As a librarian who purchases children's books, I am deeply concerned about recent surges in book-banning as documented by the American Library Association, PEN America, and other organizations. One incident that made headlines all over the country, in part because of the large number of titles it involved, took place just down the road from me in York County. Although censorship isn't new, one thing that feels new, is how some groups and individuals are taking what I'd call the "nuclear approach," seeking purges of sweeping amounts of material (as occurred in York) and demanding that librarians be criminally prosecuted for making them available the public. Some librarians have faced online harrassment and even death threats for speaking out about it.
With these issues in mind, my attention tends to zoom-in whenever I uncover historical examples of censorship. This week, while I was digging within old records at the Barbara Moscato Brown Memorial Library, I found a fascinating example from Emporium, a tiny borough in Pennsylvania's smallest county. The year was 1977, and the book was Daniel Keyes's Flowers for Algernon. Flowers is award-winning science fiction novel that was developed into a movie (Charly) in which Cliff Robertson gave an Oscar-winning performance. It was also adapted into a Broadway musical, Charlie and Algernon, that was nominated for a Tony award and was a popular choice for drama clubs in the 1980s. When I was in school, Flowers was also one of the most frequently banned books in the country, largely because of portions that describe the main character's sexual thoughts and experiences. However, this is part of a larger, valuable exploration of the lives of people with disabilities and how intelligence relates (or doesn't relate) to happiness. The broader themes within Flowers are why Cameron County High School and other secondary institutions sometimes assigned it.
From research I've done elsewhere, I already knew there was a significant backdrop to Emporium's/Cameron County's story. I won't rehash how social and publishing norms changed during the period, but court cases and legislative action in Pennsylvania are important because they figure within the controversy that unfolded. Miller v. California (1973) was (still is) the most relevant Supreme Court case related to book bans based on obscenity, and the "Miller Test" which was derived from it emphasized the definition of obscenity in state law. In response, some Pennsylvania legislators pushed for changes to our Crimes Code. As of the mid-late 1970s, the PA House and Senate had passed SB 727, which was vetoed in March 1974 by Governor Milton Schapp. The state Supreme Court, in Commonwealth v. McDonald (1975) ruled that the unrevised code was unconstitutionally vague -- a problem that was addressed by SB 199, which passed the legislature in 1977 and that Schapp signed into law. SB 199 defined obscenity as any materials which, "to the average person applying contemporary community standards, has as its dominant theme, taken as a whole, an appeal to prurient interest." Though the law goes on to define what types of sexual depictions are prohibited, the bits about "average person" and "community standards" give everyday Pennsylvanians some voice in determining what is acceptable. That wording remains in present law.
During the mid-1970s, when Pennsylvania didn't seem to have a workable obscenity law, some citizens advocated for new rules at the county and local level. The incident in Emporium was spurred by a group called the Elk-Cameron Citizens for Decency through Law (ECCDL) that formed in Spring 1976 because of ongoing concerns about pornography. Inspired by the national Citizens for Decency through Law, they established their own chapter and obtained assistance from the Elk County District Attorney's office, producing a proposed anti-obscenity ordinance modeled on ones that had been developed in Luzerne County and in Monroeville (Allegheny County). They also worked to gain seats on the boards of public institutions and suppress objectionable materials that way. ECCDL even succeeded in driving out Ted Smeal, a long-serving public librarian in St. Mary's who resisted creating a separate section for "adult" books and who spoke unabashedly about his concerns to the press (see David Venditta, "Librarian Casualty of Censorship War," Bradford Era, June 6, 1977, and "Smeal Resigns Library Post," Bradford Era, June 9, 1977).
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| Raymond E. "Ray" Vercellino, Librarian at the Cameron County Public Library. Image from the December 14, 1989 issue of the Cameron County Echo . |
In Cameron County, CCPL librarian Raymond E. "Ray" Vercellino was definitely aware of what had happened in St. Mary's. Within the library's administrative files, there is a folder on "Censorship," labeled in Vercellino's handwriting, that contains newsclippings (cited above) about Smeal's troubles. Given what had happened to his colleague just a few miles down the road, Vercellino could have chosen to keep silent. In fact, when I read the clippings in the folder, that's what I had expected he'd do. Certainly, the American Library Association's strong stance in favor of intellectual freedom had existed for decades -- see its Library Bill of Rights, adopted in 1953, and its Freedom to Read Statement, adopted in 1953. However, during the 1970s many rural Pennsylvania library employees were not professionally engaged at the national level. Some were struggling even to meet the education requirements that the State Library of Pennsylvania had recently implemented as a condition for state aid. Moreover, Vercellino was relatively new to librarianship. He had a bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and had worked at Sylvania Electronics from 1948 to 1970. The monthly and "year-end" reports that he wrote tended to be statistical and straight-to-the-point, focused on quantitative information that technical-types tend to understand. For CCPL to receive its share of state funds, he took correspondence courses in librarianship through the University of Utah and he attended in-state trainings when opportunities became available. But I couldn't guess how much of the library profession's ethical beliefs he had absorbed by the time censorship raised its ugly head in Emporium.
