Prostitution Politics and Feminist Activism in Modern America: Sophonisba Breckinridge and the Morals Court in Prohibition-Era Chicago

Abstract

In 1930, Sophonisba Breckinridge, a feminist social work professor at the University of Chicago, initiated a campaign to reform the branch of Chicago's Municipal Court system that dealt with prostitutes. A product of an international anti-prostitution movement, the Morals Court was considered a model reform at the time of its inception in 1913. Yet as scholars have observed, reformers' efforts to abolish prostitution resulted in repressive policies that sanctioned state control and police harassment of sex workers. Although most studies note feminist critiques of prostitution policies on civil libertarian grounds, few have explored this phenomenon, particularly after 1920. Breckinridge's crusade to secure civil rights for accused prostitutes in Prohibition-era Chicago offers a new perspective on the politics of prostitution, prompts a reexamination of American feminism after the achievement of suffrage, and sheds light on current debates about the international traffic in women.

Survivor or Laborer

“…Prostitution, in particular, was the most serious of these sexual offenses (Wahab, 2002). Members of COSs were fervent in attacking the legalized model of prostitution prevalent in Europe and tried to prevent this model from moving to the United States (Jabour, 2013). COS volunteers feared that legalized prostitution in the United States would result in sanctioning commercialized sex, infringements on constitutional liberties and law enforcement corruption (Jabour, 2013, p. 143).…”

“…Members of COSs were fervent in attacking the legalized model of prostitution prevalent in Europe and tried to prevent this model from moving to the United States (Jabour, 2013). COS volunteers feared that legalized prostitution in the United States would result in sanctioning commercialized sex, infringements on constitutional liberties and law enforcement corruption (Jabour, 2013, p. 143). A quote from the Official Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections (the early name for the National Conference of Social Work) illustrates just how negatively early social workers viewed prostitution:We have seen prostitution claiming its victims by the thousands, the modern Minotaur, devouring our virgins, being none other than the Insufficient Wage, just as we have seen thousands of other girls enduring fiercest temptation, in the face of weariness and a joyless life, growing old before their time and giving up the hope that every good woman has of a home of love with a babe at her breast.…”

Free Women's Contributions to Working-Class Women's Sexual Education during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and Beyond

“…Various anarchist publications from that period, such as Estudios [Studies] and La Revista Blanca [The White Journal], as well as the Free Women magazine itself, published many articles that expressed that prostitution was the slavery of women from the lowest social classes; it involved a situation of inequality for women and of a double standard in a capitalist society (Greene, 1998). In Estudios [Studies], the following quote was published in one article (Hernández, 1936):…”