University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

From Inferno to Freedom: Censorship in the Chicago Public Library, 1910-1936

Novotny, Eric

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/55357

Description

Title
From Inferno to Freedom: Censorship in the Chicago Public Library, 1910-1936
Author(s)
Novotny, Eric
Issue Date
2014
Keyword(s)
  • censorship
  • intellectual freedom
  • chicago public library
  • Inferno
Abstract
In the first decades of the twentieth century, the Chicago Public Library employed a brand of casual candid censorship embraced by its peers. In 1910 the Chicago Tribune favorably reported on a so-called “Book Inferno” in the library; a metaphorical pit where works of questionable merit were hidden from immature readers. Patrons, especially juveniles, needed to convince a librarian of their honorable intentions before being granted access to works in the Inferno. By 1936, the same institution issued a forceful Intellectual Freedom statement that affirmed the right, and the obligation, of the library to provide access to books on any subject of interest to its readers, including controversial works. An examination of the treatment accorded controversial works in the Chicago Public Library in the decades preceding the 1936 Intellectual Freedom statement reveals both continuity and change in attitudes towards censorship.
Publisher
Johns Hopkins University Press and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ISSN
0024-2594
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/55357
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2014.0022
Copyright and License Information
Copyright (2014) Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Owning Collections

Library Trends 63 (1) Summer 2014: New Perspectives on Intellectual Freedom PRIMARY
Library Trends 63 (1) Summer 2014: New Perspectives on Intellectual Freedom. Edited by Mark McCallon.