Ralph Ginzburg was born in Brooklyn, New York on October 28, 1929. He received his B.A. in
journalism from the City College of New York and pursued graduate studies in American
literature at Brooklyn College. He served in the United States Army from 1950 to 1951,
during which time he worked for the Public Information Office.
During the 1950s Ginzburg had many different jobs in the field of journalism including:
copyboy, reporter, and rewriteman for the New York Daily
Compass and the Washington Times-Herald;
circulation-promotion chief for Look; editor for Esquire; and freelance writer for Reader's
Digest, Collier's, and Saturday Evening Post.
In the 1960s Ginzburg began working as an independent publisher of several periodicals,
including Eros, Fact, Avant-Garde, Moneysworth, American Business, and Better
Living. He is perhaps most famous for the controversy surrounding Eros, an
expensive, hardcover publication which billed itself as a “quarterly devoted to the
subjects of Love and Sex” for the “American intellectual community.” The
first issue was published in 1962, and only four issues appeared before Ginzburg was forced
to stop publishing due to charges brought against him under various anti-obscenity laws. His
case made its way to the United States Supreme Court, and it is considered one of the
Court's landmark decisions on First Amendment Rights. On March 21, 1966 the Supreme Court
upheld Ginzburg's conviction on obscenity charges for sending three publications through the
mail. These three publications were Eros, The Housewife's Handbook of Selective Promiscuity, and Liaison, a biweekly newsletter. In their opinions, several
justices stated that Ginzburg was convicted not only because of the content of his
publications, but because of the way those publications were produced, sold, and publicized
by appealing to people's “prurient interests.” Ginzburg received a three-year
sentence, which he began serving in 1972. He was released on parole eight months later.
Besides working in the newspaper and magazine industries, Ginzburg wrote several
books. These include An Unhurried View of Erotica, 1958;
100 Years of Lynching, 1962; Eros on Trial: A Portfolio of the Most Beautiful Art from Eros, 1966; Castrated: My Eight Months in Prison, 1973; and I Shot New York, 1999.
In later years Ginzburg worked as a photojournalist. In the middle 1980s he did freelance
work for several New York newspapers and national and foreign magazines, including Time, Newsweek, and People. He also worked as a staff photographer for the New York Post. During the 1990s his photography focused on
birds.
In the 1950s Ginzburg began writing a book on Anthony Comstock which was never completed.
Comstock, born in 1844, was a reformer based in New York. He was the main proponent of the
1873 federal laws, commonly known as the Comstock Laws, which ban obscene publications from
the mails. The federal laws also inspired similar state laws in 22 states. The laws
originally were aimed not only at pornography, but at literature, abortion and sex education
information, and gambling. After passage of the laws, Comstock served as an unpaid postal
inspector and was a founder and secretary of the private New York Society for the
Suppression of Vice. In these roles he and the agents employed by the Society raided homes
and businesses, confiscated and destroyed tons of material, and sent hundreds of people to
jail. The people prosecuted included publishers, authors, gamblers, and abortion providers.
Comstock also travelled to other states to help organize anti-vice societies. When Comstock
died in 1915, John Sumner took over as secretary of the Society. In 1947 the name of the
Society was changed to the Society to Maintain Public Decency. It folded in the
mid-1950s.
Comstock and the Society generated a great deal of opposition. This opposition became
especially fierce when Comstock began targeting art and literature. Many of these opponents
were in the radical Free Thought movement, which tended to advocate atheism, secularism,
free love, women's rights, and labor rights. Comstock tried to prosecute many Free Thought
activists, including D.M. Bennett, Moses Harman, Ezra Heywood, and Emma Goldman. Several of
these activists hired Theodore Schroeder to represent them. Schroeder was a lawyer and
author who promoted freedom of expression. He was also a founder and attorney for the Free
Speech League, an organization whose work included speaking on behalf of free speech issues
and funding appeals in free speech cases.
Ralph Ginzburg died in New York on July 6, 2006.
