Archival Trouble: Researching Sex Trafficking in Early Twentieth-Century America

2018 ◽  
pp. 183-199
Author(s):  
Jessica R. Pliley
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Shadow Economy ◽  
State Power ◽  
Reliable Data ◽  
White Slavery ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
And Function ◽  
Twentieth Century America

This Chapter examines the challenges that historians face when researching illicit labour and the shadow economy – in this case, prostitution and sex trafficking. It argues that generating reliable data about the extent of prostitution and sex trafficking continues to be an insurmountable challenge for historians, just as it was for the historical subjects historians study. It notes that like today’s debates about what practices actually constitute forced labour, the parameters of the term ‘white slavery’ were similarly contested. And it suggests that political forces produced the quantifiable data about white slavery, but the very archives that house the sources historians use are themselves political spaces and function to legitimize state power, reformers’ values, and narratives where the ‘victim’ was rendered silent.

Moral Panic and the Prostitute in Partitioned Poland: Middle-Class Respectability in Defense of the Modern Nation

Slavic Review ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 557-581 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keely Stauter-Halsted
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
News Media ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
Venereal Disease ◽  
White Slavery ◽  
Dangerous Behavior ◽  
National Body ◽  
Polish Language

In the early twentieth century, police-regulated prostitution experienced a burst of attention from Polish-language news media. In this article, Keely Stauter-Halsted considers the extended moment of “moral panic” that unfolded when a series of public exposes revealed the scope and potential dangers of sex trafficking. Taking into account the ways “respectable” urban audiences absorbed revelations of illicit commercial transactions on city streets and increased “white slavery” activity beyond the Polish lands, Stauter-Halsted stresses the image of the prostitute as a threat to the embattled nation. The figure of the impoverished, morally compromised streetwalker encroaching on bourgeois social spaces and invading the bourgeois home challenged the sense of middle-class respectability so crucial to Polish national regeneration. By exposing innocent members of the community to sexually dangerous behavior, the prostitute came to represent decay, degeneration, and venereal disease attacking the national body, a conclusion used by social purity activists in their protoeugenics campaigns.

Coercion and Choice

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-507
Author(s):  
Elisa Camiscioli
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
Sexual Exploitation ◽  
White Slavery ◽  
Economic Vulnerability ◽  
Police Investigations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Working Class Women

Abstract This article employs police investigations of the “traffic in women” between France and Argentina in the first three decades of the twentieth century to highlight the multiple narratives in play when contemporaries talked about trafficking and relayed their experiences of it. While the dominant narrative of “white slavery” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emphasized coercion, sexual exploitation, and victimization, many young working-class women described the journey to Argentina in terms of perceived opportunity, whether for money, travel, or freedom. This is not to downplay the social and economic vulnerability of these women and the precarious lives they led in French and Argentine cities. Instead, the article emphasizes the inadequacy of many existing frameworks for discussing sex trafficking, and prostitution more generally, as they rely too heavily on a stark division between coercion and choice. Cet article repose sur une analyse d'enquêtes de police portant sur la « traite des femmes » entre la France et l'Argentine durant le premier tiers du vingtième siècle. Il met l'accent sur la multiplicité des discours évoquant la traite, et l'expérience des femmes impliquées. Si, à la fin du dix-neuvième et au début du vingtième siècle, le discours dominant à propos de la « traite des blanches » souligne la coercition, l'exploitation sexuelle et la victimisation, de nombreuses femmes appartenant à la classe ouvrière décrivent leur périple en Argentine comme une opportunité de gagner plus d'argent, de voyager, ou de saisir leur liberté. Cet article ne vise cependant à minimiser ni le rôle de la vulnérabilité économique et sociale de ces femmes, ni leur vie précaire dans les villes de France et d'Argentine. Il cherche plutôt à mettre en évidence le caractère inadapté des différents paradigmes existants pour aborder le sujet du trafic sexuel, et plus généralement de la prostitution, ainsi que la manière dont ces paradigmes reposent sur une division trop marquée entre le choix et la contrainte.

scholarly journals The Dirt on "White Slavery": The Construction of Prostitution Narratives in Early Twentieth-Century American Newspapers

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Gallagher-Cohoon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
White Slavery ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century America

The paper "The Dirt on 'White Slavery': The Construction of Prostitution Narratives in Early Twentieth-Century America" analyses the development of white slavery discourses in Progressive Era newspapers, reform books and trial records. White slavery involved both gendered and racialized fears of coercive prostitution. These prostitution narratives are used to uncover early twentieth-century American  perceptions of appropriate femininity, inherent female weakness, and the sexual threat of racial and ethnic minorities. 

