free country, in all matters not contrary to law, to regulate his own mode of carrying it on according to his own discretion and choice. If the law has regulated or restrained his mode of doing this, the law must be obeyed. But no power short of the general law ought to restrain his free discretion. A contractual undertaking not to trade is void and unenforceable against the promisor as contrary to the public policy of promoting trade, unless the restraint of trade is reasonable to protect the interest of the purchaser of a business.'' Nordenfelt v Maxim, Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Co'' 894AC 535 Restraints of trade can also appear in post-te ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The American Mercury
''The American Mercury'' was an American magazine published from 1924Staff (Dec. 31, 1923)"Bichloride of Mercury."''Time''. to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s. After a change in ownership in the 1940s, the magazine attracted conservative writers, including William F. Buckley. A second change in ownership in the 1950s turned the magazine into a far-right and virulently anti-Semitic publication. It was published monthly in New York City. The magazine went out of business in 1981, having spent the last 25 years of its existence in decline and controversy. History H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan had previously edited ''The Smart Set'' literary magazine, when not producing their own books and, in Mencken's case, regular journalism for ''The Baltimore Sun''. With their mutual book publisher Alfred A. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions and other controlling bodies. Governments and private organizations may engage in censorship. Other groups or institutions may propose and petition for censorship.https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship "What Is Censorship", ACLU When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of his or her own works or speech, it is referred to as '' self-censorship''. General censorship occurs in a variety of different media, including speech, books, music, films, and other arts, the press, radio, television, and the Internet for a variety of claimed reasons including national security, to control obscenity, pornography, and hate speech, to protect children or other vulnerable groups, to promote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unintended Consequences
In the social sciences, unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated consequences or unforeseen consequences) are outcomes of a purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. The term was popularised in the twentieth century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton and expanded by economist Thomas Sowell and psychologist Stuart Vyse.Robert K. Merton, Versatile Sociologist and Father of the Focus Group, Dies at 92 Michael T. Kaufman, '''' Unintended consequences can be grouped into three types: * ''Unexpected benefit'': ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waiting For Lefty
''Waiting for Lefty'' is a 1935 play by the American playwright Clifford Odets; it was his first play to be produced. Consisting of a series of related vignettes, the entire play is framed by a meeting of cab drivers who are planning a labor strike. The framing uses the audience as part of the meeting. The play debuted on Sunday, January 6, 1935, at the Civic Repertory Theatre on 14th Street, as part of a benefit performance for ''New Theatre'' magazine. It premiered on Broadway at the Longacre Theatre on March 26, 1935, under the auspices of the Group Theatre, a New York City theatre company founded by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg, of which Odets was a member. The company was founded as a training ground for actors, and also to support new plays, especially those that expressed the social and political climate of the day. The play was requested by many theater and labor groups in numerous other cities around the United States. It premiered in London in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets (July 18, 1906 – August 14, 1963) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. In the mid-1930s, he was widely seen as the potential successor to Nobel Prize-winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, as O'Neill began to withdraw from Broadway's commercial pressures and increasing critical backlash. From January 1935, Odets's socially relevant dramas were extremely influential, particularly for the remainder of the Great Depression. His works inspired the next several generations of playwrights, including Arthur Miller, Paddy Chayefsky, Neil Simon, and David Mamet. After the production of his play '' Clash by Night'' in the 1941–42 season, Odets focused his energies primarily on film projects, remaining in Hollywood for the next seven years. He returned to New York in 1948 for five and a half years, during which time he produced three more Broadway plays, only one of which was a success. His prominence was eventually eclipsed by Miller, Tennessee Williams, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watch And Ward Society
The New England Watch and Ward Society (founded as the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice) was a Boston, Massachusetts, organization involved in the censorship of books and the performing arts from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. After the 1920s, its emphasis changed to combating the spread of gambling. In 1957 the organization's name was changed to the New England Citizens Crime Commission, and in 1967 it became the Massachusetts Council on Crime and Correction. In 1975 it was merged with another organization to form Community Resources for Justice, a group that promotes prison reform and rights for formerly incarcerated persons. At the height of the society's power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Boston Public Library kept books that had been deemed objectionable in a locked room, publishers and booksellers held back publications for fear of the organization's influence with prosecutors and judges, and plays were performed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U.S., including its insular areas and associated states. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the U.S. Constitution. The USPS, as of 2021, has 516,636 career employees and 136,531 non-career employees. The USPS traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general; he also served a similar position for the colonies of the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Post Office Department was created in 1792 with the passage of the Postal Service Act. It was elevated to a cabinet-level department in 1872, and was transformed by the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 into the U.S. Postal Service as an independent agency. Since the early 1980s, m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
