Smut: An 1883 Obscenity Trial and Its Echoes Today

217-page paperback / 5.5" x 8.5" / ISBN 9781589882140
Publication Date: 8/18/2026 (available for preorder)

In June, 1883, Jefferson and Helen Beardsley of Ithaca, New York, were indicted, tried, and sentenced for “selling and exhibiting obscene pictures.” In Smut, historian Carol Kammen draws directly from the trial transcript (where witnesses in the courtroom were required to describe the obscene pictures in detail) and reveals the fascinating history surrounding the case and its surprising relevance today.

The story begins with the 1876 Centennial Celebration in Philadelphia. This enormous affair attracted millions of visitors from around the country and the world, and was, among other things, a venue for all types of artwork, including erotica. Kammen explains, "Although there was pornography of one sort or another all along, the dissemination of such pictures and at an affordable price into smaller cities and villages in the country can be traced directly to the advances in photography in the 1850s and to the 1876 Centennial Celebration." The Beardsleys brought several images home from the fair to their small photography studio and proceeded to show them to select customers.

The town leaders of Ithaca, a hamlet about to grow rapidly thanks to the presence of the recently-founded Cornell University, were vigilant to protect their town’s good name. Through the lens of the trial, Kammen explores the local social control agency of the day; considers the influence of Anthony Comstock’s legislation for social purity on smaller communities; and notes the conflicted role of women in the law. In vivid detail, this small-town trial dramatizes the same forces at work today, as citizens strive to balance the public and private virtues.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR SMUT:

"In the hands of the accomplished local historian Carol Kammen, the record of a 1883 trial for the distribution of pornography in Ithaca, N.Y., becomes an extraordinary entry point for a meditation on smut then and now, the cultural significance of the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, daily life in the village, the early days of Cornell University, the changing roles of women, and so much more. An engrossing tale well told."
—Mary Beth Norton, author of Liberty’s Daughters and The Devil’s Snare

"Carol Kammen is a riveting storyteller. Through the lens of an 1883 legal case in Ithaca, New York, Kammen shows us how late 20th century concerns about morality, sex, gender roles, and economic growth played out in at the local level, in a rapidly growing village at the headwaters of Cayuga Lake. The court testimony and cast of characters will frustrate, shock, and amuse you, and you won’t want to put this book down."
—Maria Cristina Garcia, Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow, Cornell University

"Smut is a lovely book, and a smart one. It is gracefully written, humanistic (in the best sense of the term), and unswervingly generous. Ostensibly, it is the tale of two people caught in a trial about their ownership and possible sharing of pornographic photos in a small rural town, in the 1880s, home to the recently opened Cornell University. The trial might be a small local matter, interesting, and tragic for the two defendants, but in Carol Kammen’s deft rendering, it becomes the locus for much that bedevils us today—authoritarianism, moral zealotry, newfangled technologies, and the unrelenting diminishment of women’s agency. As a gifted historian, Kammen writes with such joy, insight, and audacity that everything seems interconnected and luminous. No one writes better about the unseemly, with a sense of balance and humility. Smut, most powerfully, is an American narrative that reminds us that we are terribly and wondrously made."
—Kenneth A. McClane, W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Literature Emeritus, Cornell University

"This is a fascinating book. It is purportedly the tale of an 1883 New York village pornographer’s trial, but it contains interesting insights into everyday life in a growing, mid-19th century town. Commercial development, demographics, approaches to local history, developments in record-keeping, a realistic view of the administration of justice, the interplay of voluntary (some would say vigilante) organizations with the destitute, local officials and police, habits of dress, the history of pornography, the temperance movement, world fairs, early settlement of towns, family planning, schooling, and prison conditions all make an appearance. It is exceptionally well-written, and there are surprises."
—Bert Lazerow, Professor, University of San Diego School of Law


Carol Kammen has authored more than a dozen books about New York State history; a historical novel, Lamentations; and a reference book, On Doing Local History, now in its third edition. She is a retired Senior Lecturer in History at Cornell University, a former editorial writer for History News, the Tompkins County Historian for the past twenty-five years, and winner of the New York State Historian of the Year award. She lives in Ithaca, NY, where she is busily retired and politically engaged.