This is backstory. I'm Ed Ayers.

In the 1930s, a Hollywood exec named Joe Breene started censoring nearly every film heading to theaters.

Why would the studios allow this?

Because everybody in Hollywood knew that Joe Breene was far preferable to censorship boards and states across America.

Those guys were really wack.

Movies haven't been the only target of censors in American history.

In 1800, President John Adams imprisoned a journalist who slandered him.

He described Adams as having hands wreaking with the blood of a poor, friendless, Connecticut sailor.

This week banned a history of censorship, from suppressing the debate over slavery to tying reporters' hands in the Gulf War with military guidelines.

If those rules were followed, you couldn't cover anything or report anything.

Coming up on backstory, a history of censorship. Don't go away.

Major funding for backstory is provided by the ShiaCon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities,

the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory with the American History Guys.

Welcome to the show. I'm Brian Ballot, and I'm here with Peter Onif.

Hey there, Brian.

And Ed Ayers is with us.

Hello, gentlemen.

We're going to begin today in the summer of 1835 in Charleston, South Carolina's post office.

The postmaster, a man named Albert Hougie, had a problem.

He watched his large sacks of strange mails streamed into his office.

Columbia University historian Richard John says that Hougie was witnessing the first direct male campaign.

...