Child reading comic book while waiting for train (1948) – CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image

This photo of a little girl reading a comic book comes to you from the Daily Life Along the Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad Collection from Newberry Library. In honor of the American Library Assocation's Banned Books Week (September 25-October 1, 2016), this image is a celebration of reading banned books! Comics have frequently been a target for censorship since in the 1950's, in part due to the popularity of Fredrick Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, which asserted that comics books could lead to juvenile delinquency. Wertham's thesis was eventually shown to be unfounded, and graphic novels have flourished in multiple genres. This little girl reads "FBI in Action" from Justice Comics, and you can tell she's totally engrossed, going through the stack next to her. Just a girl and her crime-fighting comic book friends!

This collection from the Newberry highlights to social and economic impact of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad with photographs by Esther Bubley and Russell Lee for the railroad's centennial in 1955. Some of these images were collected in a book honoring this centennial, Granger Country: A Pictorial Social History of the Burlington Railroad (1949) -- edited by Stanley Pargellis and Lloyd Lewis. These candid photos are stunning, and highlight out the vivid details of daily life that connect us across geography and time.

--Written by Sarah Prindle, Humanities & Fine Arts Librarian at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

For more information about this and other CARLI Digital Collections, visit http://collections.carli.illinois.edu

To learn more about becoming part of CARLI Digital Collections and using CONTENTdm, see http://www.carli.illinois.edu/products-services/contentdm