Harvard Bibliophiles Censure Censorship

Here’s A Great Quote from The Harvard Crimson from way back in 1924: “There are filthy books, salacious books, books corrupting in influence, which it is no part of the library’s duty to distribute to readers,” said the librarian, William C. Lane. What are those books you ask? No idea, they don’t say. Anyone have a copy of The Crimson from 1924?

October 5, 2007 by Censorship Libraries

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3 Responses

  1. John Overholt says:
    October 5, 2007 at 11:49 pm

    Which books?
    I doubt Lane would have sullied the minds of the impressionable young men reading the Crimson (not to mention giving them ideas for a reading list) by mentioning the titles in print.

    Incidentally, I initially read that quote as “There are fifty books…” which I thought seemed surprisingly specific, kind of like Joe McCarthy’s list of 205 Communists.

  2. Desert Sailor says:
    October 6, 2007 at 1:29 am

    Re:Which books?
    Remember that anti-censorship did not become a librarian article of faith until the 1930s. Librarians with a very few exceptions) happily censored books during WWI and before.

    charley
    retired

  3. Sheilah says:
    October 9, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    Ulysses for one
    According to ALA it was “Burned in the U.S. (1918), Ireland (1922), Canada (1922), England (1923)”.

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