Censorship and Early Retirement
The Kefauver Hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1957 marked the beginning of the end of Irving Klaw's mail-order photography business in New York. The investigation tried to link pornography to juvenile delinquency. The McCarthy-style hearings branded Klaw as a degenerate pornographer and ushered in a new wave of media censorship. Bettie Page was also summoned to the hearings but was never called to testify. (Parts of the hearings are recreated in the film The Notorious Bettie Page.) She retired from modeling soon afterwards.
Because of the political, social, and legal pressures he faced, Klaw closed his storefront business and burned many of his negatives. It is estimated that more than 80 percent of the negatives were destroyed. However, his sister Paula secretly kept some of the better images, which can be seen today.
Read more about this topic: Irving Klaw
Famous quotes containing the words censorship, early and/or retirement:
“... a phallocentric culture is more likely to begin its censorship purges with books on pelvic self-examination for women or books containing lyrical paeans to lesbianism than with See Him Tear and Kill Her or similar Mickey-Spillanesque titles.”
—Robin Morgan (b. 1941)
“An early dew woos the half-opened flowers”
—Unknown. The Thousand and One Nights.
AWP. Anthology of World Poetry, An. Mark Van Doren, ed. (Rev. and enl. Ed., 1936)
“Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)