Robert W. McAfee: The Comstock of Chicago

By the end of the nineteenth century, nearly every state had enacted or revised some sort of anti-obscenity statute, and eight of the country’s ten largest cities had an anti-vice society. This blog post spotlights one understudied arm of the apparatus: Robert W. McAfee. Although McAfee never rivaled Comstock’s prominence in the press and in public imagination, he was instrumental to the expansion and daily operation of the Comstock regime across stretches of the Midwest, Upper South, and Great Plains.

Abortion, Contraception, and the Comstock Law’s Original Medical Exemption, 1873-1936

The Comstock Act of 1873 was not meant to be, nor did it ever function as, a total abortion ban. This fact is important to emphasize in our current political moment because those who want to revive the statute have argued that the Comstock Act is an existing (if dormant) law that already bans abortion on a federal level. They have also argued that the law completely outlawed abortion in the past. The statute’s legislative and enforcement history, however, tells a different story. It was first and foremost a law about obscenity and sexual purity.

Comstock, Reconstruction Politics, and Moral Surveillance

It is best to think of Anthony Comstock’s campaign against vice as a response to Reconstruction that afflicted the nation long after that period was over. Comstock’s rise in the 1870s was not organic; it was backed by wealthy patrons engaged in intense political fighting over issues such as racial equality, taxation, and democracy. And although Comstock began by arresting vendors of so-called obscene goods, he soon expanded his portfolio, pursuing folks of every race and gender engaged in erotic, profane, or blasphemous correspondence.

Anthony Comstock and the Comstock Laws: A JGAPE Forum Preview

This blog series aims to provide vital historical context for those seeking to understand the modern revival of Anthony Comstock and his namesake law. The Comstock Act has never been repealed and remains part of Sections 1461 and 1462 in the United States Code, although many Americans have little to no idea about the details of this law, if they have even heard of it. Anthony Comstock himself seems like an odd joke today: a repressed, puritanical, anti-sex reformer and a relic of a bygone past. And yet, because the act has been revived as a strategy for limiting access to reproductive healthcare, Comstock is no joke.

Minding the GAPE – July 2024

Rhubarb recipes, designing Times Square, presidential age concerns of the past, violence against elected officials in historical context, keeping cool before air conditioning, centuries of the “cat lady” trope, and much more.

Minding the GAPE – June 2024

“Forty Acres and a Lie,” the life of Nellie Bly, Coca-Cola and racism, a dangerous flying machine, a new database for African American genealogy, historical cat photos, and much more.

New Light on the Progressive Movement

The progressive period, much like our own times, was an era of tension, change, and new ideas and policies replacing old ones. Historians’ attention has focused mostly on progressivism at the national level. Federal-level reform naturally gets highlighted due to its nationwide impact, but the states often set the pace and were the proving ground and prototypes for regulation later enacted at Washington.

SHGAPE Research Grant Winner Virtual Presentation

The SHGAPE Events Committee invites you to hear the winner of SHGAPE’s inaugural (2022) research grant award, Dr. John R. Legg, who will present a virtual talk on “Little Six and Medicine Bottle: a Reexamination of Dakota Mobility and US Army Retribution After the US-Dakota War.”

2024 Prize and Grant Winners

The Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era is pleased to announce our 2024 prize and grant winners, recently celebrated at our annual SHGAPE luncheon at OAH.