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.
Allan M. Brandt, No Magic Bullet: A Social History of Venereal Disease in the United States since 1880 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 122-60.
2.
Sharon E.Wood, The Freedom of the Streets: Work, Citizenship, and Sexuality in a Gilded Age City (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 111.
3.
The LWV collection at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection, Thomas Jefferson Library, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, contains publications, correspondence, news clippings, artifacts, photographs, films, taps, and records. The St. Louis chapter kept records and information on many aspects of St. Louis life and culture, from housing, employment, and education to pollution, public transportation, and zoning. I found particularly helpful Series 9 on Government and Social Welfare, which includes a wealth of information concerning attitudes toward prostitution and venereal disease in St. Louis in the 1920s through the 1930s.
4.
Jeffrey Moran, Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000) and David J. Pivar, Purity and Hygiene: Women, Prostitution, and the American Plan 1900-1930 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001). Joanne J. Meyerowitz, Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago, 1880-1930 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988); Regina Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problems Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890 to 1945 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993); Elizabeth Alice Clement, Love for Sale: Courting, Treating, and Prostitution in New York City, 1900-1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
5.
Jeffrey S. Adler, "Streetwalkers, Degraded Outcasts, and Good-for-Nothing Huzzies: Women and the Dangerous Class in Antebellum St. Louis," Journal of Social History 25, no. 4 (Summer 1992): 739.
6.
Katharine T. Corbett, In Her Place: A Guide to St. Louis Women's History (St. Louis, MO: Historical Society Press, 1999), 127, 160. John C. Burnham, "The Progressive Era Revolution in American Attitudes toward Sex," The Journal of American History 59, no. 4 (March 1973): 892.
7.
League of Women Voters of St. Louis Addenda, 1916-1977, "Introduction Page/Summary of Work," Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO.
8.
Corbett, In Her Place, 229.
9.
U.S. Census Bureau, Census of Population and Housing, "Population-Missouri. Table 23. Population by Sex, Color, Age, Etc. for Cities of 50,000 or more by Ward," 1930, 126.
10.
Corbett, In Her Place, 231. Corbett writes that the St. Louis league differed from its affiliates in that it accepted African American as full members. However, African American women ran their own study groups until 1946.
11.
Ibid, 229.
12.
Kristi Anderson , After Suffrage: Women in Partisan and Electoral Politics before the New Deal (Chicago: The University of Chicago, 1996), 35.
13.
Daphne Spain , How Women Saved the City ( Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 7. Anderson, After Suffrage, 13-17.
14.
Pivar, Purity, 140. Pivar wrote on page 51 that the language of helping others was often a polite cloak among reformers, for "protecting monogamy was at that heart of the anti-prostitution agitation." On page 173 he writes that women advocated that once they had the vote, they would "suppress prostitution" and "purify society."
15.
LWV papers, "Social Hygiene Committee Report," Miss Weigle, speaker, Box 55, Folder 726. Of the extensive League of Women Voters of St. Louis papers, I drew on documents only from Box 55, Folder 726, titled, "Moral Delinquency, 1929-1939" and Box 57, Folder 751, titled "Venereal Disease, 1937-1945."
16.
See Kristin Luker, "Sex, Social Hygiene, and the State: The Double-Edged Sword of Social Reform," Theory and Society 27, no. 5 (October 1998): 607. The social hygiene reform movement of the Progressive Era, made up of women reformers and physicians, worked to "separate the `bad' women from `good.'"
17.
Thomas, M. Spencer, ed. The Other Missouri History: Populists, Prostitutes, and Regular Folk (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2005), 221.
18.
Wood, Freedom, 133-36.
19.
Pivar, Purity, 159.
20.
Wood, Freedom, 15-29.
21.
Luise White, The Comforts of Home: Prostitution in Colonial Nairobi ( Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 6.
22.
Ruth Rosen, The Lost Sisterhood (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), xvii.
23.
Pivar, Purity, 47-48.
24.
Ibid, 25.
25.
Brandt, Bullet, 16.
26.
Pivar, Purity, 249.
27.
Eda Houwink papers, "Unemployment and the Family" (master's thesis, Washington University-St. Louis, 1933), Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, MO, Series III. Box 14, Folder 7.
28.
Weare Holbrook , "And Choice of Vegetables," St. Louis Globe-Democrat Magazine, October 28, 1934.
29.
Bureau for Men papers, "City Free Lodging House Full Every Night since Jan. 1." "75,000 Persons Here Are Faced by Starvation," Box 11, Folder 272 (news clippings), Western Historical Manuscript Collection, University of Missouri-St. Louis.
