38 Facts About Ralph Ginzburg

Ralph Ginzburg was an American author, editor, publisher and photo-journalist.

Ralph Ginzburg was best known for publishing books and magazines on erotica and art and for his conviction in 1963 for violating federal obscenity laws.

Ralph Ginzburg was born in Brooklyn on October 28,1929, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents.

Ralph Ginzburg went to New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn and was president of his class.

Ralph Ginzburg later became editor-in-chief of it, which further fostered his passion for journalism.

Ralph Ginzburg had to leave his job and join the army for the Korean War two years later, and was assigned to Fort Myer, Va, to work for the Public Information Office, where he both edited the post newspaper and took wedding photos for base marriages.

Ralph Ginzburg worked for Reader's Digest, Collier's, and, as he put it, "other pillars of communications industry respectability".

Ralph Ginzburg convinced the notable psychoanalyst Theodor Reik to write the introduction.

Ralph Ginzburg said he got in touch with Fischer by simply giving Fischer's older sister Joan a call, and he "got along well" with Fischer.

Ralph Ginzburg sold the interview, entitled "Portrait of a Genius As a Young Chess Master" to Harper's Magazine, which published it in January 1962.

However, Bobby Fischer himself hated the article and denied most of it, claiming that it was not even a remotely accurate representation of his actual statements or his life, while Ralph Ginzburg destroyed all of the research materials that would have backed his interview.

The book was a sign that Ralph Ginzburg had wed his business to his interest in social activism, and it was regularly adapted by African American studies as one of the primary pedagogical materials to show the harsh nature of pre-civil-rights race relations in America.

Ralph Ginzburg was found guilty by the Supreme Court eventually and sentenced to five years in prison.

Ralph Ginzburg lost the lawsuit again and had to pay $1 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive damages to Senator Goldwater.

From 1968 to 1971, Ralph Ginzburg published Avant Garde, an art and culture magazine with graphic and logogram designed by Herb Lubalin, and the logo font of the magazine later gave birth to a well-known typeface of the same name.

Avant Garde focused on radical politics and stopped publication when Ralph Ginzburg started serving his sentence in 1972.

Apart from publishing and editing, Ralph Ginzburg continued to be an activist.

In 1968, Ralph Ginzburg signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.

When Ralph Ginzburg turned 55, he retired from publishing and started a second career as a photojournalist.

Ralph Ginzburg became a freelance photographer for The New York Post, specialising in New York scenes.

Ralph Ginzburg died of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bones in 2006.

Ralph Ginzburg attempted to get mailing privileges from postmasters at Blue Ball and Intercourse, Pennsylvania, but was declined because the anticipated volume was more than what the post office of these two small towns could handle, and therefore at last Ralph Ginzburg settled to send his magazines from Middlesex, New Jersey.

Ralph Ginzburg held off his instinct to prosecute afraid that "it would hurt politically by solidifying Kennedy's image as a puritanical Catholic".

Meanwhile, while Ralph Ginzburg sent out millions of flyers to promote his magazines, both local and federal prosecutors received complaints from recipients of Ralph Ginzburg's mailing, and organisations like The National Office for Decent Literature even encouraged their members to send complaints to post offices.

Ralph Ginzburg was supported by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and Solicitor General Archibald Cox, and Katzenbach believed that they would eventually prosecute Ginzburg because of his continual testing of boundaries of obscenity in his magazine, "so why wait".

Ralph Ginzburg was first put into charge in racially polarised Philadelphia in 1963 and was indicted for Eros, Liaison and the Housewife's Handbook.

Those publications were deemed obscene by the court and Ralph Ginzburg was found guilty of 28 violations, sentenced to serve five years and fined totalling $42,000.

The Trial Judge, Ralph Ginzburg Body, explained the finding of the court as:.

Ralph Ginzburg appealed, and a year later the Third Circuit easily affirmed the decision of the lower court.

Ralph Ginzburg appealed again and his case got to the Supreme Court in 1965.

The focus of Ralph Ginzburg's case was thus shifted to the promotion and distribution of those publications.

Ralph Ginzburg had sought mailing privileges from postmasters at Blue Ball and Intercourse, Pennsylvania, and the trial court found it obvious that "these hamlets were chosen only for the value their names would have in".

Ralph Ginzburg was quickly put up on charges and convicted partly because he was responsible for not only production, but promotion and distribution for Eros, Liaison, and the Housewife's Handbook on Selective Promiscuity.

The quickness of Ralph Ginzburg's conviction was under the influence of McCarthyism.

Kathryn Ganahan, the Chair of the Post Office Operations Subcommittee and Congresswoman of Philadelphia, where Ralph Ginzburg was originally put into trial, demanded prosecution of Ralph Ginzburg and claimed obscenity was "part of an international communist plot".

Ralph Ginzburg looked exactly like Central Casting's idea of a pornographer: "shady, you might say shifty, with a thin, sallow face and a small mustache".

From January 1964 to August 1967, Ralph Ginzburg published a quarterly magazine named fact:, which could be characterized as a humorous, scathingly satiric journal of comment on current society and politics.

From January, 1968 through July, 1971, Ralph Ginzburg published Avant Garde, a handsome softbound periodical.