The Tarzan book series were banned starting in Downey, California where I currently live. Hmmm strange coincidence? A teacher in 1962 claimed the books were immoral because Tarzan and Jane weren’t married. (Obviously she never read the books and only saw the movies freely adapted from them). Source: Tarzan: The Broadway Adventure by Michael Lassell. The first book, Tarzan of the Apes is still on the national banned books list because the books were also considered obscene and pornographic. WHOO-HOO! Now doesn’t that want to make you read it more? For the record I did not know that when I went to the Downey Public library to try and rent that book, and all the copies were “lost”. Funny huh? I resorted to Ebay to find a real copy and scored a first edition. No, it’s not valuable at all, it’s falling apart at the binding but it was a cool copy.
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Tarzan and Downey
“Wasn’t it Downey , a few years ago, that tried to get the Tarzan books out of the town library on the grounds that Tarzan and Jane were living together but weren’t married? Yes, it was Downey.” – Jack Smith, Los Angeles Times
The above quote is from the popular Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith. The Los Angeles Times also called Downey “a community that is capable of banning Tarzan from the public library.” This belief was widely believed in the 1960’s and 1970’s. It gave the impression that the people in Downey were ignorant, intolerant, right-wing prigs.
Did the Downey Library Ban Tarzan Books Because Tarzan Wasn’t Married to Jane When They Had Boy?
In the early 1960's it was widely reported that the Downey City Library had banned all of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Tarzan” books because Tarzan wasn't married to Jane when they conceived Boy. This rumor was widely believed. Evidence for the staying power of this rumor is in articles in the Los Angeles Times that were published in the 1970’s.
In May 8, 1970, the popular Los Angeles Times columnist Jack Smith wrote “Downey Sends L.A. Back to the Bush League,” in which he stated, “Wasn’t it Downey, a few years ago, that tried to get the Tarzan books out of the town library on the grounds that Tarzan and Jane were living together but weren’t married? Yes, it was Downey.” Ray Loynd's September 8, 1971 Los Angeles Times article, “Stage Review: Downey Guild Offers ‘Evening of Theater’” (see p. H9) called Downey “a community that is capable of banning Tarzan from the public library.”
The rumor about Tarzan was, however, a wild exaggeration of what actually happened. According to "Zane Grey Also Safe: Tarzan’s Marital Status No Issue as Downey School Ban Is Denied,” an article from the Los Angeles Times that appeared on pages B1 and B11 on Dec. 28, 1961, a rumor spread that one of the Downey elementary schools had removed Edgar Rice Burroughs and Zane Grey books from its library because “1—There was no indication that Tarzan and his mate, Jane, were ever married before they took up housekeeping in the treetops,” and “2—Grey was known to put such expletives as ‘damn!’ and ‘hell’ in the mouths of his western cowhands.” In a later article, ("Downey Furor Result: Schools Take Over Control of Libraries. Los Angeles Times, Jan. 6 1962, p. B1) the Times explained that the Superintendent of the Downey Unified School District heard this rumor and investigated the situation to find out what happened. He discovered that there was no "ban." What had happened was that in one elementary school, a parent had put two Zane Grey books “out of site in a desk drawer." No Tarzan books were involved. The Zane Grey books were subsequently put back on the shelves.
I tried to add this to the Wikipedia article on Downey, but within hours, a self-declared guardian of the Wikipedia entry on Downey removed it.
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