Major Publishers of Lesbian Pulp Fiction
a good writeup on the publishers and their involvement in lesbian pulps: http://www.msvu.ca/library/collpollespulp.asp#publishers
Fawcett Crest Gold Medal
Midwood-Tower http://lynnmunroe.tripod.com/midwood.htm
Beacon
Lion
An opinion on Mafia involvement:
A lot of the pulp publishers were eventually controlled by the Mafia, and that's why the covers got more "risque" and the stories got sleazier. The federal government had a vendetta on "indecency" in the mid-70s following landmark obscenity rulings by the United States Supreme Court. That's when the famous saying "I know it when I see it." was coined. It was a statement made by one of the Supreme Court justices at the time. The long and the short of it was that "obscenity" was never definitively defined by the court, but was left subject to interpretation by State and local communities. As you can imagine, many communities adopted (or started enforcing) strict laws defining what was "decent."
In my hometown here in Chicago, I remember during the 70s when many notable Adult Book Stores were raided and shut down. The ironic part is that after the "legitimate" ones were shut down, the Mafia moved in to fill the vacuum.
The mob has always had an "understanding" in Chicago, and with their influence they easily set up and operated several shops, some of which are still in operation today. Anybody who wanted to open an adult bookstore had to give the mob a cut or they wouldn't be allowed to stay in business. Strangely, the old "adult" bookstores weren't even obscene compared to the ones the mob opened up. The whole movement was basically a witchhunt, with the results being worse than the original so-called "problem."
c2007 Jovonne Smythe
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