Banned Books

The Library of Congress created an exhibit titled Books that Shaped America, which ultimately explored books that have had a profound effect on American Life. A fascinating aspect of our research was recognizing that a significant number of books that have "shaped America," according to the Library of Congress, have ironically been banned by American educational institutions.

The purpose of our archive is to focus on this paradoxical relationship at play by exposing books that have been banned, at some point, by academic institutions in America. To emphasize this relationship, we used New York University's Elmer Holmes Bobst Library archive as the main archive we have chosen to counter.

The banned books have been separated into the following categories: books banned because of racism, books banned because of sexually explicit content, books banned because of indecent or immoral content, books banned because of blasphemy, and books banned for political reasons.