part, Stratemeyer’s books took the form of mystery stories in which youngsters solve
crimes. His books were popular with children, but some adults found them
objectionable and tried to discourage young people from reading them.
Librarians played a prominent role in the campaign against series books. During the
early decades of the twentieth century, the Library Journal, the Wilson Bulletin, and other
periodicals intended for librarians frequently published articles attacking them. The
librarians who wrote these articles argued that they should be banned from public
libraries because they gave children ‘a false ideal of life’. These librarians especially
disliked the unrealistically drawn child heroes, protesting time and again that series
books’ heroes were too adult-like. According to these librarians, reading about such
characters aroused feelings of discontent in children, causing them to behave
disrespectfully toward adults. Mary E.S.Root, a leading figure among American
librarians, brought the movement to eliminate series books from public libraries to a
head in 1929. She compiled a list of over sixty that she argued should ‘not be circulated
by standardised libraries’ which appeared in the January 1929 issue of the Wilson
Bulletin, and it sparked a lively debate in the pages of the the Bulletin about whether or
not librarians should attempt to censor children’s reading materials (West 1988a: 27–
30).
This controversy subsided in the 1930s, and there was not another major campaign to
censor children’s reading materials until the late 1940s when comic books came under
fire. Fredrick Wertham, a New York psychiatrist, emerged as the central figure in the
movement to restrict children’s access to them. Wertham especially disliked horror and
crime comic books, but he also disapproved of superhero comic books, such as
Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Like the critics of penny dreadfuls and dime
novels, Wertham argued that reading about violence and crime could lead children to
engage in violent or antisocial behaviour. He also claimed that comic books were
responsible for turning otherwise normal children into sadists and homosexuals. He
first made these charges in an article published in the Saturday Review of Literature in
1948 and elaborated on them in his book, Seduction of the Innocent (1954).
Wertham called for the passage of state laws prohibiting the sale of crime comic books
to children. In response to Wertham’s campaign, several New York state legislators
introduced a bill that would have made it a ‘misdemeanour to publish or sell comic
books dealing with crime, bloodshed or lust that might incite minors to violence or
immorality’. In March 1952, this bill was approved by both the New York State Assembly
and Senate, but the following month the governor vetoed it on the grounds that its
wording was so vague that it bordered on being unconstitutional.
Although the publishers of comic books felt relieved that the New York bill did not
become law, they realised that Wertham and his supporters might well succeed the next
time such a bill was proposed. Hoping to defuse the campaign, the publishers of comic
books adopted a programme of self-regulation. In September 1954, the Comics Magazine
Association of America, an organisation representing nearly all of the major publishers of
comic books, announced plans to adhere to a code of ethics, which was adopted the
following month. This code prohibited the glorification of criminals and the depiction of
all scenes of horror. A former judge was hired to enforce the code, and all comic books
that met with his approval bore a seal which read ‘Approved by the Comics Code
THE CONTEXT OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE 495