Fredric Wertham (; born Friedrich Ignatz Wertheimer, March 20, 1895 – November 18, 1981) was a German-American psychiatrist and author. Wertham had an early reputation as a progressive psychiatrist who treated poor black patients at his Lafargue Clinic at a time of heightened discrimination in urban mental health practice. Wertham also authored a definitive textbook on the brain, and his institutional stressor findings were cited when courts overturned multiple segregation statutes, most notably in ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

.'' Despite this, Wertham remains best known for his concerns about the effects of violent imagery in

mass media Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit informati ...

and the effects of

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

s on the development of children. His best-known book is ''

Seduction of the Innocent ''Seduction of the Innocent'' is a book by German-born American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, published in 1954, that warned that comic books were a negative form of popular literature and a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. The book was tak ...

'' (1954), which asserted that comic books caused youth to become delinquents. Besides ''Seduction of the Innocent'', Wertham also wrote articles and testified before government inquiries into comic books, most notably as part of a U.S. Congressional inquiry into the comic book industry. Wertham's work, in addition to the 1954 comic book hearings, led to the creation of the

Comics Code Authority The Comics Code Authority (CCA) was formed in 1954 by the Comics Magazine Association of America as an alternative to government regulation. The CCA allowed the comic publishers to self-regulate the content of comic books in the United States. ...

, although later scholars cast doubt on his observations.

Early life

Wertham was born Friedrich Ignatz

Wertheimer Wertheimer is an Ashkenazi Jewish surname: People with this surname include: *Akiba Israel Wertheimer (1778-1835), first Chief Rabbi of Altona and Schleswig-Holstein * Alain and Gérard Wertheimer, French Jewish billionaire owners of Chanel **Wer ...

on March 20, 1895, in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

to the middle-class Jewish family of Sigmund and Mathilde Wertheimer.

Ella Winter Leonore (Ella) Sophie Winter Steffens Stewart (1898–1980) was an Australian-British journalist and activist. Early life She was born in 1898 to Freda Lust and Adolph Wertheimer in Nuremberg, Germany. Her parents were Freda Lust and Adolph W ...

(originally Wertheimer) was a relative. He did not change his name legally to Fredric Wertham until 1927. He studied at King's College London, at the Universities of Munich and Erlangen, and graduated with an M.D. degree from the

University of Würzburg The Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (also referred to as the University of Würzburg, in German ''Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg'') is a public research university in Würzburg, Germany. The University of Würzburg is one of ...

in 1921. He was very much influenced by Dr.

Emil Kraepelin Emil Wilhelm Georg Magnus Kraepelin (; ; 15 February 1856 – 7 October 1926) was a German psychiatrist. H. J. Eysenck's ''Encyclopedia of Psychology'' identifies him as the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, psychopharmacology and psych ...

, a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Munich, and worked briefly at the Kraepelin Clinic in Munich in 1922. Kraepelin emphasized the effects of environment and social background on psychological development. Around this time Wertham corresponded and visited with

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...

, who influenced him in his choice of

psychiatry Psychiatry is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psych ...

as his specialty.

Career

In 1922, he accepted an invitation to come to the United States and work under Adolf Meyer at the

Phipps Psychiatric Clinic The Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic is a psychiatric school and clinic in Baltimore, Maryland. Proposed in 1908 as the first of its kind in the United States, the clinic opened on April 16, 1913 as a new section of Johns Hopkins Hospital. After a ...

Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 m ...

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

. He became a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

citizen and married the sculptress Florence Hesketh in 1927. He moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1932 to accept a senior staff position at the Bellevue Mental Hygiene Clinic, the psychiatric clinic connected with the New York Court of General Sessions in which all convicted felons received a psychiatric examination that was used in court. In 1935 he testified for the defense in the trial of cannibalistic child rapist and serial killer Albert Fish, declaring him insane. In 1946, Wertham opened the Lafargue Clinic in the basement of St. Philip's Church in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

, a low-cost psychiatric clinic specializing in black teenagers. The clinic was financed by voluntary contributions.Springhall, John. Youth, Popular Culture and Moral Panics: Penny Gaffs to Gangsta-Rap, 1830–1996. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.

''Seduction of the Innocent'' and Senate hearings

''Seduction of the Innocent'' described overt or covert depictions of violence, sex, drug use, and other adult fare within "crime comics"—a term Wertham used to describe not only the popular gangster/murder-oriented titles of the time but also superhero and horror comics as well—and asserted, based largely on undocumented anecdotes, that reading this material encouraged similar behavior in children. Comics, especially the crime/horror titles pioneered by

EC Comics Entertaining Comics, more commonly known as EC Comics, was an American publisher of comic books, which specialized in horror fiction, crime fiction, satire, military fiction, dark fantasy, and science fiction from the 1940s through the mid-1950 ...

, were not lacking in gruesome images; Wertham reproduced these extensively, pointing out what he saw as recurring morbid themes such as "injury to the eye" (as depicted in ''

Plastic Man Plastic Man (Patrick "Eel" O'Brian) is a superhero first appearing in ''Police Comics'' #1, originally published by Quality Comics and later acquired by DC Comics. Created by cartoonist Jack Cole (artist), Jack Cole, Plastic Man was one of the fi ...

