Purity and Hygiene ― Women, Prostitution, and the "American Plan," 1900-1930

The social purity movement, a national movement in the 20th century, redirected efforts against neo-regulation, a modified state regulated prostitution. New York based neo-abolitionists merged with the American Social Hygiene Association by 1910. Pushed to the margins of power, purity reformers and their feminist allies worked for broad definitions of social hygiene with environmental implications while their opponents stressed eugenics and other hereditarian thought to narrow definitions. Pivar provides a comparative perspective that permits a critical perspective on the "American Plan."

DAVID J. PIVAR is Professor Emeritus of History and American Studies at California State University at Fullerton. He is author ofPurity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (Greenwood, 1973).