Essay On The Role Of Prostitution In The 1920's

In the 1920s, it quickly became increasingly unmistakable that the Progressives’ “Noble Experiment” with the prohibition of alcohol had failed. Likewise, those people who were behind the white slave panic ultimately set in motion policies that resulted in the exact opposite of their intentions. The mafia expanded into the prostitution industry as the timing of new statewide prostitution laws also coincided with the prohibition of alcohol, thereby banding both vices together underground. The conditions in brothels were hardly ideal for the women before prohibition, but at least it was a female operated industry with individual madams controlling their businesses. In contrast, the new state laws greatly benefited the pimps and organized criminals

Women gained many new rights and access to higher paying jobs during the Progressive Era and undoubtedly economic indicators for women have steadily improved ever since. Likewise, several of the social factors that prodded many women into prostitution began changing during the Progressive Era as well. Women often chose to work as prostitutes due simply to the stigma attached with premarital sex, but that dishonor drastically faded during the 1920s. After all, the rate of premarital sex was twice as high for women born after 1900 than before. Oddly enough, that was in part enabled by increased sales of automobiles, which were often referred to as “prostitution on

Louis, Hawaii’s regulations were overly intrusive, but venereal disease rates were “phenomenally low” where prostitution was regulated. Thus, Ted Chernin, a frequent newspaper contributor who worked as a radio engineer at Pearl Harbor, later documented the regulated system. He uncovered a report by the Honolulu Police Commissioner, Victor S.K. Houston, who “recognized that while (prostitution) cannot be prevented it can be regulated and controlled.” His report mentioned how Dr. William F. Snow of New York City inspected the houses on behalf of the War Department and commented that he had never seen such a “common sense setup” with such “low rates of venereal