The legal aspects of censorship of public school library and instructional materials

Historical research determines that censorship based on politics, religion, or morality has been a continual issue from early recorded history of man to the present. American settlers brought with them to the new world a heritage of suppression of reading matter by church and state. Censorship of obscenity in reading matter began in the early eighteenth century in the New England colonies; however, it did not become a legal issue in the United States until the early 1800s. From that time until the present, obscenity has been a matter of concern for the judiciary. This study presents an historical perspective of censorship in order to develop the history of censorship in the United States. A definition of obscenity is given as it has evolved through the judiciary from the nineteenth century until the present