This review, cross-posted from H-SHGAPE, should be of interest to
many subscribers.
*******************************************
Jack Blocker
History, Huron College, University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario N6G 1H3 Canada
(519) 438-7224, ext. 249 /Fax (519) 438-3938
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 16:01:19 -0700
From: Phil VanderMeer <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: H-Net Gilded Age and Progressive Era List <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Book Review: Bristow on Parker, _Purifying America_
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by [log in to unmask] (September, 1998)
Alison M. Parker. _Purifying America: Women, Cultural Reform,
and Pro-Censorship Activism, 1873-1933_. Women in American
History Series. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, 1997. xii + 286 pp. Illustrations, notes, and index.
$42.50 (cloth), ISBN 0-252-02329-3; $16.95 (paper) ISBN
0-252-06625-1.
Reviewed for H-SHGAPE by Nancy K. Bristow <[log in to unmask]>,
University of Puget Sound
In 1940, the national director of the Department of Radio of the
Women's Christian Temperance Union [WCTU] suggested the role
members might play in shaping the content of radio broadcasts.
Articulating her belief that listeners might expect radio "to be
kept clean, to be free from vulgarity and from dangerous
propaganda which tends to corrupt the minds and morals of
childhood," she hoped that "trained listeners" could act as
censors, acknowledging stations worthy of accolades while
wielding their "power of protest" against programs "which seem
to us in poor taste, harmful, or in any way a violation of
radio's own code of excellence" (p. 218). Not content only to
censor, the WCTU leadership also encouraged state and local
unions to produce their own "pure" programming with the hope of
broadcasting this alternative fare on independent stations. In
1938, the California WCTU succeeded in broadcasting 133 such
programs.
These efforts to control the radio air waves constituted only
the latest chapter in a longstanding campaign in which the WCTU
sought to reshape American culture using the dual weapons of
censorship and cultural production. In _Purifying America:
Women, Cultural Reform, and Pro-Censorship Activism, 1873-1933_,
Alison M. Parker analyzes this program, and in doing so 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 the cultural dynamics of
gender and class as they intersected with reform efforts in the
sixty years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century.
Indeed, though Parker's primary focus is the work of the WCTU's
pro-censorship and cultural production programs--a topic
well-worthy of attention--she also succeeds in broadening the
meaning of her study through the inclusion of a comparative
investigation of the regulatory work of a professional
organization, the American Library Association, as well as
through her ability to highlight the significance of her
findings and her thoughtful engagement with the work of other
scholars.
In 1883, the WCTU organized its Department for the Suppression
of Impure Literature (later the Department for the Promotion of
Purity in Literature and Art, and still later the Department of
Motion Pictures), formally establishing its crusade to purify
American culture through censorship. Beginning these efforts
with a campaign against crime-story papers, the WCTU soon
targeted other cultural forms as they emerged, eventually
focusing on a wide range of publications and productions,
including for instance "other forms of 'immoral' literature,
art, theater, advertisements, prizefights, living pictures
(_tableaux vivants_), the ballet, kinetoscopes, gambling, and
patent medicines," as well as movies, dances, comic strips and
radio shows (p. 7). While believing in the power of the
individual to foment change, and finding strength in the
grass-roots efforts of its local unions, the WCTU fought to
expand the boundaries of legal censorship beyond what was
already legally obscene, and advocated governmental intervention
at the national, state, county and city levels, a policy in
keeping with its calls for governmental activism in other
contexts, most obviously its support for the legislated
prohibition of alcohol.
The WCTU's pro-censorship work reflected the reformers' belief
in the power of culture, in particular its influence on those
who consumed it. Of special concern for the censorship
advocates was the well-being of children, understood to be
especially prone to mimetic reactions to immoral culture.
Children, they feared, might act out what they read in a
sensational newspaper or saw on the screen, leading to lives of
crime and degeneration. This belief in the power of culture
influenced the WCTU's decision to complement its censorship work
with a program for the production and promotion of cultural
alternatives. If impure culture had the power to corrupt, more
moral cultural forms had the power to uplift, instilling
positive values and teaching valuable life lessons to its
consumers. In this context, the WCTU sought to put culture to
work on the side of morality by producing their own alternative,
pure cultural forms. This program, reflected in the radio work
described above, was most obviously evidenced in the WCTU's
publication, beginning in 1887, of a monthly magazine for
children, _Young Crusader_, an effort complemented by another
magazine for young women, _Oak and Ivy Leaf_, and by showings of
educational films.