30.
Eda Houwink papers, "Unemployment and the Family" (master's of social work thesis, 34). Houwink cited Grace Nies Fletcher, "The Business Cycle Hits the Home," Scribner's Magazine, LXXXIX, 412.
31.
Eda Houwink papers, "Unemployment and the Family." On page 123, Houwink quotes Lucille Cairns' "An Impressionistic Report on the Effects of Unemployment on Family Life in St. Louis."
32.
Clement, Love for Sale. Pages 122 and 179 discuss casual prostitution and how health departments classified women.
33.
Paul L. Benjamin, "The Family Society and the Depression ," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science160 (Mar 1932): 135.
34.
"Sees Love-Making by Women as Factor in Family Life," St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 28, 1934.
35.
LWV, panel discussion minutes, "Bridging the Gap between Needs and Resources in St. Louis," October 27, 1934, Morning Session of Social Hygiene Institute, St. Louis Medical Society Auditorium, 11, Box 55, Folder 726.
36.
Ibid.
37.
Washington University-St. Louis School of Medicine Bernard Becker Medical Library Digital Collection, Women in Health Sciences Biographies, The First Women to Attend the Washington University School of Medicine. According to the WHMC's "Introduction Page," the MSHA . . . formed in 1909 by doctors, social workers, and others interested in the dissemination of knowledge and concerning social hygiene. Their educational campaign included public lectures, college courses, meetings with allied groups, and surveys of prostitution, social settlements, and venereal disease in St. Louis. From 1928-1933 MSHA advocated sex education, child welfare, the playground movement, the appointment of policewomen, and a visiting teachers' program.
38.
LWV, panel discussion minutes, "Bridging the Gap between Needs and Resources in St. Louis," October 27, 1934, Morning Session of Social Hygiene Institute, St. Louis Medical Society Auditorium, 11, Box 55, Folder 726.
"Education Urged By Child Clinic Head," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 28, 1934.
42.
"Proper Food, Shelter, and Medical Help Urged for Everyone," St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 28, 1934.
43.
LWV, panel discussion minutes, "Bridging the Gap between Needs and Resources in St. Louis," October 27, 1934, Morning Session of Social Hygiene Institute, St. Louis Medical Society Auditorium, 11, Box 55, Folder 726.
44.
"Sees Love-Making by Women as Factor in Family Life," St. Louis Globe-Democrat, October 28, 1934.
45.
Brandt, Bullet, 128.
46.
Moran, Teaching Sex, 128.
47.
Michael A. Carerra , "Preparation of a Sex Educator: A Historical Overview," Family Coordinator (April, 1971 ,): 100.
48.
Helen Manley papers, "Women's Clubs: Miss Manley New President of Altrusa Club," June, 1954 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch photocopied article), Box 6, Folder 9, Missouri Historical Society. Helen Manley, a nationally known pioneer of sex education, left six boxes of correspondence, publications, curriculum guides, and news clippings to the MHS.
49.
Carerra, "Preparation," 102.
50.
Helen Manley , "Pioneer Sex-Education Teacher," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 19, 1987.
51.
Susan Ware, Beyond Suffrage: Women in the New Deal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981). Ware's book contains profiles of many such reformers. Ware wrote about the education and background of women like Manley in her book's section of profiles.
52.
Helen Manley papers, "Curriculum Guide in Sex Education," Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, MO.
53.
Map of the City of St. Louis. "Ratio of Women Patients Venereal Disease Clinic, 1932, City Plan Commission, 1934" and "Ratio of Men Patients Venereal Disease Clinic, 1932, City Plan Commission, 1934," Missouri Historical Society. The archives also contain maps from this period that track where people lived who have had juvenile court case records, deaths by tuberculosis, and cases from relief and family services.
54.
L. S. Wilcox, "Old Black Water," Preventing Infectious Disease, November, 2005, http://www.cdc .gov/ pcd/issues/2005/nov/05_0191.htm (accessed October 24, 2007). See Pete Daniel, Deep'n As It Come: The 1927 Mississippi River Flood (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).
55.
LWV papers, County Health in War Time flyer, Box 57, Folder 751, "Venereal Disease 1937-1945." Flyer notes that only one-tenth of St. Louis county cases of syphilis were reported before World War II.
56.
LWV papers, Box 55, Folder 726. This pamphlet also appeared in the Social Hygiene Association scrap-book at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection, St. Louis.
57.
