Smut in the 1950’s - Tijuana Bibles and the FBI’s Obscenity File
Not safe for work content ahoy
Some people collect mugs, others collect band t-shirts. Personally, I am always on the lookout for mid-century smut. My collection, however, has nothing on the FBI’s Obscenity File which at one point held over 100,000 case files related to obscenity and pornography. The majority of examples in this huge physical collection (think sexy magazines, photographs, literature etc) were incinerated during the 1990’s, but various administrative elements are still around today – though unsurprisingly, they are difficult to gain access to.
The purpose of the Obscenity File was to create a centralised database from which agents could track down producers, distributors, and stars of illicit material. The FBI had been collecting materials it considered obscene since the 1920’s, but the outbreak of the Second World War saw mounting pressure on Director J. Edgar Hoover to crack down on the distribution of smut. The public, fanned by institutions like the church and the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, were concerned that young men being shipped abroad were being exposed to all sorts of morally reprehensible sexual content that they would then bring back home.
The plot twist here is that Hoover had deliberately leaked elements of the Obscenity File to members of these institutions to further his (and their) message that the white, Christian heart of America was under attack and needed protection. The exact definition of what constituted obscenity was simultaneously vague and all encompassing, with the intent that it could be manipulated to suit the agenda of local law enforcement and the whims of Hoover himself. Ergo, the development of the file was heavily informed by pre-existing racism and homophobia and the collection would have included material we still recognise as illegal and abhorrent today (CSAM, sexual assault etc.) alongside novels about interracial relationships and gay pornography.
In the aftermath of the war the Obscenity File was used to attack anyone who was perceived as threatening Hoover’s narrow view of social conformity. As Black musicians gained mainstream popularity, white law enforcement targeted their distributors under the accusation that their lyrics made them purveyors of obscenity. In 1951 the ‘sex deviates’ program was instigated in which the FBI explicitly encouraged the tracking down and purging of gay people from the government, using the file as evidence that their sexual orientation made them open to manipulation from communists and threatened traditional gender roles. This purge was soon expanded to include universities and police forces. Ironically, Hoover himself would eventually amass huge amounts of material on politicians, celebrities, and public figures with the sole purpose of blackmail.
By the mid 1950’s the file was meticulously organised or, ‘up to date and in good condition’ as one report put it. There was a section reserved for phonograph records and all books were carefully indexed and alphabetised. Nude art films were separated from obscene films and then organised by title, file number and film size (16mm or 8mm). Still photographs were taken of the films in order to make identification of repeat offenders and hallmarks of distribution networks easier. There was an indexed cartoon booklet section, an obscene playing card collection and then a special drawer reserved for items that required a higher security clearance to view than the rest of the file.
Now, onto two specific examples of the sort of content held in the obscenity file. The first is a Tijuana Bible I found in an antique shop in Denton, Texas:
Tijuana bibles were eight page pornographic comic strips designed to be mass produced on low quality paper and distributed at all the various places men liked to congregate (bars, strip joints, sports games, military bases, fraternities etc).
Originating in the 1920’s, they reached the height of their popularity during the Great Depression but continued to circulate until the 1960’s when pornographic material became available through more mainstream channels. They often featured well known comic book characters like Superman and Popeye as well as movie stars like Clark Gable and Greta Garbo. The bible above shows Dixie Dugan, the central character in a newspaper strip that ran from 1929 – 1966.
Despite the name, the Tijuana bibles were produced all over the United States, particularly in New York, where the FBI made a smut bust in 1939 that included over ‘8,000,000 cartoon booklets, showing crude imitations of various comic book characters in lewd poses.’ This raid allowed the FBI laboratory to link the bibles produced in New York to obscene material seized in Baltimore, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Tijuana bibles themselves vary in quality – some of the artwork is poorly drawn and earlier examples often include offensive ethnic stereotypes. But they are useful in tracking the sexual preferences of the nation. One of the more popular recurring characters was the Fuller Brush Man, a travelling salesman who went on all sorts of sexy adventures that usually involved seducing bored housewives. The travelling salesman was also making a quite a splash on the amateur film pornography scene, where creators found their largely male, working class audiences responded particularly well to the character.
The second example I wanted to share are two images related to the topic of my second book. Juanita Slusher, better known by her stage name Candy Barr, found her popularity as a burlesque dancer in the mid-1950’s increased after audiences discovered she was the star of popular 1951 stag film, Smart Alec.
Carrying on with the travelling salesman theme – Smart Alec follows a salesman seduce a young woman at a motel where the couple are then joined by a third woman. Smart Alec was an instant success on the underground smut market. Still images from the film were sold all across the country and everybody wanted to know the identity of the leading lady.
The grim reality was that Juanita, just sixteen years old and underage at the time the film was shot, had been drugged to ensure her cooperation. She was not paid for her appearance, and later in her life spoke out repeatedly about what the film was really showing - the sexual assault of a minor. But, back in the 1950’s, Smart Alec had a large enough audience that it soon attracted the attention of the FBI.
Below is an example of a memorandum sent to the FBI laboratory from Milwaukee, suggesting that pin up photographs Juanita posed for whilst she was working as a burlesque dancer be compared to the girl in Smart Alec as a means of confirming her identity.
and here’s the magazine cover of Jem:
As you can see, the memorandum and attendant magazine cover are from late 1956/early 1957, by which time Juanita had been dancing professionally for nearly three years. By 1959, she was a person of considerable interest to the FBI for a different reason - her romantic involvement with notorious L.A mobster Mickey Cohen. In the mid 1960’s Juanita was picked up by agents again, this time in connection with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
On that note - i’ll be taking a short hiatus whilst I finish up work on my second book (where you can find out what Nita testified to knowing in the Warren Commission).
I’ll be back in May, but in the mean time you can check out some more examples of Tijuana Bibles here. If you’re feeling really handy, you could even make your own.
Sources:
The FBI’s Obscenity File: J. Edgar Hoover and the Bureau’s Crusade Against Smut, Douglas M. Charles, University Press of Kansas, 2012.
Pornography in America: A Reference Handbook, Joseph .W Slade, ABC-CLIO, 2000.
Tijuana Bibles collection, 1930s-1998, Duke University Libraries.
I’m glad Jason steered me toward your substack! It warms my heart to see people combining scholarship and perversion.
This is why we come to Substack - fascinating articles on quirky topics, buy experts in things we didn't even know existed. I definitely want to read this book of yours!