Biography
Ralph Ginzburg was an Avant Garde writer and magazine publisher who famously published a documented collections of lynching's in the United States as well as a survey of psychiatrists regarding the mental health of Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater leading to a civil suit. In 1963 he was targeted by authorities and prosecuted under the obscenity statute and sentenced to 5 years (later reduced to 3). The Supreme Court affirmed his conviction while ruling that none of his publications were themselves obscene but claimed he had obscenely marketed them by requiring readers to order copies of the magazines from mailing addresses in the towns of Intercourse and Blue Ball and Pennsylvania which the courts argued was evidence of an obscene innuendo. He served 8 months before being granted parole.
The 1964 House Department of Justice appropriations hearings report: Convicted June 14, 1963 on all 28 counts. Source: House appropriations hearings for fiscal 1965, Department of Justice (1964), printed p. 93 / PDF p. 97.
