02858nam a2200409Ia 4500 ebr10031953 CaPaEBR 20260707174333.0 m u cr cn||||||||| 960430s1997 njua sb 001 0 eng d 96003013 069102779X (cloth : alk. paper) CaPaEBR CaPaEBR (OCoLC)647243862 HN90.M6 B45 1997eb 306/.0973 20 74740 64227 Beisel, Nicola Kay. 102114 Imperiled innocents [electronic resource] : Anthony Comstock and family reproduction in Victorian America / Nicola Beisel. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1997. x, 275 p. : ill. ; 25 cm. Princeton studies in American politics Includes bibliographical references (p. [255]-268) and index. Moral reform movements claiming to protect children began to emerge in the United States over a century ago, most notably when Anthony Comstock and his supporters crusaded to restrict the circulation of contraceptive devices, information on the sexual rights of women, and "obscene" art and literature. Much of their rhetoric influences debates on issues surrounding children and sexuality today. In a book filled with Victorian accounts of pregnant girls, prostitutes, abortionists, Free Lovers, and others deemed "immoral," Nicola Beisel argues that rhetoric about the moral corruption of children speaks to an ongoing parental concern: that children will fail to replicate or exceed their parents' social position. In a rare analysis of Anthony Comstock's crusade with the New York and New England Societies for the Suppression of Vice, Beisel examines how the reformer worked on the anxieties of the upper classes. Showing how a moral crusade can bring a society's diffuse anxieties to focus on specific sources, Beisel offers a fresh theoretical approach to moral reform movements. Electronic reproduction. Palo Alto, Calif. : ebrary, 2009. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ebrary affiliated libraries. Comstock, Anthony, 1844-1915. 102115 Child rearing Moral and ethical aspects. 751 Censorship United States History 19th century. 102116 Social mobility United States. 42548 United States Moral conditions History 19th century. 102117 United States Social life and customs 1865-1918. Electronic books. local 190 ebrary, Inc. 191 Princeton studies in American politics. 52352 http://site.ebrary.com/lib/strathmore/Doc?id=10031953 An electronic book accessible through the World Wide Web; click to view 74740 64227