NCTE Centennial: A Blast from the Past
Did you know that NCTE has been active in the courts to defend students' right to read? NCTE filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Pico vs. Island Trees, a landmark case that eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court and ensured that, as the Court ruled in 1982, "Local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in these books." Click here for more information on this landmark case.
NCTE continues to fight censorship today, visit the NCTE Anti-Censorship Center for more information.
Take action! Click here for information on what issues NCTE is currently calling for action and find out how you can get involved.
Did you know that the earliest NCTE publication for elementary school teachers was entitled Reading for Fun? It was edited by Eloise Ramsey of Detroit.
The Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University holds a collection of Eloise Ramsey's papers in their archives. Click here for information on this collection.
Did you know that NCTE books were best sellers as early as the 1930s? One, Home Reading, sold over 14,000 copies in 1937.
Interesting 1937 facts:
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt began his second term in office.
- J. R. R. Tolkien published The Hobbit; or, There and Back Again.
- The Great Flood of 1937 swamped areas along the Ohio River.
- Gasoline cost $0.20 per gallon and milk cost $0.50 per gallon.
- The German airship Hindenberg exploded and burned at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
- The Recession of 1937-38 began. Unemployment rose to 20 percent.
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the top grossing film.
- John Steinbeck published Of Mice and Men.
- During an attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe in 1937, Amelia Earhart disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean near Howland Island.