For Right to Read Day 2026 the Magazines & Newspapers Department is taking a look back at the United States’ long history of stifling free speech and the right to read through the banning and censoring of, you guessed it, magazines and newspapers. While it’s important to document this history, it is also important to note that threats to our right to read are not confined to some distant past. The American Library Association’s (ALA) Unite Against Book Bans campaign found that “[f]rom January 2025 through March 2026, more than 100 pro-censorship bills were introduced in state legislatures. At least 40 bills would penalize libraries and library workers with lawsuits, fines, or even jail time for protecting people’s right to read.” These threats are, in fact, more real than they’ve been in quite some time.
While suppression of free speech in the United States is as old as the country itself – and was especially harsh to abolitionist papers before and during the Civil War – our story today starts in 1873 with a recurring character, the United States Postal Service. The USPS is the conduit for so much information access, and its regulation is the easiest way for censorious politicians to cut off that access. Anthony Comstock was a so-called anti-vice activist and a United States Postal Inspector. In 1873 he successfully lobbied Congress to pass the Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use, also known as the Comstock Act. This act made it illegal to use the USPS to distribute “obscene” literature, which was ill-defined and quite broad, and was amended to include the mailing of contraceptives and abortion-inducing medications, as well as printed information about those topics.
The Comstock Act is why birth control advocate and feminist Margaret Sanger fled the country in 1914. She was charged under the law for promoting contraception and abortion access via her monthly newsletter, The Woman Rebel. The law remains on the books, at least in part, and anti-abortion activists are attempting to use it to attack reproductive rights in a post-Dobbs world. You can read this article to learn more about the attempts to revive the Comstock Act and you can read over 50 years of the Smithsonian Magazine in our Magazines & Newspapers Room on the 2nd Floor of the Main Library.
In the 1940s, the Postmaster General, Frank Walker, used the Comstock Act – and related legislation – regularly to attack magazines that he took issue with. This included Esquire Magazine whose "Varga Girl” covers – pin-up style paintings of women by Peruvian-American artist Alberto Vargas – offended Walker’s sensibilities. Magazines and smaller newspapers relied on cheaper second-class postage – now called Periodical Class Mail – and the Postmaster General could revoke access to that postage on a whim using the Comstock Act. In the Congressional Record from May 3, 1943, you can read a list of the publications that Walker suppressed; it includes such terrifying titles as Romantic Story magazine and Famous Fantastic Mysteries. It got to such a point that the editor of Esquire would deliver a draft of the magazine to the USPS for approval before printing. Even now, to qualify for Periodical Class Mail your publication must have the “primary purpose of transmitting information,” a vague and ill-defined requirement that is subject to the interpretation of the USPS and its current political appointees.
In addition to the Comstock Act, there were several other pieces of federal legislation that have been used extensively to infringe on the right to read and, again, they leaned on the United States Postal Service for enforcement. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson and his Postmaster General, Sidney Burleson, utilized the newly created Espionage Act of 1917 and its amendment, the Sedition Act of 1918, to close down publications, stop the distribution of certain issues of newspapers and magazines, and take individual journalists to court. Despite their titles, these acts had little to do with real espionage and sedition and were instead focused on censoring and chilling free speech that the administration took issue with. Their primary targets were anyone opposing the war, Black newspapers and magazines, non-English publications, socialist papers, and progressive causes in general.
Though many of the attacks came from Burleson himself, local postmasters could also intervene in the distribution of materials they disliked. In the South, this power was used by local postmasters to specifically stop distribution of the Black press. Targets included The Chicago Defender – which was founded in 1905 and continues to this day – and W.E.B. DuBois’ Crisis. You can read decades of Crisis in the Magazines & Newspapers Room and you can find over 100 years of The Chicago Defender online thanks to OPL’s access to Proquest’s Historic Black Newspapers collection.
Over the course of Burleson’s time as Postmaster General he deemed 74 publications entirely “unmailable” – meaning he revoked their right to discounted postage rates – and stopped the distribution of countless other individual issues. This included an issue of the Amsterdam News, a Black newspaper from New York that is still in publication, that argued against Black soldiers dying for a country in which lynchings still took place with impunity. In addition to outright censorship, this repressive activity sought to push these publications towards self-censorship under the specter of punishment. Much of this information regarding President Wilson's WWI-era censorship come from this Mother Jones article and you can read nearly 50 years worth of Mother Jones in the Magazines & Newspapers Room.
Beyond federal legislation and USPS policy, there are numerous other ways the government has suppressed and censored magazines and newspapers in the United States. These include city councils and library boards banning materials, as was the case in Oklahoma at the Bartlesville Public Library with its inspiring, legendary librarian, Ruth Brown. Brown – a white woman – joined two of her Black friends at a lunch counter in town in 1950 in an act of civil disobedience opposing segregation. In retaliation – weaponizing the Cold War and anti-communist sentiment – a group of locals accused the library of stocking “subversive” material such as The Nation, and The New Republic (both of which are available to read in the Magazines & Newspapers Room). Brown eventually lost her job when a city commission appointed an entirely new library board specifically to fire her. This is a clear example of the use of censorship as a means to a greater political end, and evidence of the slippery slope created by the suppression of speech.
Another tactic that has often been employed by the government and politicians is their own use of speech. This could include the convening of committees, the creation of lists (such as “subversive, “communist,” or “obscene” publications), speeches, public declarations, quotes given to reporters, and so on. Though not necessarily legislative or outright censorship these tactics still have a chilling effect on the press and can sway public opinion. One such example is the somewhat confounding attacks that Consumer Reports faced in the middle of the 20th Century. Its parent organization, Consumer Union, was subject to accusations of communism in the 1930s and was even placed on a list of “subversive” organizations by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1944. You can read more about that history here and you can read Consumer Reportsin the Magazines & Newspapers Room. We assure you that you will not be subjected to any extreme left-wing ideology in its pages unless you consider buying an appliance that won’t catch on fire to be radical.
Finally, the government has used covert – often illegal – investigations to intimidate, harass, and suppress publications. Most famously, the FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950s-1970s, used its Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to surveil socialist and communist groups, the American Indian Movement, the Black Panther Party and others. This, of course, included the BPP’s newspaper, The Black Panther, which can be viewed on microfilm at the Magazines & Newspapers Room or online using your OPL card here. Many other publications in the so-called Underground Press were targeted and, thanks to an incredible online collection from JSTOR called Independent Voices, you can read dozens of those “subversive” publications. We recommend The Berkeley Barb for a little local flavor. Again, while not outright censorship, the purpose was to intimidate and threaten publications – and individuals at those publications – enough for them to pack up shop or, at least, soften their rhetoric.
Considering the kinds of extreme political rhetoric that you can find online today with the tapping of a few keys and the touch of a button, these stories might seem quaint and outdated. Or you might assume that a place like Oakland couldn’t possibly have censorship concerns in 2026. However, our colleagues at libraries across the country continue to face challenges to books and periodicals, especially in our school libraries and children’s collections. And it is important to remember that those who are interested in suppressing our right to read are unlikely to want to stop there.
Add a comment to: The Right to Read Periodicals: Censorship of Magazines & Newspapers in the U.S.