Amy Werbel's Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock

Reviewed by Marcela Micucci

Anthony Comstock was a household name in nineteenth-century America, so much so that his last name became synonymous with a movement and set of laws that sought to censor obscenity and eradicate vice. Historian Amy Werbel explores this anti-obscenity movement — and its champion — in her provocative and cutting-edge work, Lust on Trial: Censorship and the Rise of American Obscenity in the Age of Anthony Comstock (2018).

Gender & Sexuality, Gilded Age, Politics, Progressive Era, ReviewsGuest UserJune 19, 2018Anthony ComstockComment

A "Madhouse in all its Naked Ugliness and Horror": An Interview with Stacy Horn

Today on Gotham, associate editor David Thomson speaks with Stacy Horn, author of the new book Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th Century New York, about the dark history of Blackwell's Island, known more commonly today as Roosevelt Island.

Crime & Policing, Gilded Age, InterviewsGuest UserMay 15, 2018Comment

Rivers, Filth and Heat: Riverbaths and the Fight over Public Bathing

By Naomi Adiv

In the summer of 1870, New York City got its first municipal bath: swimming pools sunk into the rivers, through which river water flowed. An 1871 New York Times article describes them: “baths are of the usual house-like model, and have a swimming area of eighty-five feet in length by sixty-five feet in width. They are… provided with sixty-eight dressing-rooms, have offices and rooms in an additional story, and are well lighted with gas for night bathing.” In the year after they were built, the Department of Public Works reported that they were regularly used to their capacity, particularly on hot summer days. At their height, there were twenty-two such baths around the waters of New York City.

The Epistolarians

By Margaret A. Brucia

The nearly 300 letters were a jumbled heap— out of their envelopes, out of order, out of my field of expertise. But the moment I bargained for them that spring morning in the confusion of a Roman flea market, the academic focus of my life underwent a seismic shift, from the ancient Mediterranean world to New York City in the Gilded Age. Julia Gardiner Gayley’s letters, it turned out, were more than just interesting primary source material from the first three decades of the twentieth century, they were a passageway into the intimate lives of two strong, confident, articulate, independent-minded women. And they told a story worthy of Henry James or Edith Wharton, from the beginning of Mary’s Grand Tour of Italy in 1902 to her mother’s death in New York in 1937.

Arts & Culture, Gender & Sexuality, Gilded AgeGuest UserDecember 19, 2017Comment

The Fight for Suffrage in New York State

Reviewed by Marcela Micucci

November 6th marked 100 years of women’s suffrage in New York. While celebrations of the landmark event have echoed across the state this past year, perhaps the greatest commemoration to the centennial year has been historians’ reignited interest in New York suffragists and their struggle to win the vote. Leading the charge in this cadre of works are Johanna Neuman’s Gilded Suffragists and Susan Goodier and Karen Pastorello’s Women Will Vote.

Gender & Sexuality, Gilded Age, Progressive Era, ReviewsGuest UserNovember 28, 2017Comment