However, when I looked at CCPL Board of Trustees meeting minutes from the 1970s, I found that Vercellino had an interest in free speech, or, at least, he was opposed to censors usurping decisions that were his or the trustees' prerogative. In 1973, he informed the board that J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye had been removed from the Smethport (McKean County) high school's reading list after a parent had objected to it. Even though the book remained on-shelf at Smethport's public library, Vercellino felt the incident was worth knowing about because it was "the first censorship problem in the Seneca area" (CCPL Board Minutes, April 26, 1973). Two years later, there was another (unspecified) "censorship problem" in St. Mary's -- likely the opening salvo that ultimately led to Ted Smeal's downfall. In response, Vercellino prepared an addendum to CCPL's Materials Selection Policy that created a procedure for public complaints and he urged the board to adopt it. When I read it, I was surprised at how relevant and useful it was, even in the present day. Like current policies of this kind, it asked complainants to include quotations and page numbers, indicate the general theme of the book, seek out reviews, and make other efforts to inform themselves about the overall content in addition to describing their dislikes.
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| Cameron County Public Library's 1975 policy and procedure for handling book challenges. From the Administrative Office Vertical Files, folder "Censorship." |
As it turned out, Vercellino had acted just in time. Less than 2 years later, conflict erupted in Emporium when a high school English teacher, Richard Onorato, chose Flowers as a reading for his 11th grade English class. Immediately upon complaints from a local minister (likely John Coppick, the pastor of Rich Valley Wesleyan Church) and 3 parents, the Cameron County School Board removed all 70 copies from Onorato's class, pending further action. An ad hoc committee of three teachers was asked to evaluate Flowers and they affirmed its literary value. Cameron County's School Superintendent Robert Morrison and High School Principal Gordon Meredith also recommended that the book be retained as a course reading. It appears that the 5-member school board was divided over the issue. As a "compromise" measure, they voted 3-2 to withdraw the book from the curriculum, but keep a copy in the school library as optional reading ("School Board Meeting Draws Different Views," Cameron County Echo, March 16, 1977). At some point, the town's radio station, WLEM, hosted a one-hour broadcast about Flowers which included a call-in by author Daniel Keyes. Unfortunately, the station doesn't have a recording or transcript of the program, but a newspaper account notes that Keyes said he "would be very saddened if the experience of Charly were denied to the people of Emporium." The reporter also said that other callers were "about evenly divided over the ban" (David Venditta, "Dispute Lingers on in Tiny Emporium," Bradford Era, June 6, 1977).
In collaboration with various priests and ministers in the region, the ECCDL declared March 20th, 1977 as "Decency Sunday" to "give people an opportunity to seriously reflect on the problem of obscenity in the community" and "enlighten the community about what can be done" (ECCDL, editorial, Cameron County Echo, March 16, 1977). Ministers circulated petitions among their congregations and placed copies in local business, obtaining "hundreds" of signatures within the week. While the petition only called for an obscenity ordinance that would "preserve our Traditional Judeo-Christian Heritage," Flowers was clearly a focus of the group's concerns. Citing pages 140-146 as "corrupting to minors," one clergyman argued that the school board is "our elected body" and that "we hope they will be responsive to the needs and standards of the communities that pay their salaries" (John D. Alden, editorial, Cameron County Echo, March 23, 1977).
An Associated Press story picked up by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Dispatch, and other papers around the state make it seem like religious leaders and the school board had little opposition. But judging from editorials in the Cameron County Echo, Ray Vercellino chimed-in on at least 3 (possibly 4) occasions. And he was not mealy-mouthed about it. For the March 16th issue of the Echo, he and J. Lynn Gross co-signed an opinion piece submitted by Richard A. Sarrick (another CCPL library employee) that sarcastically suggested that all the community's objectionable books be gathered up and publicly burned. They then pointed out similarities between the school board's actions and "recent world history" (probably a reference to authoritarian regimes in Germany or the U.S.S.R.). They ended with a strong statement that the decision to censor belonged to "individual parents, not to a group of vigilantes who wish to impose their standards on others and their children." On pg. 14 of the same issue, an article entitled "Freedom to Read" articulated CCPL's official position that censorship efforts "rest[ed] on the denial of the very fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary citizen, by exercising his critical judgment, will accept the good and reject the bad." The library believed that "Americans [did] not "need the help of censors" and "[were] not prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be 'protected' against what others think my be bad for them." In short, CCPL "most emphatically support[ed] free enterprise in ideas and expression." This piece was very likely written by Vercellino, because it reprints, verbatim, a letter that he had composed to Bruno Carnivale, the Vice-President of Emporium's Borough Council.
