The Sisters of Book Row addressed the issues of censorship and repression that arose from the infamous Comstock Laws that banned materials that could be deemed "pornographic" or dealt with topics such as birth control, prenatal care, abortion, and the sex trade. These laws stated that even art books showing nudes by artists such as Michelangelo fell into the pornography bucket. These laws originated in the 1870s, and weren't fully struck down until the 1970s.
Speaking publicly about birth control, disseminating information about it, or printing and mailing such materials was illegal. Instructing women on how to manage their pregnancies was strictly prohibited. The famous birth control advocate Margaret Sanger was hunted down like a murderer. She later founded Planned Parenthood.
In 1915, the Applebaum sisters of the title operated a used and rare books store on what was once Book Row (Fourth Avenue in Manhattan, which becomes Park Avenue South above Union Square). They had inherited the store from their father, who had dealt in antiquarian books and trained the oldest daughter, Olivia, in bidding for and purchasing books at auction and from private collections, restoring and rebinding them, and working with clients. The other two sisters, Daphne and Celia, worked on the retail side of the business.
Olivia was also struggling with cataracts which would ultimately lead to blindness, since safe and successful surgery was not yet available. She had left a position in rare books at the Metropolitan Museum (and a man she'd fallen in love with) to run the store and care for her younger sisters once their father died.
Daphne was a romantic who found working in the store to be a life of drudgery and lost herself in reading escapist novels, and hoped that a handsome customer would come into the store and rescue her.
Celia was a secret activist for birth control and worked with a group who were trying to help women take control of their bodies and prevent unwanted pregnancies. She had watched her mother become pregnant and lose the baby over and over, until she became so weakened that it eventually killed her. Celia resented her late father and blamed him since his desire was for a son to succeed him in the store. When that didn't happen, he sent Olivia to college to take on the role, but when she chose to work at the Met, he was bitterly angry with her.
The Applebaums and the other bookstore owners and related businesses were in constant fear of raids from Anthony Comstock, the originator of the pornography laws, and his minions. His thugs would come into a store, trash its stock, whether objectionable or not, damage or destroy its fixtures, and arrest the owners and workers. The store owners were banded together in defiance, but it was not enough to stop the raids.
The book explores the efforts to change the restrictive and clearly absurd nature of the laws, and put an end to the fanaticism, which eventually was overcome, but not without great suffering not just in the book trade, but by women and their families everywhere.
Over a century later, many Americans are unaware that these restrictions existed. The same politicians who supported the Comstock Laws generally supported the changes to immigration law that would effectively close the door to most Southern and Eastern Europeans, and non-Christians, with the Emergency Quota Act of 1921. Asians were already suffering under the 1917 Asiatic Barred Zone Act which had completely shut them out. These actions are eerily similar to what some political factions are promoting now against certain nationalities. The evils of nativism and censorship continue to haunt us now, in the form of ICE, and actions against the free press. The circumstances described in The Sisters of Book Row may seem shocking, even unbelievable, to us but they serve as a warning against what we currently face.
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