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

(Hardback)

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Description

The social purity movement, a national movement in the twentieth 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."

Reviews

"Pivar has conclusively changed the narrative of American social history."-John C. Burnha, Ohio State University author of Bad Habits: Drinking, Smoking, Taking Drugs, Gambling, Sexual Misbehavior, and Swearing in American History
"With total command of the sources, Pivar has portrayed in meticulous detail the evolution of the assault on prostitution and venereal disease from its intensely religious-moral nineteenth century basis, as exemplified in the American Purity Alliance, to the more scientific (and social-scientific) efforts of the American Social Hygiene Association. At the same time he has vividly portrayed the problems of conflicting purposes, analyses, and solutions that hobbled efforts to alleviate this wrenching, far-reaching social problem. Pivar has done a most impressive job of making the case that the assault on prostitution and venereal disease has a place next to the regulation of liquor, child labor, and other social abuses as a major theme in Americans' attempt to come to terms with a modern urban-industrial society."-Morton Keller Spector Professor of History Brandeis University
.,."specialists may find the book useful for its reliance on archival sources and its reminders of how complicated a tale this is. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate students."-CHOICE
...specialists may find the book useful for its reliance on archival sources and its reminders of how complicated a tale this is. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate students.-CHOICE
[O]f considerable interest to those familiar with vice policy and the social history of the period.-The Historian
An impressive amount of reading and archival research has gone into pivar's wprk, allowing him to trace, in both the social purity and the social hygiene movements, the internal divisions, attempted alliances, transatlantic influences, and misapprehensions by reformers and feminists of their influence on state and national policy.-The Journal of American history
For theorists investigating the history or sexuality in the United States, David Pivar's latest work is long overdue.-Traffic
Recommended for specialists in U.S. social policy such as prostitution control and social movements, and recommended for all undergraduate and graduate research libraries.-Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
This book is a rich source for exploring the nuances of social change in a rarely explored aspect of American life.-AUFBAU Online
This book makes a distinctive contribution to the social and cultural histories and geographies that critically examine the regulation of sexuality in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries....Purity and Hygiene describes and explains the defeat of a feminist movement, and the elevation of a regulatory system that penalised and subordinated certain women, while it helped to shape the sexualised, gendered subjectivities of others....Pivar's impressive research makes this a valuable study and a rich resource.-Gender, Place, and Culture
"Of considerable interest to those familiar with vice policy and the social history of the period."-The Historian
..."specialists may find the book useful for its reliance on archival sources and its reminders of how complicated a tale this is. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate students."-CHOICE
"[O]f considerable interest to those familiar with vice policy and the social history of the period."-The Historian
"An impressive amount of reading and archival research has gone into pivar's wprk, allowing him to trace, in both the social purity and the social hygiene movements, the internal divisions, attempted alliances, transatlantic influences, and misapprehensions by reformers and feminists of their influence on state and national policy."-The Journal of American history
"For theorists investigating the history or sexuality in the United States, David Pivar's latest work is long overdue."-Traffic
"Recommended for specialists in U.S. social policy such as prostitution control and social movements, and recommended for all undergraduate and graduate research libraries."-Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
"This book is a rich source for exploring the nuances of social change in a rarely explored aspect of American life."-AUFBAU Online
"This book makes a distinctive contribution to the social and cultural histories and geographies that critically examine the regulation of sexuality in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries....Purity and Hygiene describes and explains the defeat of a feminist movement, and the elevation of a regulatory system that penalised and subordinated certain women, while it helped to shape the sexualised, gendered subjectivities of others....Pivar's impressive research makes this a valuable study and a rich resource."-Gender, Place, and Culture

Author Bio

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