Standards of the Pennsylvania State Board of Censors (1914)

Dawn Potter

Nothing is censored in Pennsylvania but the poor mans amusement, Why?

—Anti-censorship banner, Pittsburgh Screen Club

The Board will condemn

any motion picture portraying

prostitutes, houses of ill-fame

a girl’s seduction, her confinement

for immoral purposes, or assaults upon women,

with lewd intent. Refrain from showing

childbed scenes and subtitles that describe them.

Pictures revealing the modus operandi of criminals

are suggestive and incite the weak to evil action.

We disapprove all murder, poisoning,

house-breaking, safe-robbery, pocket-picking,

the lighting and throwing of bombs,

the use of chloroform to render men

and women unconscious, also binding and gagging.

Do not illustrate the traffic in cocaine.

Gruesome and distressing scenes

are likewise forbidden. These include shootings,

stabbings, profuse bleeding, prolonged views

of corpses, lashings and whippings,

lynchings, electrocutions, surgical operations,

and views of persons in delirium.

Avoid scenes in which the human form

is shown in the nude. Do not undertake

the topics of abortion or malpractice,

eugenics, birth control, or race suicide.

The materialization of the figure of Christ

may be disapproved. We forbid

the brutal treatment of animals,

and objectionable language in subtitles.

Depictions of burning and wrecking

may degrade the morals of the young.

Gross and offensive drunkenness,

will never be tolerated

if women are present.

Do not exhibit pictures which deal at length

with gun play, and the use of knives,

and are set in the underworld.

Vulgarities of a gross kind,

such as often appear in slapstick

and may burlesque morgues, funerals,

hospitals, or insane asylums,

are disapproved, as are sensual kissing

and other indelicate situations.

Bathing scenes may pass the limits of propriety.

Avoid immodest dancing

and the needless exhibition

of women in their night dresses.

Do not show women in suggestive positions

while smoking. The argument that your story

is adapted from the finest literature or art

is not a sufficient reason for approval.

[from Chestnut Ridge, a verse-history of southwestern Pennsylvania]