The Man Who Hated Women: Sex, Censorship, and Civil Liberties in the Gilded Age

National Archives Museum
Online

Anthony Comstock, special agent to the U.S. Post Office, was one of the most important men in the lives of 19th-century women. His eponymous law, passed in 1873, imposed long prison sentences and steep fines for the mailing of contraception and obscenity. In her new book, The Man Who Hated Women, Amy Sohn presents a narrative history of Comstock and the remarkable women who opposed his war on women’s rights at the turn of the 20th century. Joining Sohn in conversation today will be journalist and author Elizabeth Mitchell.