All of this work, Parker suggests, illustrates the WCTU's
determination to establish a new cultural hierarchy. Parker
makes clear that the WCTU's work cannot be classified as simply
elitist, noting that the WCTU activists rejected elites'
aesthetic standard for measuring culture and sought instead a
new, moral measuring-stick. Finding both "high" and "low"
culture problematic, the WCTU sought to create a new
"middlebrow" culture in which the measure of quality would be a
moral one. This new cultural direction did not constitute a
rejection of all things modern, according to Parker. As she
explains, "As producers of culture, WCTU members demonstrated a
flexibility that belies stereotypes about close-minded and
reactionary censors. WCTU members were not retreating from
modern entertainments such as film so much as proposing
alternative formulations of them" (p. 227). The WCTU sought not
to eliminate new media but to influence their contents,
replacing objectionable materials with more moral subject
matter. How, exactly, did the WCTU define immoral culture?
Parker points out the difficulty of "pinning down the WCTU's
definition of 'immoral,'" noting the multitude of terms
reformers used interchangeably to define their target. "The
word's lack of specificity," she notes, "served pro-censorship
activists' needs well," permitting an inclusive definition of
their interests (p. 22). The WCTU's activism reflected, in
part, a reaction to what they understood to be the negative
influences wielded by changes in American life, including for
instance the arrival of vast numbers of immigrants, the
increasing popularity of working-class entertainments, and
increasing acceptance of art forms associated with the European
avant-garde, and yet the targets of their reform efforts were
substantially broader. The WCTU pro-censorship forces concerned
themselves with immoralities ranging from alcohol use to
degrading images of women, from the disruption of social norms
to tobacco advertising.
Parker suggests that the reformers' concern about the content of
culture, reflected both in the advocacy of legal censorship and
in the production and promotion of cultural alternatives, did
not isolate WCTU members from their contemporaries. Countless
organizations supported a pro-censorship position at various
times, including for instance the Young Men's Christian
Association, the Catholic Church, the National Congress of
Mothers (later the Parent-Teacher Association), and the National
Association of Colored Women, and the WCTU occasionally found
opportunities for cooperation in their work. As Parker
suggests, "For a more accurate historical understanding of the
Gilded Age and Progressive Era, it is important to establish how
average these women and their ideas were within American society
during the period from 1880 to about 1930" (p. 229).
Parker's in-depth investigation of the American Library
Association [ALA] helps illustrate this point. Devoting more
than a full chapter to an exploration of the ALA's approach to
the regulation of reading, Parker highlights both the
differences and the similarities between the professionals in
the ALA and the laywomen of the WCTU. Though struggling with
the issue of censorship and rejecting outright legislated
censorship, the ALA nevertheless shared the WCTU's concern about
the impact of "immoral" literature on children and accepted the
need for some regulation of children's reading. Not
surprisingly, the ALA maintained that professional librarians
were best equipped to play this regulatory role, monitoring the
purchase of books and guiding the reading of young library
patrons. Placing the women of the WCTU among their
contemporaries, Parker convinces us that they lived in the
cultural mainstream of their time.
One of the great strengths of this work is, in fact, Parker's
ability to present a complex and nuanced WCTU. While
appreciating the source of some dismissals of purity reformers
and censorship advocates, Parker maintains the importance of
"fully analyzing and understanding past reformers' goals and
concerns" and approaches her subject with the care it deserves.
The result is a three-dimensional portrait of the laywomen of
the WCTU, a picture fascinating in its complexity. The WCTU
censorship advocates regarded themselves as mothers, acting to
protect not only their own children, but all children. Though
defining themselves in traditional maternalist terms, in their
forays into the politics of censorship they entered new
territory, seeking power in the sphere of public politics. The
pro-censorship campaign, then, became "both a tool for women's
political empowerment--inviting a concerted involvement in
governmental affairs" and a way to fulfill their most
traditional responsibilities to the nation's children. "The
pro-censorship movement," Parker suggests, "thus melded women's
increasing interest in participating in the political sphere
with their strong identification of themselves as
maternal/nurturing beings" (p. 224).
WCTU members also brought new tactics to their efforts to act as
protective mothers. As Parker notes, "Reformers were willing to
experiment with new media, to adopt the vocabulary and emphases
of progressive reform movements, and to accept the advice of
social science experts and support their points of view" (p.
227). Members of the WCTU also advocated an activist and
interventionist role for government, a position commonly
associated with the progressive movement. And Parker points out
that though "repressive and conservative tendencies sometimes
characterized the WCTU's political and social activism," WCTU
members were nevertheless "well within the progressive cohort"
(p. 9). Indeed, the WCTU as presented here represents an
excellent case study of progressive reform, illustrating the
uneasy alliance of traditional morality and modern methods, of
conservative views and innovative approaches, common among many
progressives.