The following week, has Vercellino heard misinformed comments in everyday conversations, or he read them in other editorials, he dispensed with them one by one in the pages of the Echo. For example, after someone posited that teachers and librarians censor when they decide not to purchase or retain certain works, he flatly rejected that idea as "pure nonsense." A key difference between educators and censors, he reasoned, was that educators look for positive reasons to buy or keep a book, and they trust the public's intelligence in judging materials on their merits. Censors, on the other hand, cherrypick "objectionable" features, and only believe in their own "superiority." (Vercellino, editorial, Cameron County Echo, March 30, 1977). Then, on April 7th, after a resident charged that schools and libraries were only allowed to purchase items that appeared on left-leaning, state-authorized lists, Vercellino spoke up again. Noting that this was "absurd," he asserted that "neither the Cameron County Commissioners nor the Pennsylvania State legislators have ever attempted to dictate to us on materials selection" (editorial, Cameron County Echo, April 6, 1977). Insofar as he was speaking about public libraries, I believe he was correct, though the state certainly had a significant history of producing bibliographies of recommended titles that could have been perceived as conveying some kind of proscription.
To Emporium's credit, most of the opinions published in the Echo in March and April 1977 criticized the school board's actions. The three teachers who had been asked to evaluate Flowers's suitability for classroom reading -- Mary Kuhn, Douglas Bleggi, and Charlotte Woodley -- cited portions of the Cameron County School Code which gave teachers the authority to select instructional materials and well as giving them a responsibility to defend students' freedom to read. They also noted Richard Onorato's professionalism and integrity, his 16 years of service in the district, and the fact that books were removed from his classroom before he'd had the opportunity to defend himself. Other residents chimed in too. For example, Conny Noah, whose 5 children had been educated in Emporium public schools, assured administrators that her kids' strong "morals and mental fortitude" would not be corrupted by one book, and while she believed that those who objected to Flowers were well-meaning, the board should not have acted in such a "drastic" and "off-handed" way (editorial, Cameron County Echo, March 16, 1977). Laura Reid also wrote with concern that most students, teachers, and parents weren't consulted, and that the decision to ban Flowers robbed teenagers from learning about the "big, bad world" they were about to enter (editorial, Cameron County Echo, April 6, 1977). Dolores M. Rinehuls worried that individuals' "rights were being eroded" and that banning Flowers was just "the first step toward total censorship." She adamantly urged her neighbors to "Stop!!!" and "Think!!!" before they signed the ECCDL's petition to create an obscenity ordinance (editorial, Cameron County Echo, April 6, 1977). Significantly, the high school's Student Council undertook a survey of 11th and 12th graders -- an admirably thorough effort to establish exactly what average people applying contemporary standards thought. They found that the board had "bowed to a vocal minority" and had "failed to take into consideration the majority views of [those] directly involved." According to Student Council President Kelly Baker, 73 of the school's 118 students had read Flowers, and among them, only 3 felt it was objectionable ("Survey Results Presented to School Board," Cameron County Echo, April 20, 1977).
Although I made reasonable efforts to track down all the facts about this fascinating story, some gaps remain. It appears that the Bradford Era provided the most thorough coverage of book banning controversies in the region, but I don't currently have access to that paper beyond the clippings I found in Vercellino's files (the Era been digitized by NewspaperArchive, but the site has been down for months). I also haven't had an opportunity to search newspapers in Smethport or St. Mary's because they are not available online. I didn't even have time to hand-search issues of the (undigitized) Cameron County Echo beyond March and April 1977. Most importantly of all, I didn't tap any of the people who lived through 1977 events. While most are deceased, I suspect that Vercellino may still be living. If he is, I'd love to talk to him!
One burning question is how Vercellino's attitudes toward censorship and free speech developed, and what moved him to speak out publicly despite the terrible consequences such action could have had. I'd also like to know if the Warren Public Library, which served as the District Library Center for the region and provided professional consultation and educational programs to district librarians, helped to cultivate the strong Freedom to Read ethic that Ted Smeal and Ray Vercellino espoused. I'm also curious how long the Elk-Cameron Citizens for Decency through Law lasted, and whether Flowers was ever reinstated in Cameron County High School's curriculum.
Although my knowledge is incomplete, I can say that this story ended on a positive note, at least for Ray Vercellino and the Cameron County Public Library / Barbara Moscato Brown Memorial Library. He remained in his position until 1989, and to this day the library has a copy of Flowers for Algernon. It is in a back storage room along with other literary classics and historical items -- not popular enough to take space away from more recent fiction in public areas, but not yet ready for the book sale or dust bin. In fact, BMBML's copy may be the very same one that was available in the 1970s. It is a low-cost 1970s reprint of a 1967 Bantam edition, and it shows signs of heavy use. It is rebound in green buckram and the date-due card, still tucked within an inside pocket, is covered front and back with stamps that show it was borrowed dozens of times.
In the 50 years that have passed, many more books about people with disabilities have been published, and there surely are other titles that better speak to today's students. But, at least for Emporium, this beat-up copy of Flowers for Algernon is an important local history artifact. Some of its markings date from 1978 and later, affirming Vercellino's belief that at least some people in town continued to want to read and judge the book for themselves, despite what their pastors and neighbors said about it.
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| Barbara Moscato Brown Memorial Library's copy of Flowers for Algernon. Strong support of the book by librarian Ray Vercellino and others at the library helped keep it on-shelf. Photo by the author. |
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