Hogarth's Moral Campaigns

In 18th-century London, William Hogarth used engraved print series to campaign for social reform. Gin Lane (1751) depicted the horrors of gin addiction so graphically that it helped pass the Gin Act — actual legislation influenced by a print. A Rake's Progress traced a man's descent into gambling, debt, and madness.

Hogarth also pushed for the Engravers' Copyright Act of 1735, which gave printmakers legal protection over their work. He understood that printed images were powerful precisely because they were cheap and reproducible — and that power needed legal frameworks.