From Innocent and Enslaved to Incorrigible and Diseased: The Transformation of Prostitution by Progressive Reformers in Chicago

• In Event: Gender, Race and Crime around the Early 20th Century

Abstract

Prostitution has long been associated with issues of public morals and concerns over public health. Indeed, moral panics have emerged time and again over women prostitutes and their threat to moral and physical health. Contemporary and historical feminists have challenged dominant patriarchal discourses of prostitution by demonstrating structural forces that re-inscribe gender inequality in the common explanations of female criminality and system responses to women prostitutes. This paper presents a historical analysis of the social problem of prostitution as “white slavery” in 1910s-1920s Chicago. It addresses how state, Progressive reformers, and experts came to define the problem of prostitution and what solutions were enacted to alleviate this social problem. Further, the development of the Morals Court of Chicago is traced to the growing importance of scientific disciplines and expanded power of experts. Implications for current debates over state responses to prostitution will be discussed.

Author

• Danielle Romain, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee