MBLC Celebrates 125 Years

Stock market crash headline, October 29, 1929¹

In 1929: The so-called "Massachusetts Library Club bill" was introduced by Representative Henry Shattuck in an attempt to amend the state's extreme obscenity law. The bill was unsuccessful², as was the appeal for Delacy and Sullivan, convicted for selling a copy of Lady Chatterly's Lover.³

TODAY: The American Library Association promotes free access to literature every September during Banned Books Week. In 2014, 311 challenges were recorded by the Office of Intellectual Freedom.⁴

What else happened in 1929?

• The first Academy Awards ceremony took place, with Wings winning Best Picture.⁴
• The first public demonstration of color TV was held by H. E. Ives and his colleagues at Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York.⁵
• The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as Black Tuesday, happened on October 29, 1929. It was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, ending the Roaring Twenties and marking the beginning of the Great Depression.⁶

References:
1. blogs.lib.uconn.edu [link].
2. Purity in Print - Google Books [link].
3. Banned in Boston - Google Books [link].
4. ala.org [link].
5. wikipedia.org [link].
6. history.com [link].