| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Against Obscenity: Reform and the Politics of Womanhood in America, 1873–1935. By Leigh Ann Wheeler. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. xvi, 251 pp. $44.95, ISBN 0-8018-7802-0.)
Against Obscenity is a welcome addition to the growing historiography of obscenity and censorship in twentieth-century America. Building on Andrea Friedman's pathbreaking Prurient Interests (2000), which focused on New York City, Leigh Ann Wheeler looks at women's antiobscenity movements in Minneapolis. Her research delves into records of women's clubs and the private papers of their upper-class members. It is supplemented by research into the papers of Will Hays, the movie czar, other industry records, and local and national publications.	1
Wheeler tells the tale of "maternalist" reform (p. 3) in the Twin Cities, tracing, in particular, the bitter rivalry between two locals who rose to national prominence in the "politics of womanhood" (p. 2): Alice Ames Winter, leader of the General Federation of Women's Clubs and ally of Will Hays in the "better films" movement; and Catheryne Cooke Gilman, officer in the local Women's Cooperative Alliance, the National Parent and Teachers Association, and the Motion Picture Council, who strongly promoted federal censorship of movies.	. . .

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