New women, white slaves: separate spheres and social anxiety in the Progressive Era

During the Progressive Era (1890-1920), the dominant meaning of sexuality in the United States underwent a paradigm shift that called for different regulations and politics. The iconic “New Woman” emerged as an epitome of modern femininity in her many emancipated incarnations: the intellectual, the suffragist and the professional, but also the divorcee, the free‐lover, and the working girl. At the same time, the preoccupation with prostitution developed into a national obsession and the Progressives invested enormously in the fight against “white slavery,” an ostensibly international traffic for the abduction and sexual enslavement of girls. This dissertation investigates how the white slavery scare can be considered part of a general attempt to recompose and repair the male social sphere from the attacks it was suffering in the form of more and more assertive womanhood. In exploring how the attitude towards prostitution exposed the anxieties of modern America, this study relies close readings and historical analysis of novels, reformative writings, journalistic pieces, sculptures and legal documents in which New Women and white slaves appear center stage.