RUMORS OF INDISCRETION: THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI’S "SEX QUESTIONNAIRE" SCANDAL IN THE JAZZ AGE

In March 1929 hundreds of students at the University of Missouri received a questionnaire that asked their opinions of marriage, family, and sexual issues. Several questions were regarded as too intimate for university students, especially females. The so-called Sex Questionnaire, the product of a sociology class project, soon fell into the hands of the university’s president, dean of women, and the local press, which deemed it "A Filthy Questionnaire." Nelson places the episode within the history and development of the University of Missouri as well as the "culture war" in America during the Jazz Age. He argues that the decade was marked by both change and the persistence of tradition.