Lucifer, The Light-Bearer

LUCIFER, THE LIGHT-BEARER. A leading anarchist and free-thought newspaper of the late nineteenth century, Lucifer was founded by Moses Harman in 1883. After bitter experiences in Civil War Missouri, where he had suffered death threats as an abolitionist, Harman brought his family to Valley Falls, Kansas, in 1879, where he soon established ties with the liberal movement in the state. A trained Methodist missionary, Harmon dissociated the name of his newspaper from Satan, referencing the ancient Roman meaning of Lucifer, its association with the morning star and its literal meaning as “light bearer.” He intended, though its publication, to shed light on moral and social issues too frequently obscured by the mainstream press. The greatest contribution of Lucifer was its printing of a wide-open letters column that became a national forum, particularly of anguished reports from women of sexual problems. The explicit nature of these letters brought down several prosecutions and jail sentences on Harman, who was charged with sending obscenity through the mail.

During one period when Harman was incarcerated, Lucifer was edited by Lois Nichols Waisbrooker (1826–1909), an advocate of free love, spiritualism, and woman’s rights. It was Waisbrooker who initiated the infamous “Horse Penis” affair. She printed a graphic paragraph from a US Department of Agriculture book, Special Report on Diseases of the Horse, and when the issue was barred from the mail, she ran a streamer in subsequent issues—“Published under Government Censorship”—pointing out that she was being persecuted for printing a paragraph that the government itself had published, and that it seemed much more solicitous of the health of horses than of human beings.

Harman later moved Lucifer to Chicago, where prosecutions continued. Moving to Los Angeles in 1908, he again changed the name of his newspaper to the American Journal of Eugenics. Harman’s publications played a dramatic role in the history of free thought in America, particularly with regard to sexual and women’s liberation.

Sears, Hal D. The Sex Radicals: Free Love in High Victorian America. Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1977.

Waisbrooker, Lois. A Sex Revolution. 2d ed, Topeka, Kans.: Independent Publishing, 1894.

Moses Harman (1830-1910) Papers, 1858-1894. Finding Aid. State Historical Society of Missouri. https://files.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/C3802.pdf