Strings Attached

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth W. Grant
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Institutional Culture ◽  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Child Rearing ◽  
Research Subjects ◽  
Financial Decisions ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
Role And Function ◽  
Twentieth Century America

Incentives can be found everywhere—in schools, businesses, factories, and government—influencing people's choices about almost everything, from financial decisions and tobacco use to exercise and child rearing. So long as people have a choice, incentives seem innocuous. This book demonstrates that when incentives are viewed as a kind of power rather than as a form of exchange, many ethical questions arise: How do incentives affect character and institutional culture? Can incentives be manipulative or exploitative, even if people are free to refuse them? What are the responsibilities of the powerful in using incentives? The book shows that, like all other forms of power, incentives can be subject to abuse, and it identifies their legitimate and illegitimate uses. It offers a history of the growth of incentives in early twentieth-century America, identifies standards for judging incentives, and examines incentives in four areas—plea bargaining, recruiting medical research subjects, International Monetary Fund loan conditions, and motivating students. In every case, the analysis of incentives in terms of power yields strikingly different and more complex judgments than an analysis that views incentives as trades, in which the desired behavior is freely exchanged for the incentives offered. Challenging the role and function of incentives in a democracy, the book questions whether the penchant for constant incentivizing undermines active, autonomous citizenship. Readers of this book are sure to view the ethics of incentives in a new light.

scholarly journals “In a distant unknown country:” A New Historicist Look at James Joyce’s “Eveline,” Argentina, and the Zwi Migdal in the Early 1900s

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Barberan Reinares
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
General Public ◽  
White Women ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
White Slavery ◽  
The Social

This article analyzes James Joyce’s story “Eveline” (1904) looking at the moral panic about “white slavery” in Europe and the new continent, especially focusing on Argentina, the foremost recipient of trafficked women between 1880 and 1930 (and, of course, Joyce’s destination of choice for Eveline). It was precisely at the turn of the twentieth century that, along with the popularity of transatlantic migration, sex trafficking went fully global and news about international “dangers” for single white women reached the general public, provoking all kinds of repressive reactions through what became known as the “social purity” movement.

scholarly journals Monitoring the Movies: The Fight Over Film Censorship in Early Twentieth-Century Urban America by Meridith Broussard

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Clay Waters
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Progressive Era ◽  
Special Effect ◽  
White Slavery ◽  
National Board ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Urban America ◽  
Film Content ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Twentieth Century America

The chapters are arranged chronologically, retracing the national fight over film content, as various taboo subjects like abortion, white slavery, and racial intermarriage were addressed (or exploited) within the emerging medium. Similar ground was covered by Lee Grieveson in Policing Cinema: Movies and Censorship in Early-Twentieth-Century America (2004), the subject of a lengthy note in Monitoring the Movies. But Fronc’s work is bolstered by voluminous correspondence from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, and the 40 pages of notes (in addition to an appendix, bibliography, and index) signal a comprehensive appraisal of this facet of the Progressive era. Along the way, there are a few light anecdotes, including one involving a melodramatic film about a railroad strike that featured a scene of a burning trestle, a special effect that meant the film’s costs ran into “many hundreds of dollars” (40).

The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 139
Author(s):  
Jason Pierceson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century America

Reviewed by Jason Pierceson

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda Powers
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Greek Drama ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
Twentieth Century America

The Introduction begins by providing a brief overview of the reception of Greek drama by under-represented communities in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America. After situating the book’s topic within this historical timeline, it proceeds to explain the development of the project, the focus on live theatre, the choice of productions, and the reasons for them. It defines terms, provides disclaimers, explains the methodology used, clarifies the topic, situates it within its historical moment, summarizes each of the chapters, describes the development of the ‘democratic turn’ in Greek drama, and finally speculates on the reasons for the appeal of Greek drama to artists working with under-represented communities.

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