The nation’s earliest libraries had high hopes for enlightenment that often fell woefully short. They were subscription-based, meaning that only those who could afford them were allowed to join. Similarly, college libraries, like the one at Harvard, were just for students and faculty. Only as immigration and the population soared in the 19th century did government-funded libraries that served working-class Americans begin to open. Though these libraries frequently held foreign newspapers and books so that patrons could check the news in their home countries, their librarians also pushed assimilation efforts to Americanize new immigrants.
The U.S. government participated in its own acts of censorship during this time. The Comstock Act of 1873, meant to curb the nascent movement of women’s reproductive healthcare, affected both the publishing industry and libraries. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, founded by Anthony Comstock and his supporters, was particularly hard on libraries, forcing New York public libraries to withdraw classics like James Joyce’s Ulysses and D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover from their collections. All the while, Black patrons often found themselves without library access, especially in the Jim Crow South.
In the 20th century, censorship continued with German, Italian, and even Irish works and newspapers banned and locked down at the urging of both the government and concerned citizens. At the same time, amid the growing threat of fascism abroad, U.S. libraries at this time emerged as a great symbol of democracy. In addition to the passage of the Library Bill of Rights, during the lead-up to World War II, librarians publicly championed free speech in other ways—soliciting book donations, buying war bonds, and even participating in an on-the-ground effort to save materials from war-torn Europe.
Then came the postwar whiplash as public libraries got pulled into Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s coercive campaign to fight anything he deemed “communist” and “anti-American.” As part of his Cold War witch hunt, McCarthy opened up an investigation into Voice of America, the U.S. foreign-language broadcasting company, alleging it had capitulated to communism. He attacked the VOA’s overseas libraries, which were meant to represent American ideals and information abroad, and called for a list of authors that he had condemned as communists to be stripped from the shelves. Any librarians who refused faced inquiries into their own personal lives and histories.