Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls; Or, War on the White Slave Trade

About this book

The work is a sprawling reformist tract from the early twentieth‑century United States, assembled by Ernest A. Bell and a roster of lawyers, physicians, clergy and social‑service leaders. It opens with a stark declaration of purpose: to expose the “shameless traffic in young girls,” to detail the methods of procurers, and to provide practical guidance for protecting children. The introductory pages lay out a dense table of contents, promising chapters on history, legal suppression, personal testimonies, medical consequences and moral exhortations, all illustrated with graphic depictions of vice districts. The tone is urgent and didactic, positioning the reader as a potential ally in a “holy war” against what the editors label the “white‑slave trade.”

Written in the formal, moral‑inspired prose of Progressive‑era reform literature, the book blends legal argument, medical commentary and religious rhetoric. Its style is earnest, often polemical, and heavily infused with the language of civic duty and Christian virtue. Readers interested in the history of social‑purity movements, early anti‑human‑trafficking campaigns, or the intersection of law, medicine and religion in the 1910s will find this volume a revealing primary source, though its melodramatic zeal and moralizing tone may feel overwrought to modern sensibilities.