M. Musheno and K. Seeley, "Prostitution Policy and the Women's Movement: Historical Analysis of Feminist Thought and Organization," Contemporary Crises10, no. 3 (1987): 238.
58.
LWV papers, "Report of Medical Social Worker on Demonstration Project for the St. Louis Health Division," Department of Public Welfare, Box 57, Folder 751, "Venereal Disease 1937-1945."
59.
Spencer, The Other Missouri, 219.
60.
Joanne J.Meyerowitz, WomenAdrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago, 1880-1930 ( Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), 39.
61.
Ibid, 101. Meyerowitz argues that males' higher wages, "plus the social sanction given to a courtship in which a man plied a woman with gifts, encouraged forms of dependence that fell somewhere between professional prostitution and marriage."
62.
Eda Houwink papers, "Unemployment and the Family" (master's thesis, Washington University-St. Louis, 1933), Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, MO, Series III, Box 14, Folder 7.
63.
LWV papers, "Report of Medical Social Worker on Demonstration Project for the St. Louis Health Division," Department of Public Welfare, Box 57, Folder 751, "Venereal Disease 1937-1945."
64.
LWV papers, "Report of Work of the Medical Social Worker," St. Louis Health Division , October 1943.
65.
Brandt, Bullet, 149. One doctor in the first part of the twentieth century confessed that for years, doctors had been lying to female patients about their health problems, concealing the fact that a new husband brought his wife venereal disease.
66.
LWV, panel discussion minutes, "Bridging the Gap between Needs and Resources in St. Louis," October 27, 1934, Morning Session of Social Hygiene Institute, St. Louis Medical Society Auditorium, 8, Box 55, Folder 726.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Brandt, Bullet, 149.
69.
LWV papers, "Report of Medical Social Worker on Demonstration Project for the St. Louis Health Division." "Purpose of Venereal Disease Control Service," 1.
70.
Kunzel, Fallen Women, 156.
71.
LWV papers, "Summary of Work of the Medical Social Worker St. Louis Heath Division," October, 1943, Box 57, Folder 751. Strangely no one was reported to be twenty-six years old in this particular report.
72.
LWV papers, "August 1934 History of Anti-Begging Work," Box 55, Folder 726.
73.
LWV papers, "Program/Social Protection for Young Girls, Social Protection Section, Health and Welfare Function, OCD," Box 57, Folder 751.
74.
LWV papers, "Summary of Work of the Medical Social Worker St. Louis Heath Division," October, 1943.
75.
LWV papers, "Program/Social Protection for Young Girls, Social Protection Section, Health and Welfare Function, OCD."
76.
Johanna Schoen, Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 88.
77.
Kunzel, Fallen Women.Kunzel documents social workers' feelings and interpretations of casework on pages 66, 111, and 138.
LWV Papers, "Social Hygiene Committee Report," Miss Weigle, speaker.
81.
Meyerowitz, Women Adrift, 68. On page 123, Meyerowitz notes that by the late 1920s, reporters and social "investigators" in Chicago started noticing that women adrift weren't noted as victims as they had in the past: these women did not starve and they weren't necessarily being deceived in their sexual relationships. Many of them saw that an unmarried, working woman could even "sell her sexual services without ruining her life." This revelation may not have occurred for St. Louis LWV members, or if it did, they did not voice these opinions or track them in public documents.
82.
LWV papers, "Objects to New Bill for Control of Social Disease" (photocopy of St. Louis Star Letter to the Editor by Dr. R. B. H. Gradwohl), Box 55, Folder 726.
83.
Eda Houwink papers, Series I, Diaries, Folder 2.
84.
Brandt, Bullet, 141. Brandt writes of how the St. Louis Post-Dispatch broadly publicized the problem of venereal disease. LWV papers, "Report on Project Providing Medical Social Service for the City Venereal Disease Clinic" (letter to St. Louis Mayor Aloys Kaufman dated December 1, 1944). "Minutes of the Meeting of the Special Committee Re Medical Social Service Project," February 12, 1945. "Social Planning Council Summary of Activity in regard to Medical Social Service in the City Venereal Disease Clinic."
85.
See LWV papers, "Report on Project Providing Medical Social Service for the City Venereal Disease Clinic" (letter from Social Planning Council to Mayor Aloys P. Kaufman dated December 1, 1944), Box 57, Folder 751.
86.
LWV papers, "Report on Project Providing Medical Social Service for the City Venereal Disease Clinic."
87.
LWV papers, "Program/Social Protection for Young Girls, Social Protection Section, Health and Welfare Function, OCD."
88.
"St. Louis: America's STD Capital," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 11, 2005.