'' creator Jack Cole's "Murder, Morphine and Me", which he illustrated and probably wrote for publisher Magazine Village's ''True Crime Comics'' #2 (May 1947); it involved dope-dealing protagonist Mary Kennedy nearly getting stabbed in the eye "by a junkie with a hypodermic needle" in her dream sequence). Many of his other conjectures, particularly about hidden sexual themes (e.g. images of female nudity concealed in drawings of muscles and tree bark, or Batman and Robin as

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

partners), were met with derision within the comics industry. (Wertham's claim that

Wonder Woman Wonder Woman is a superhero created by the American psychologist and writer William Moulton Marston (pen name: Charles Moulton), and artist Harry G. Peter. Marston's wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Elizabeth, and their life partner, Olive Byr ...

had a bondage subtext was somewhat better documented, as her creator

William Moulton Marston William Moulton Marston (May 9, 1893 – May 2, 1947), also known by the pen name Charles Moulton (), was an American psychologist who, with his wife Elizabeth Holloway, invented an early prototype of the lie detector. He was also known as a se ...

had admitted as much; however, Wertham also claimed that Wonder Woman's strength and independence made her a lesbian.) Citing one of Wertham's arguments, that 95% of children in

reform school A reform school was a penal institution, generally for teenagers mainly operating between 1830 and 1900. In the United Kingdom and its colonies reformatories commonly called reform schools were set up from 1854 onwards for youngsters who wer ...

read comics proves that comics cause juvenile delinquency (an example of the well-known logical fallacy correlation implies causation), Stan Lee recounted that Wertham "said things that impressed the public, and it was like shouting fire in a theater, but there was little scientific validity to it. And yet because he had the name doctor people took what he said seriously, and it started a whole crusade against comics." ''Seduction of the Innocent'' also analyzed the advertisements that appeared in 1950s comic books and the commercial context in which these publications existed. Wertham objected to not only the violence in the stories but also the fact that air rifles and knives were advertised alongside them. Wertham claimed that retailers who did not want to sell material with which they were uncomfortable, such as

horror comics Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. In the US market, horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the ...

, were essentially held to ransom by the distributors. According to Wertham, news vendors were told by the distributors that if they did not sell the objectionable comic books, they would not be allowed to sell any of the other publications being distributed. Also in 1954, Wertham was the Court's appointed psychiatric expert in the trial of the Brooklyn Thrill Killers. When the gang's 18-year-old leader admitted that he had read Pornography, pornographic comic books, Wertham concluded that the books were to blame for his crimes.The Incredible True Story of Joe Shuster’s NIGHTS OF HORROR
''Comic book legal defense'', October 3, 2012 The splash made by this book and Wertham's previous credentials as an expert witness led to his appearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency led by anti-crime crusader Estes Kefauver. In extensive testimony before the committee, Wertham restated arguments from his book and pointed to comics as a major cause of juvenile crime. Beaty notes "Wertham repeated his call ... [for] national legislation based on the public health ideal that would prohibit the circulation and display of comic books to children under the age of fifteen."(Beatty, 157) The committee's questioning of their next witness, EC publisher William Gaines, focused on violent scenes of the type Wertham had decried. Though the committee's final report did not blame comics for crime, it recommended that the comics industry tone down its content voluntarily; possibly taking this as a veiled threat of potential censorship, publishers developed the

to censor their own content. The Code banned not only violent images but also entire words and concepts (e.g. "terror" and "zombies") and dictated that criminals must always be punished—thus destroying most EC-style titles, and leaving a sanitized subset of superhero comics as the chief remaining genre.

Later career

Wertham's views on mass media have largely overshadowed his broader concerns with violence and with overprotecting children from psychological harm. His writings about the effects of racial segregation were used as evidence in the landmark Supreme Court case ''

'', and part of his 1966 book ''A Sign for Cain'' dealt with the involvement of medical professionals in the Holocaust. To promote this book, Wertham made two memorable appearances on the ''Mike Douglas Show'' where he ended up debating his theories with the co-hosts, Barbara Feldon (April 10, 1967) and Vincent Price (June 19, 1967). Excerpts were shown at the 2003 Comic Con International, Comic-Con International: San Diego. University of Calgary professor Bart Beaty, the only person allowed access to Wertham's personal papers before they were unsealed in 2010, reveals that Wertham tried in 1959 to sell a follow-up to ''Seduction of the Innocent'' concerning the effects of television on children, to be titled ''The War on Children''. Much to Wertham's frustration, no publishers were interested in publishing it. Wertham always denied that he favored censorship or had anything against comic books in principle, and in the 1970s he focused his interest on the benign aspects of the comic fandom subculture; in his last book, ''The World of Fanzines'' (1974), he concluded that fanzines were "a constructive and healthy exercise of creative drives". This led to an invitation for Wertham to address the Comic Art Convention, New York Comic Art Convention. Still infamous to most comics fans of the time, Wertham encountered suspicion and heckling at the convention, and stopped writing about comics thereafter. Before retirement he became a professor of psychiatry at New York University, a senior psychiatrist in the New York City Department of Hospitals, and a psychiatrist and the director of the Mental Hygiene Clinic at the Bellevue Hospital Center.

