Anthony Comstock (1844–1915)
Traps for the Young
New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1883
General Research Division
Traps for the Young
Anthony Comstock was a founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and inspector for the United States Post Office Department who believed that his vision of Christian morality should structure law and policy. After successfully pushing for a bill in New York state that prohibited “obscene literature” and rendered contraceptives, abortifacients, and their advertisements illegal by labeling them “immoral,” Comstock took his campaign to Washington. In 1873 Congress passed the Comstock Act, which suppressed the “Trade in, and Circulation of, obscene Literature and Articles of immoral Use.” Comstock further articulated his views on the dangers of “evil reading” in Traps for the Young. The Comstock Act was never repealed, and opponents of abortion today cite it in efforts to prohibit sending pills for medical abortion through the mail.
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