Banned in Boston · STOP 13 · Beacon Hill
The Censors' Last Address
The Watch and Ward Society spent decades telling Boston what not to read. In 1933 it moved its headquarters to Beacon Hill. Decades later the same building belonged to the people whose press published the Society's history, under the title Banned in Boston. It's a private building on Mount Vernon Street; look from the sidewalk.
This is stop 13 of Banned in Boston. Walk it - any two stops are free.
The plate
Collected on site
In 1906 the Society's office was at 28 School Street - the same street as the Old Corner Bookstore, stop five.
More footnotes on the story card, in the app.
Argue about it
Was Naked Lunch obscene?
Both sides, with their sources, are on the story card in the app.
In these collections: Crime Scenes
Near Park Street · Near Bowdoin · Near Downtown Crossing · Near Government Center · Near Boylston · Near Charles/MGH · Near State
Sources (8)
- 41 Mount Vernon Street (building history)Boston Literary District · accessed Oct 2026
- Watch and Ward SocietyWikipedia · accessed Oct 2026
- Twenty-Eighth Annual Report of the New England Watch and Ward Society, 1905-1906New England Watch and Ward Society (Boston) · 1906-03-07
- Thirty-First Annual Report of the New England Watch and Ward Society, 1908-1909New England Watch and Ward Society (Boston) · 1909-03-01
- The Dunster House Book Shop case: a statementNew England Watch and Ward Society (Boston) · 1930-07
- Banned in Boston: The Sad Case of the Dunster House BookshopChris Finan (American Booksellers for Free Expression column; excerpt from From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act, Beacon Press 2007) · n.d. (accessed Oct 2026)
- Attorney General v. A Book Named 'Naked Lunch', 351 Mass. 298Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (text via masscases.com) · 1966-07-07
- Banned in Boston: The Watch and Ward Society's Crusade against Books, Burlesque, and the Social EvilNeil Miller (Beacon Press) · 2010