WHEN PRINCETON BANNED “1984”

It was a paragraph in the “High-Times” student newspaper section of the Princeton Times-Republic that largely went unnoticed.

PHS High-Times, April 5, 1962 – “At present, junior English students are previewing the future. They are reading the novel ‘1984’ by George Orwell. This science fiction novel is not necessarily a prediction of the future, but just the author’s point of view of what could happen. Some students are reading extra-credit books such as ‘Animal Farm,’ ‘Brave New World,’ ‘The Crucible’ and other science fiction novels. Along with this reading, discussions of the books take place.”

But nearly four months later, all hell broke loose at the Princeton School District’s annual meeting.

Princeton Times-Republic, July 26, 1962 – “A record throng of nearly 300 voters of Joint School District No. 2 gathered at the local public school Monday evening and produced one of the stormiest annual sessions held since the new school was built.”

Following approval of the school budget, dentist Sam Garro, who was elected to his first three-year term on the school board in 1957, outlined several issues that he said were raised by district residents who wished to remain anonymous.

He began by reading the preface of “Who is Tampering With the Soul of America?” – a pamphlet that gained notoriety on the heels of U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy’s hearings about Communists in the U.S. government and entertainment industry and the rise of the John Birch Society.

Author Jenkin Lloyd Jones, editor of the Tulsa Tribune in Tulsa, Oklahoma, wrote that the U.S. schools, along with the arts and entertainment communities, were contributing to the collapse of morality and educational standards in America.

“It is a dogma of current Communist faith that America is Sodom and Gomorrah, ripening for the kill,” Jones noted. “… We have watched juvenile delinquency climb steadily. We have produced tens of thousands of high school graduates who move their lips as they read and cannot write a coherent paragraph. While our Russian contemporaries, who were supposed to be dedicated to the mass man, have been busy constructing an elite, we have been engaged in the wholesale production of mediocrity.”

After reading the pamphlet’s preface, Garro “read an excerpt (not nearly as pleasant to most of the audience) from a book entitled ‘1984,’” the Times-Republic reported. “The passages which he read aloud were loaded with sex in its filthiest sense, according to the parents who had seen it, and after reading the pages aloud, he announced to the audience that the book was issued to 35 students in a junior English class as recommended study of the ‘classics.’”

(“1984” depicts a society ruled by a totalitarian government – Big Brother – and, using satire, deals with issues such as thought control, mass surveillance, and manipulation of facts and history.)

Principal R.E. Calhoun told the board he had not read the book and did not know it was being used in the classroom, but noted it was published by a reputable company and he trusted teacher Eugene Wilcox’s judgment. He said he approved about 95 percent of the books used in the classroom, but with two new teachers, including Wilcox, he was unable to see them all before an order was placed.

Gary Gruenwald, an Oshkosh State College student who attended the meeting with his parents, defended the book, saying it was indeed a classic and that it was unfair to judge a book from a few pages. But he stood alone. None of the board members, other than Garro, had seen the book.

Preston Hiestand, general manager of the Handcraft Company, said there was “enough decent literature around without resorting to this” and that no book written in 1950 was old enough to be considered a classic.

William Gruenwald made a motion to require every teacher in the district to read the Jones pamphlet.

“After more discussion, a Preston Hiestand amendment was passed that the pamphlet be made available to each teacher,” the Times-Republic reported. (Other newspapers reported the pamphlet would also be available to students.)

By acclamation, the district voters approved a motion by Mrs. Arnold Manthey to remove the book from the school.

The story did not end their, however. The school board held a special meeting a week later.

“Before the two-hour meeting was over, board President Ernest Kwiatkowski had reprimanded Dr. Garro for ‘going over the board’s head,’ the controversial novel ‘1984’ was defended on the basis of the six-week unit prepared by the English teacher involved … and a majority of the board expressed its confidence in Superintendent R.E. Calhoun by granting him a $1,200 raise and a contract for two years.”

Calhoun said Wilcox did not follow the policy of buying books through the office and could not be contacted because he was on the West Coast during his summer vacation. Calhoun said he probably would have approved the book based on the guide that Wilcox had prepared for the novel, calling it a “well-organized unit on literature.”

The teaching guide listed points for students to consider, including: “Sex: Does the description of sex in the novel serve a function? That is, is it necessary? Or would the novel have as much impact if the sex scenes were omitted?”

Kwiatkowski blasted Garro for not discussing the book with the board before the annual meeting. “It made other board members look like fools or stooges,” he said. “If you have a complaint, bring it to the board.”

The controversy brought the district unwanted statewide attention.

The letters to the editor in the Milwaukee Journal included this comment from a Reedsburg man: “What Princeton now needs to supplement its newfound notoriety is some highway signs on the approaches to the village saying something like this, ‘Visit Princeton, the Intellectual Wasteland of the Middle West.”

Writer and anthologist August Derleth commented on the controversy in his “Wisconsin Diary” in August: “I was wryly amused to read today of the censorship at the annual school meeting in Princeton, Wisconsin, where one indignant elector had swayed the electors into banning George Orwell’s ‘1984’ from the school shelves. This, I suppose, is the democratic ideal in action – where the most ignorant and ill-informed voter is equal to the most informed and intelligent. Perhaps the Princeton electors will next ban the Bible, for it has passages as strong as any to be found in ‘1984’ – and some stronger. Since ‘1984’ is also, for good reason – since it satirizes the Communist way of life, banned in Russia, perhaps we ought to conclude that the electors of Princeton are Communists, which would be no more ridiculous than the electors’ action in banning the book.”