Death

Wertham died on November 18, 1981, at his retirement home in Kempton, Pennsylvania, at age 86.

Accusations of falsified data

After Wertham's manuscript collection at the Library of Congress was unsealed in 2010, Carol Tilley, a University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, University of Illinois librarian and information science professor, investigated his research and found his conclusions to be largely baseless. In a 2012 study, Tilley wrote "Wertham manipulated, overstated, compromised, and fabricated evidence—especially that evidence he attributed to personal clinical research with young people—for rhetorical gain." Among Seduction of the Innocent#Criticism, the criticisms leveled at ''Seduction of the Innocent'' are that Wertham used a non-representative sample of young people who were already mentally troubled, that he misrepresented stories from colleagues as being his own, and that Wertham manipulated statements from adolescents by deliberately neglecting some passages while rephrasing others such that they better suited his thesis.

Legacy

Wertham's papers (including the manuscript to the unpublished ''The War on Children'') were donated to the Library of Congress and are held by the Manuscript Division. They were made available for use by scholars for research on May 20, 2010. A register of the papers has been prepared that displays the eclectic reach of Wertham's interests. In 2014, documentary filmmaker Robert A. Emmons Jr. produced the documentary ''Diagram for Delinquents'', which details the complicated and controversial history of Fredric Wertham and comic books in the 1940s and 1950s. The film's goal was to create a more complex picture of Wertham than what had previously been depicted in comic book documentaries. His activism was cited in the 2011 US supreme court, US Supreme Court decision ''Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association''. Wertham was satirized as a Dr. Bertham who was kidnapped and turned into a monster by a mad scientist in Atlas/Seaboard Comics, Seaboard's ''Brute (comics), Brute'' #2 (April 1975). Issue #1 of Bongo Comics' ''List of The Simpsons comics#Radioactive Man, Radioactive Man'' shows comics from a young boy's collection that satirize Wertham's negative view of comic books. These include ''Crime Does Pay'' (violence and gore); ''Headlights'' (women with ludicrously pointed breasts); ''Stab'' (pathological fixation on eye injuries); and ''Tales of Revolting Filth'' (pretty much subsuming every other category). Wertham himself is also parodied in the issue. According to the supplementary material of the HBO series Watchmen (TV series), ''Watchmen'', Fredric Wertham created a system for cataloging the mental states of costumed adventurers. The existence of the Wertham spectrum in the ''Watchmen'' universe implies that in a setting where comic book superheroes never caught on because real superheroes existed, Wertham's focus shifted from the psychology and effects of fictional superheroes to real ones.

Selected bibliography

* 1948: "The Comics, Very Funny", ''Saturday Review of Literature'', May 29, 1948, p. 6. (condensed version in ''Reader's Digest'', August 1948, p. 15) * 1953: "What Parents Don't Know About Comic Books". ''Ladies' Home Journal'', Nov. 1953, p. 50. * 1954: "Blueprints to Delinquency". ''Reader's Digest'', May 1954, p. 24. * 1954: ''Seduction of the Innocent''. Amereon Ltd. * 1955: "It's Still Murder". ''Saturday Review of Literature'', April 9, 1955, p. 11. * 1956: ''The Circle of Guilt.'' Rinehart & Company. * 1968: ''A Sign for Cain: An Exploration of Human Violence''. Hale. * 1973: ''The World of Fanzines: A Special Form of Communication''. Southern Illinois University Press. * 1973: "Doctor Wertham Strikes Back!" ''The Monster Times'' no. 22, May 1973, p. 6.

References

External links

– on Lambiek Comiclopedia
''Fredric Wertham – Anti-Comics Crusader Who Turned Advocate''
– condensed online version of Dwight Decker three part series listed above
The End of Seduction
– lengthy history of Wertham and censorship of comics * Comics Reporter: "Let's You and Him Fight
Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5
– Bart Beaty and Craig Fischer discuss Beaty's "Fredric Wertham and the Critique of Mass Culture"
No Evil Shall Escape My Sight: Frederic Wertham and the Anti-Comics Crusade
– lecture by Dr. Chris Bishop, Australian National University, at The Library of Congress * Wertham Collection: Publications primarily related to psychology at th
Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wertham, Fredric 1895 births 1981 deaths 19th-century German Jews 20th-century German Jews 20th-century American physicians 20th-century German physicians 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century German non-fiction writers Physicians from Nuremberg Writers from Nuremberg Alumni of King's College London American psychiatrists German psychiatrists German emigrants to the United States New York University faculty Physicians from New York City New York (state) Republicans Activists from New York City Comics controversies Jewish activists American textbook writers German textbook writers