In the early 20th Century narratives about “white slavery” led to creation of the White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910, which was wielded by the U.S. federal government to police sexuality. These narratives also helped fuel the growth of the FBI in its early days. But before these narratives arrived in the United States, they first grew in Victorian England. To help expose the horrible truth of the underground sex trade, Evangelical feminist activists fighting for better treatment of prostitutes and the protection of children found common cause with an unscrupulous London journalist named William Stead. But Stead was more interested in selling newspapers than the truth. The result was a horrifying scandal that involved Stead kidnapping a 13 year girl and a deformed narrative about sex trafficking that rippled through history long after his death.

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Written by Travis View. Theme by Nick Sena (https://nicksenamusic.com). Additional music by Pontus Berghe and Nick Sena. Editing by Corey Klotz.

REFERENCES:

Bartley, Paula (1998) Preventing prostitution: the ladies' association for the care and protection of young girls in Birmingham, 1887-1914, Women's History Review

Donovan, Brian (2005) White Slave Crusades: Race, Gender, and Anti-vice Activism, 1887–1917.

Langum, David (1994) Crossing over the Line: Legislating Morality and the Mann Act

Robinson, W. Sidney (2012) Muckraker: The Scandalous Life and Times of W. T. Stead

Schucha, Bonnie (2016) White Slavery in the Northwoods: Early U.S. Anti-Sex Trafficking and Its Continuing Relevance to Trafficking Reform, William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law

Schults, Raymond (1972) Crusader in Babylon: WT Stead and the Pall Mall Gazette

Walkowitz, Judith (1992) City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London