Debbie Nathan

Ah yes, children and porn. Children consuming porn, I mean: a venerable American past time. Did you know you can check out its history for free, next time you visit our nation’s capital? I did and here’s what I learned.

Exactly a century ago, in 1908, a middle-aged storekeeper named Pasquale Eliseo, of 119th Street and First Avenue in New York City’s East Harlem, was busted on obscenity charges. His arrest happened after notorious vice Czar Anthony Comstock, sneaking around town undercover, watched while Eliseo “gleefully showed his rot” to some children.

What sort of rot? Eliseo, according to Comstock, “Dealt in most sacrilegious and blasphemous books & papers. Awfull!!” (Yes, “awfull” with two “l’s”.) According to Comstock, Eliseo kept “ob.” – Comstock’s shorthand for “obscene” –- materials in his store and “took young men into [the] basement to sell them books.” Worse, he peddled ob. right on the street, where he made a habit of “exposing pictures in full view of boys and girls.” These were probably “French postcards,” and when Comstock happened upon Eliseo, the latter was hawking them at a penny apiece. It’s not clear if he had any paying customers, but he clearly attracted some very enthusiastic young window shoppers.

Such details come from a tall, narrow logbook that Comstock kept for decades. He used it to tabulate his obscenity arrests — in muddy, cramped handwriting, and language so fevered that it often came out misspelled and weirdly punctuated. The logbook has been microfilmed by the Library of Congress, in Washington. It’s a popular item in the rare manuscripts collection there, and recently while visiting DC, I skipped the Lincoln Memorial and instead enjoyed the fruits of my taxpayer money by perusing Comstock’s records.

What a glorious institution the LOC is! It houses a copy of almost every book ever published in this country (and many from other countries besides). Its librarians practically trip over themselves to help patrons. Reading rooms are well-appointed and inviting; the cafeteria food scrumptious and cheap. There’s no charge to use these facilities. The LOC: a people’s palace for research and knowledge. Makes you feel downright patriotic!…Even as you follow the creepy archival trail of federal official Comstock as he harassed citizens and worked hard to repress our culture.

A small town druggist turned moral crusader, Comstock came to power after the end of the Civil War, when he was appointed by New York State and the U.S. Post office as the big-wig, anti-obscenity cop. At first, he mainly went after people who advocated for and provided birth control, sex education, and other means of sexual pleasure – including toys. One such early Comstock victim is listed in his logbook is a “shrewd villain” who was “Notorious as an abortionist.” There’s also the “low ignorant laborer” who “advertised himself as an MD and celebrated physician for treatment of female complaints” –- yet was really “An abortionist.” Thanks to Comstock, this man got one year and three months at an upstate penitentiary.

Also arrested was someone named Brinckerhoff and “one Travis of Goodyear Rubber Glove Co.,” who jointly “invented a substitute for a dildoe.” Comstock gloated that he actually seized “the article.” He added that the subsequent guilty verdict made this a “test case of great importance.”

Comstock was also obsessed with protecting children from dirty materials. He wrote that he arrested a man who “used to loan the vilest Books, to young boys & girls, and sell to school children. His wife to girls & he to boys & young men. He was convicted in Special Sessions, in Summer of 1868, by myself.” (more…)