#obscenity

In 1963, Waukesha Freeman Printing Company refused to print four poems for the winter edition of Cheshire, a UWM student literary magazine. The printer claimed that the poems were obscene and would print them only with the consent of the University. UWM’s administration, however, felt it was not their place to censor student publications, as is noted in the below letter from Provost J. Martin Klotsche to Dean Robert Morris.

As the letter references, the Cheshire case was referred to the Student Life and Interest’s sub-committee on publications (SLIC), but several members of that committee insisted that they did not want to become a censorship board and refused to make a decision about the publication of the four poems. 

University administration continued its internal debate of the issue. Fred Harvey Harrington, the president of the UW-Madison, wrote:

He concludes his letter with one further point: 

“Pornography problems will be with us again. So perhaps one of us (maybe Martha) should work on the problem some, and help us set some guide lines. Will you try, Martha?”

In her response to Harrington’s letter, Dean Martha Petersen agrees to look into the issue but with some caveats.  

Dean Petersen’s letter highlights a key issue.  How does the University shape its relationship with students? Is it an agency of authority or an agency of help and support? In the Cheshire case, University administration decided to take a neutral ground rather than censor its students, and ultimately, without consent from the Provost or SLIC, Freeman Printing Company did not print the poems.

 TheCheshire staff, however, still included the poems as an insert in their winter 1963 edition with an explanation of each author’s intent by the editor, Robert Christeck.

The Four Poems in Question: 

“Meanwhile Back in the Jungle” by S.B. Smith

“Anti-poem” by Peter Brunner

“Bullfight” by Bill Olsen

“Imagine This Thing” by Bill Olsen

To read more into the Cheshire Obscenity Case, refer to UWM Archival Collection 46, Box 6, Folder 19. If you would like to read through copies of the Cheshire magazine from 1931-1968, visit our reading room (call number: LH 1.C4 volumes 1-37). 

-Jamee, Archives Graduate Intern