‘The Innocence Project’ – An Online Exhibition and Archive on Children and Comics in the 1940s and 1950s

The 1940s and 1950s saw a widespread outcry over children's reading of comic books, most pronouncedly the often violent, gory and erotic crime and horror genres. Concern and outrage over the assumed effects of the ubiquitous magazines on young minds was expressed in a deluge of newspaper editorials, magazine articles, professional and academic journals, and elsewhere. A grassroots movement to restrict children's access to comics led to a Senate Subcommittee hearing in the US investigating links to juvenile delinquency and to legislation in several countries prohibiting the sale of certain comics to minors. Using Omeka publishing and exhibition software, this digital humanities project takes the form of an online exhibition and digital archive and considers the ways in which the comics crisis was structured around the idea of childhood innocence