20th Century Banned Books
This page will examine book banning trends in the U.S. during the 20th century. I aim to call out comparisons and differences between why books were being challenged vs why they’re facing bans today. What has changed culturally and politically since these cases and what hasn’t? Just as it is impossible to say that all collected data on current book ban attempts and removals is 100% accurate, there’s no way of guaranteeing that the below published dataset of cases from the 20th century is complete. These select instances are pulled from Robert P. Doyle’s Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read. They do not make up the total compilation published in his book.
What Did Authors Have to Say?
Use the dropdown in the top left corner to filter iconic 20th century works by reason for being banned in schools and/or libraries. What do you notice about the terminology used to categorize reasons for removing the content back then compared to what you notice in the table on U.S. Book Banning Trends?
Read the quotes from each author to see what they had to say about someone(s) attempting to restrict access to their work. Do you think authors of 21st century-titles that face similar banning attempts would agree or disagree with any of their points?