In the case of the WCTU, this coupling may have had significant
consequences. As Parker points out, the WCTU's commitment to
federal regulation and government activism in their cause of
maternal protection meant that the WCTU reformers would in some
cases find their authority in cultural decision-making replaced
by that of governmental actors. She explains, "The irony, or
double-edged nature, of this maternalist ideology is that women
gave up as much or more than they gained, as experts and
governmental agencies or regulation took over the tasks outlined
and fought for by laywomen reformers" (p. 157). This was a
consequence the WCTU women had not anticipated. Though their
continued engagement with the production of culture likely
allowed the WCTU women to retain much greater control over their
programs than was true for other censorship advocates, the
reality that government agencies and experts sometimes replaced
the maternalist reformers seems significant and potentially
suggestive of one of the frustrations faced by certain
progressive activists.
Parker's account of the pro-censorship work of the WCTU also
prompts comparisons to today's debates over censorship, and
Parker considers this link in both her introduction and her
conclusion. In intriguing discussions, Parker fulfills her
promise that her work can provide us with "an historical
perspective on current controversies over pornography, art
funding, and 'obscenity'" (p. 16). While noting differences
across time on both sides of this debate, Parker also identifies
some important similarities. For instance, the cultural
productions of Christian evangelicals, seemingly unprecendented,
have a clear predecessor in the WCTU's programs for the
production and promotion of moral culture. Of even greater
interest is Parker's discussion of today's pro-censorship
alliance. Parker notes that contemporary forces have reached
beyond their earlier conservative roots to include
anti-pornography feminists. Though an almost inconceivable
alliance today, this congruence between the New Right and some
feminists is perhaps less surprising in light of the WCTU's
story, a conservative group whose pro-censorship work
nevertheless often resonated with feminist implications.
Of interest, too, are the consequences of all of this
pro-censorship activity by the WCTU. More precisely, how did
those targeted for protection, and those targeted for
censorship, react to the reformers' activities? Having provided
us with a rich and insightful exploration of the WCTU's
censorship programs, Parker's work might invite future scholars
to investigate the subjects of the WCTU's activism. A fuller
detailing of these players might deepen still further our
understanding of the WCTU's relationship to its contemporaries,
while also providing us with new ideas about the meaning of
progressive reform.
An engaging, enjoyable read, Alison M. Parker's _Purifying
America_ is also a very substantial book. Making extensive use
of the records of the WCTU, both published and unpublished, she
provides a deeply detailed study of the WCTU's efforts to clean
up American culture through censorship and cultural production,
deepening our understanding of both the pro-censorship movement
and of the WCTU itself. Engaging in a careful comparison to the
regulatory work of the American Library Association, again based
in comprehensive research, Parker heightens our understanding of
the mainstream quality of the pro-censorship position, even as
she illustrates the distinctness of both organizations' programs
through the comparison. The organization of the text heightens
Parker's effectiveness. A thoughtful introduction provides
significant background while also suggesting the thematic
emphases around which the text is built. Chapters take on
distinct and significant topics that also serve to highlight
various thematic threads. For instance, in her chapter on the
WCTU's efforts to control various forms of art, Parker
illuminates the reformers' determination to establish their
alternative cultural hierarchy.
A powerful concluding chapter closes the text, reinforcing its
historiographical contributions and leaving the reader convinced
that this is an important work. Throughout the book, in fact,
Parker makes extensive and always thoughtful use of a vast array
of secondary literature, and she succeeds in positioning her
work in relation to other historians. For instance, early on
Parker makes the case for the importance of studying the WCTU's
pro-censorship work, pointing out that most histories of
censorship in this period have emphasized the work of Anthony
Comstock and his elite supporters, while most histories of the
WCTU have neglected its pro-censorship efforts. An exploration
of the WCTU's censorship programs forces us to acknowledge the
complex role played by female reformers in this cause, the broad
public acceptance of censorship in this period, and the breadth
of the WCTU's efforts to remake American culture. Extensive and
informative endnotes heighten still further the usefulness of
this text. Parker's constructive and sophisticated engagement
with other historians enhances her contribution and makes clear
the wide range of scholars who will find this work meaningful.
Parker should find a ready readership among historians with an
interest in cultural, social, and women's history, as well as
scholars interested in subjects ranging from purity crusades to
progressivism, from censorship to library studies. Indeed, any
historian hoping to understand American society and culture in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries should
appreciate this exemplary work.
Copyright (c) 1998 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work
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