A Crisis of Innocence

Browse Items (71 total)

Lethbridge Herald August 28 1948 crop.pdf
Discusses story of 14 year-old Roy Adams who suffocated and performed an "unnatural sex act" on an 8-year-old girl. The altercation allegedly took place following an argument about ownership of a comic book.

Interim Report of Committee on Judiciary.pdf
Deals with the findings of the Subcommittee To Investigate Juvenile Delinquency's exploration into the impact of mass media on youth and their behaviour.

Medicine Hat Daily News July 21 1948 crop.jpg
A review of an article published by Wertham. Looks to crime comics as the primary cause of juvenile delinquency in the United States.

Comics Held No Factor crop.jpg
Utilizes surveys in order to determine that comic books were not actually linked to juvenile delinquency. Rather, poor home life is truly the root cause for delinquency.

Comic Books Help Curb Delinquency.pdf
Discusses how the State Training School for Boys at Warwick N.Y decided to use comic books as a means of curbing delinquency. The comics utilized were written for the specific purpose of curbing youth violence.

Portland Press Herald March 26 1950 crop.jpg
The journalist speaks with children about why they read comic books, and what they think about the proposed ban on crime comics. Many of the children agree that banning the books would only make them more desirable.

Cedar Rapids Gazette October 17 1954.pdf
States that the public's reading tastes are changing as a result of newspaper coverage of the ongoing crisis. Some comic book publishers and distributors are choosing to self-censor, but this effort is not enough to protect children.

Crawling Evil.png
A young girl is told that all men are evil by her grandmother, who teaches her to hate them. She later learns witchcraft and begins to murder men.

8 provinces back opposition crop.jpg
Outlines the fact that eight provinces backed a proposal made by Canadian Justice Minister Garson, which made it a criminal offence to produce or distribute crime comics.

Portage La Prairie Leader March 27 1952 crop.jpg
Interview with a teacher, a deaconess, a child welfare expert and a youth regarding comic books. The general consensus is that better reading habits should be taught by teachers and parents.
Output Formats

atom, dc-rdf, dcmes-xml, json, omeka-xml, rss2