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Summary Information
Ralph Ginzburg Papers
1848-1964
- Ginzburg, Ralph, 1929-2006
Mss 862; PH Mss 862
9.0 cubic feet (23 archives boxes), 40 photographs, 5
negatives, 2 pieces of ephemera, and 1 lithograph
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Papers, mainly 1873-1915, of Ginzburg, an author, journalist, and publisher, solely
consisting of material related to research on Anthony Comstock and the New York Society for
the Suppression of Vice. It contains research notes; copies of material gathered for
research, such as newspaper articles, arrest blotters, and bibliographies; and some original
materials, including correspondence, interview transcripts, and photographs. Comstock
(1844-1915) was an anti-vice reformer and the main proponent of the 1873 federal laws,
commonly known as the Comstock Laws, which ban obscene publications from the mails. Included
in the collection are many original files of Theodore Schroeder, a civil liberties lawyer, a
founder of the Free Speech League, and defender of many people prosecuted under the Comstock
laws. The collection also contains the arrest journal, 1940-1942, of Harry Kahan, an agent
for the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. This collection documents the work and
procedures of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and later anti-vice
societies; the personality and background of Anthony Comstock; and the effect anti-obscenity
laws had on those prosecuted, those doing the prosecuting, and society at large. There is
also some information on John Sumner, who followed Comstock as director of the New York
Society for the Suppression of Vice. Prominent correspondents and persons documented in the
collection include De Robigne M. Bennett, Ida Craddock, Edward Foote, Emma Goldman, Moses
Harman, Ezra Heywood, Ben Reitman, Margaret and William Sanger, George Bernard Shaw, Upton
Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, and activists in the Free Thought movement. The papers also
document Comstock's efforts to suppress abortion, contraceptives, gambling, and many works
of art, literature, and theater.
English
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