Narratives of Sexual Consent and Coercion: Forced Prostitution Trials in Progressive-Era New York City

2011 ◽  
Vol 36 (03) ◽  
pp. 597-619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Donovan ◽  
Tori Barnes-Brus
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Sexual Consent ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Defense Attorneys ◽  
White Slavery ◽  
Forced Prostitution ◽  
The Relationship

This article analyzes testimony about forced prostitution voiced in New York City's Court of General Sessions from 1908 to 1915. During these years, the problem of coercive prostitution—commonly called “white slavery”—received an unprecedented amount of attention from journalists, politicians, and antivice activists. Drawing from verbatim transcripts of compulsory-prostitution trials, our research examines the relationship between cultural narratives and courtroom storytelling. We show how the white slavery narrative in popular culture oriented prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and jurors in prostitution trials. Extending the account of social control in the sociological literature on antivice activism, our analysis shows that the prosecution of forced prostitution was not simply a top-down exercise of juridical power. Using insights from conversation analysis and cultural history, an examination of compulsory-prostitution cases reveals a quadripartite storytelling process where judges and jurors—with different orientations to the white slavery narrative—played a constitutive role in how the defense and prosecution argued their cases.

The Petticoat Inspectors: Women Boarding Inspectors and the Gendered Exercise of Federal Authority

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Pliley
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
White Slavery ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
Moral Boundaries ◽  
Port Of New York ◽  
Government Authority ◽  
The U.S

In the early twentieth century, anti-white-slavery activists sought to construct a new position for women inspectors in the Immigration Bureau. These activists asserted that immigrant girls traveling without a family patriarch deserved the U.S. government's paternal protection, yet they argued that women would be best suited to provide this protection because of women's purported maternal abilities to perceive feminine distress. By wielding paternal government authority—marked by a badge, the ability to detain, and presumably the power to punish—these women could most effectively protect the nation's moral boundaries from immoral prostitutes while also protecting innocent immigrant girls from the dangers posed by solitary travel. In 1903 the Immigration Bureau launched an experiment of placing women among the boarding teams at the port of New York. The experiment, however, was short-lived, as opponents of the placement of women in such visible positions campaigned against them. This episode reminds us that the ability to represent and exercise federal authority in the early twentieth century was profoundly gendered; and women's increased participation in government positions during the Progressive Era was deeply contested.

scholarly journals My Father’s Wars – Are Our Wars: Review of the Book: Alisse Waterstone (2014), My Father’s Wars: Migration, Memory, and the Violence of a Century. New York and London: Rutledge Taylor & Francis Group

2020 ◽  
pp. 281-288
Author(s):  
Sofija Grandakovska
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Relationship

My Father’s Wars – Are Our Wars: Review of the Book: Alisse Waterstone (2014), My Father’s Wars: Migration, Memory, and the Violence of a Century. New York and London: Rutledge Taylor & Francis GroupThe book My Father’s Wars by Alisse Waterston is a structural expression of the need for a new anthropological orientation in history. Waterston chooses to gradually weave the narrative through the methodological directions of intimate ethnography. More precisely, it is a story about the importance of the relationship between micro-history and the fluidity of historical particularisms, between the relations of matrixes of power and reflections on anthropocultural systems of the higher kind. It is here that the value of the complex focalization point in the work is accommodated; it lies in the question in what grammatical person to tell an individual story (which at the same time leaves a strong seal the identity of the descendants) embedded in Jewish cultural history as part of the larger history of war(s) and migration trajectories in the 20th century. Wojny mojego ojca – to nasze wojny. Recenzja książki: Alisse Waterstone (2014), My Father’s Wars: Migration, Memory, and the Violence of a Century. New York and London: Rutledge Taylor & Francis GroupKsiążka My Father’s wars [Wojny mojego ojca] autorstwa Alisse Waterston jest wyrazem potrzeby nowej orientacji antropologicznej w historii. Waterston decyduje się na stopniowe splatanie narracji, wykorzystując metodologiczne kierunki etnografii intymnej. А dokładniej, jest to opowieść o znaczeniu związku pomiędzy mikrohistorią a płynnością historycznych partykularyzmów, między centrami władzy i refleksją zawartą w systemach antropologicznych wyższego rzędu. Właśnie na tej sferze jest skoncentrowany cel tej książki; zawarty jest w pytaniu, w jakiej kategorii gramatycznej opowiedzieć indywidualną historię (jednocześnie naznaczoną przez tożsamość potomków), osadzoną w żydowskiej historii kultury jako części szerszej historii wojny (wojen) i trajektorii migracyjnych w XX wieku.

Die Konstruktion von Natur – Central Park neu besichtigt | The Construction of Nature – Central Park Revisited

2005 ◽  
Vol 156 (8) ◽  
pp. 288-296
Author(s):  
Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Hudson River ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Park ◽  
Housing Developments ◽  
Hudson River School ◽  
The North ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Relationship

In the first half of the 19th century scientific philosophers in the United States, such as Emerson and Thoreau, began to pursue the relationship between man and nature. Painters from the Hudson River School discovered the rural spaces to the north of New York and began to celebrate the American landscape in their paintings. In many places at this time garden societies were founded, which generated widespread support for the creation of park enclosures While the first such were cemeteries with the character of parks, housing developments on the peripheries of towns were later set in generous park landscapes. However, the centres of the growing American cities also need green spaces and the so-called «park movement»reached a first high point with New York's Central Park. It was not only an experimental field for modern urban elements, but even today is a force of social cohesion.

scholarly journals Are Essential Women’s Healthcare Services Fully Covered? A Comparative Analysis of Policy Documents in Shanghai and New York City from 1978–2017

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. 4261
Author(s):  
Qingyu Zhou ◽  
Qinwen Yu ◽  
Xin Wang ◽  
Peiwu Shi ◽  
Qunhong Shen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Women's Health ◽  
York City ◽  
Healthcare Service ◽  
Healthcare Services ◽  
Coverage Rate ◽  
Policy Documents ◽  
Service Coverage ◽  
The Relationship

This study aimed to analyze the changes in the 10 major categories of women’s healthcare services (WHSs) in Shanghai (SH) and New York City (NYC) from 1978 to 2017, and examine the relationship between these changes and maternal mortality ratio (MMR). Content analysis of available public policy documents concerning women’s health was conducted. Two indicators were designed to represent the delivery of WHSs: The essential women’s healthcare service coverage rate (ESCR) and the assessable essential healthcare service coverage rate (AESCR). Spearman correlation was used to analyze the relationship between the two indicators and MMR. In SH, the ESCR increased from 10% to 90%, AESCR increased from 0% to 90%, and MMR decreased from 24.0/100,000 to 1.01/100,000. In NYC, the ESCR increased from 0% to 80%, the AESCR increased from 0% to 60%, and the MMR decreased from 24.7/100,000 to 21.4/100,000. The MMR significantly decreased as both indicators increased (p < 0.01). Major advances have been made in women’s healthcare in both cities, with SH having a better improvement effect. A common shortcoming for both was the lack of menopausal health service provision. The promotion of women’s health still needs to receive continuous attention from governments of SH and NYC. The experiences of the two cities showed that placing WHSs among policy priorities is effective in improving service status.

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