Congress passed the Mann Act, which was ostensibly aimed at keeping young women from being lured into prostitution but really offered a way to make a crime out of many kinds of consensual sexual activity.
The outrage over sex work began with a commission appointed in 1907 to investigate the problem of immigrant prostitutes. Allegedly, women were brought to America for the purpose of being forced into sexual slavery; likewise, immigrant men were allegedly luring American girls into prostitution.
The Congressional committees that debated the Mann Act did not believe that a woman would ever choose to be a prostitute unless she was drugged and held hostage. The law made it illegal to “transport any woman or girl” across state lines “for any immoral purpose.” In 1917, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of two married California men, Drew Caminetti and Maury Diggs, who had gone on a romantic weekend getaway with their girlfriends to Reno, Nevada, and had been arrested. Following this decision, the Mann Act was used in all types of cases: someone was charged with violating the Mann Act for bringing a woman from one state to another in order to work as a chorus girl in a theater; wives began using the Mann Act against girls who ran off with their husbands. The law was also used for racist purposes: Jack Johnson, heavyweight champion of the world, was prosecuted for bringing a prostitute from Pittsburgh to Chicago, but the motivation for his arrest was public outrage over his marriages to white women.
Be a Seed for Change 