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Women Reformers Respond During the Depression: Battling St. Louis's Disease and Immorality
Jamie Schmidt Wagman*
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jschmi52{at}slu.edu.
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Abstract |
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St. Louis women reformers worked to combat prostitution and educate citizens about sexually transmitted diseases during the Depression. Reformers took on problems not commonly discussed: sexuality, morality, and social disease. Women who staffed clinics, formed social hygiene committees, and promoted educational talks were also concerned with protecting monogamy and institutions of marriage and family. They elevated the professions of public health and social work, but positioned themselves as saviors of prostitutes and the working class. As long as reformers saved young women, families received blame for prostitution instead of the economy. This rationalization kept lower socioeconomic classes in place. This essay shows how city health officials and police relied on class and gender markers and visual clues of promiscuity when they could not arrest everyone with a sexually transmitted disease. It explores the way reformers elevated their professions while protecting self-interests, and failed to challenge the city’s repressive policies.
First published on May 7, 2009, doi:10.1177/0096144209335858
Journal of Urban History 2009;35:698.
A more recent version of this article appeared on July 1, 2009
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