The Madison Capital Times editorial board noted, “It is one of the ironies of these book-burning times that the people who get so excited about the Reds are the same ones who are to ban George Orwell’s book ‘1984.’ ‘1984’ is one of the most devastating assaults on Communist totalitarianism to be written since the Russian revolution brought the Communists to a position of power in the world. It infuriated the Communists like nothing before or since. … The board voted by acclamation to ban the book from the school and to substitute for it some of the jingoism of the Billy Sunday of journalism, Jenkin Lloyd Jones. … Isn’t it preposterous to ape the book-burning tactics of the Commies to achieve the result?”

John Paton, a University of Wisconsin professor, praised Calhoun’s defense of the teacher and his use of the book.

“Personally, I read ‘1984’ when it was new and I was a junior in high school,” he wrote in a letter to Calhoun. “I have gone on to read almost everything else he wrote and consider him one of the most convincing opponents of Russian Communism. I wish his book were taught in more schools.”

An unnamed reporter at the Portage Register also commented on the controversy under the Reporter’s Notebook headline: “The ban of George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’ in Princeton schools comes not as a surprise but as a shock. We recall the book well, having read it as required reading in an English class at Notre Dame University. It made a strong, favorable impression. Our instructor was a man who truly believed in practicing the freedom we enjoy in this nation. … ‘1984’ will become a best seller in Princeton, pointing out the evils of the very thing which took place last week.”

The Times-Republic published a letter from Milton Bratz, of Milwaukee, a week after the vote.

“My disgust stems from the fact that you have created in your community the very thing you found odious in ‘1984’; namely thought control. … I hope that the people of Princeton come to their senses before the name Princeton itself becomes a stigma to the world of literature and common sense. … I hope the people of Princeton keep in mind that before they consider themselves literary critics, they are, first and foremost, American citizens brought up in a country made great not by censorship but by the complete opposite.”

A week later, the Times-Republic published letters supporting Garro from local residents Terri Dreblow, Patricia Weinreis, and Audenta Krahn.

“As a father and as a member of the school board it was his responsibility and right, just as it is yours, to be concerned about the Princeton education system,” Dreblow wrote.

“Long live Princeton in the annals of literary deadheads! Not since the organized vice at Hurley received so much notoriety has any town equaled it,” Weinreis noted. “In spite of the mistaken judgment of ‘1984’, parental censorship is still to be encouraged. … Even the Bible states to the effect that what we read, we are. … Princeton can be proud that it cares and that one of its respected citizens, who has patiently borne the brunt of an innocent mistake, is as good a parent as he is a dentist.”

Krahn complained that the issue had been blown out of proportion. “My disgust is not for the issue so much as the fact that Dr. Sam Garro is being made a villain,” she wrote. “One important thing it seems has been overlooked. Dr. Garro was the spokesman for district voters, and may I say right here that I have very little respect for those people who got this ball rolling and then like an ostrich, stick their heads in the sand and let someone else take the blame.”

Times-Republic editor James Wolff supported the ban.

“Apparently, we’re either awfully old-fashioned or else we’ve wasted four years of college, but we’re just naïve enough to think that we should do all we can to preserve a few of the moral values that we and our children still possess,” he editorialized in August. “And for a bunch of ‘educated’ men to rush to the defense of a novel which parents don’t want forced on their children is completely absurd. Besides, it isn’t even any of their business. …

“Let us make it quite clear that we are not condemning the novel ‘1984.’ It is a good book. But it is not a book to be taught in junior English class. The two pages of ‘sex description’ that were read to the audience at the annual meeting is reason enough. … It may be true that the electors at the annual meeting acted hastily in condemning a book publicly, but we still feel the book or books like it should not be taught from. There are thousands of others just as good on the market and surprising as it may seem, many of them did not have to resort to sex to hold the interest of their readers.”

Garro assured daily newspapers that contacted him that no one was burning books in Princeton and that he used “1984” to draw attention to concerns he and about fifty other residents had about Calhoun’s administration. (More on that in a future post.)

“I admit I seized on the book as an opportunity to get at the superintendent,” he told the Milwaukee Journal. “I had no idea there would be so much publicity. I think it is an important book, one which absolutely should be taught in college. But I’ll reserve judgment on it for high school kids.”

Calhoun told the Capital Times that area residents were eager to get a copy of the book following the bruhaha.

“I’m sure it will be a best seller up here now,” he said. “… You could read two pages from almost any book, even the Bible, and convince a crowd the book is obscene.”

The board did not reconsider the ban.

Wilcox remained with the district for several years, Calhoun resigned in 1964 at the end of his two-year contract, and Garro remained on the school board until he was defeated in 1969.

The Princeton Times-Republic selected the “1984” controversy as its top story of 1962 in its annual year in review that December.

After Edgerton School District challenged the book in January 1963, Wolff concluded, “It would appear that the novel ‘1984’ will be argued until … well, until 1984!”

In 2025, “1984” is the most banned book in the U.S.

Thank you for reading and caring about local history. If you spot any errors, please let me know.

(A few years after the controversy in Princeton, I read “1984” in my English class at Holy Name Seminary in Madison.)