Comstock, Anthony (1844-1915)

US reformer. A zealous campaigner against activities he considered immoral or indecent, his targets included writers and publishers, abortionists, dispensers of contraceptives, and art galleries; he also fought quacks and purveyors of patent medicines and as such was a precursor of the consumer protection movement.

He was born in New Canaan, Connecticut. A Civil War veteran, he worked as a shipping clerk and retail salesman 1865-73, eventually in New York City. He pursued legal actions against book dealers selling allegedly obscene material. In 1873 he won passage of federal legislation prohibiting the mailing of obscene material. He was secretary to the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Comstock boasted of having destroyed ‘160 tons of obscene literature’ in his lifetime and driven 15 people to suicide.

He lost a legal battle to ban a production of George Bernard Shaw's play Mrs Warren's Profession in New York (1905); it was Shaw who coined the word ‘comstockery’ from Comstock's name.