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Emanuel Haldeman-Julius

2008-09-04 15:02:15.975613+00 by Dan Lyke 0 comments

This MeFi entry pointed to a fairly long article The Believer - The Henry Ford of Literature, about publisher Emanuel Haldeman-Julius and his "Blue Books" of the early 20th century, inexpensive editions of the classics interspersed with books on sex ed, contraception, and similar subversive ideas.

In the midst of his publishing heyday, when asked how he might be remembered, Haldeman-Julius speculated that his obituary would mention how “I sold hundreds of millions of [books] and usefully served a portion of my generation with fairness, sincerity, and intelligence…. It may mention my forthright attacks on all forms of Supernaturalism, Mysticism, Fundamentalism, and respectable and dignified bunk in general.

“It may even go so far as to say that I changed the reading habits of Americans and created millions of new readers for the book publishers who followed me.”

The article itself kind of drags, Haldeman-Julius sounded like an interesting guy who had troubles with the establishment, but it's the sort of tale that has similar endings to so many in the 1950s: his downfall included publishing stuff critical of the FBI, which resulted in investigations by the IRS, and eventually ended up with him found floating in his swimming pool.

What was interesting, though, was this MeFi comment comparing Mike Gunderloy's efforts with Factsheet 5 to those of Emanuel Haldeman-Julius:

These people, institutions, events that make a huge difference but are unknown a generation later -- they're amazing to me. It seems to me it's a clear error to say that we learn they didn't matter because no one chooses to remember them, but that seems to be the way we're going in a Wiki-world, "Wisdom of Crowds" future.

[ related topics: Politics Books Sexual Culture Sociology ]

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