information:highlighting, structural:expansion
Anti-contraception laws

Contraception was not restricted by law in the United States throughout most of the 19th century, but in the 1870s a social purity movement grew in strength, aimed at outlawing vice in general, and prostitution and obscenity in particular. Composed primarily of Protestant moral reformers and middle-class women, the Victorian-era campaign also attacked contraception, which was viewed as an immoral practice that promoted prostitution and venereal disease. Anthony Comstock, a grocery clerk and leader in the purity movement, successfully lobbied for the passage of the 1873 Comstock Act, a federal law prohibiting mailing of "any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion " as well as any form of contraceptive information. After passage of this first Comstock Act, he was appointed to the position of postal inspector. Many states also passed similar state laws (collectively known as the Comstock laws), sometimes extending the federal law by additionally restricting contraceptives, including information about them and their distribution. Comstock was proud of the fact that he was personally responsible for thousands of arrests and the destruction of hundreds of tons of books and pamphlets.