Dirty works : obscenity on trial in America's first sexual revolution
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"This book focuses on a series of courtroom cases that were all represented by the same lawyer: Morris L. Ernst. Ernst's clients included European and American literati and sexual activists, among them Margaret Sanger, James Joyce, and Alfred Kinsey. They, along with a cast of burlesque theater owners and bookstore clerks, had run afoul of strict obscenity laws, and became actors in Ernst's legal theater that ultimately forced the law to recognize people's right to freely consume media. In this book, Brett Gary recovers the critically neglected Ernst as the most important legal defender of literary expression and reproductive rights by the mid-twentieth century. Each chapter centers on one or more key trials from Ernst's career battling censorship and obscenity laws, using them to tell a broader story of cultural changes and conflicts around sex, morality, and free speech ideals. These trials sets the stage, legally and culturally, for the sexual revolution of the 1960s and beyond. In the latter half of the century, the courts had a powerful body of precedents, many owing to Ernst's courtroom successes, that recognized adult interests in sexuality, women's needs for reproductive control, and the legitimacy of sexual inquiry."--,Provided by the publisher