UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Claiming Victims: The Mann Act, Gender, and Class in the American West, 1910-1930s A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Kelli Ann McCoy Committee in charge: Professor Rebecca Plant, Chair Professor Frank Biess Professor Rachel Klein Professor Nancy Kwak Professor Nicole Tonkovich 2010 Copyright Kelli Ann McCoy, 2010 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Kelli Ann McCoy is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2010 iii For Harold and Linda McCoy and David Dambman iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ……………………………………………………………………… iii Dedication …………………………………………………………………………... iv Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………… v List of Tables ...…………………………………………………………………….. vi List of Charts ……………………………………………………………………….. vii Acknowledgements ……….………………………………………………………… viii Vita ………………………….………………………………………………………. x Abstract …………………….……………………………………………………….. xi Introduction ………………….……………………………………………….……... 1 Chapter One: ………………….…………………………………….………………. 26 Saving the “Bodies and Souls” of Women and Children: The Campaign to End White Slavery Chapter Two: …………………………………………………………………..…… 63 “Queen of the White Slaves”: Women’s Responses to Legal Definitions of Victimization Chapter Three: …………………………………………………………….………... 106 Regulating Unmanly Behavior with the Mann Act Chapter Four: …………………………………………………….……………..….. 149 “Outlaws of Commerce”: Policing Male Laborers in the West Chapter Five: …………………………………………………………..…………… 202 Moral Regulation and Respectable Cities in the Pacific Northwest Conclusion ……………………………………………………………….………… 252 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………….. 259 v LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1: Birthplace of Prisoners Convicted of Mann Act Violations at McNeil Island, 1910-1939 ……………………………………………..………………….… 193 Table 4.2: Race and Nativity of Total Population in Western States, 1910-1930 …. 196 Table 4.3: Race and Nativity of Males over Age 21 in Western States, 1910-1930 . 198 Table 4.4: Mann Act Violations: Intake Records of Federal Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington, 1912 ………………………………………………………...… 199 Table 4.5: Mann Act Violations: Intake Records of Federal Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington, 1926 ……………………………………………………...…… 200 Table 5.1: Total Mann Act Cases in the Pacific Northwest, 1910-1930 …..…….…. 245 Table 5.2: Types of Convictions …………………………………………..……….. 246 Table 5.3: Average Sentence Lengths …………………………………...…………. 246 vi LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.1: Birthplace of Prisoners Convicted of Mann Act Violations at McNeil Island, 1910-1939 ……………………………………………..………………….… 194 Chart 4.2: Birthplace of Foreign-Born Prisoners Convicted of Mann Act Violations at McNeil Island, 1910-1939 …………………………………….….….. 195 Chart 4.3: Percentage of Men at the McNeil Island Penitentiary Convicted of Violating the Mann Act Who Were Foreign-Born 1910-1939 ……………….……. 201 Chart 5.1: Total Mann Act Cases in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho 1910-1930 … 247 Chart 5.2: Total Mann Act Cases in Western Washington, 1910-1930 …………..... 248 Chart 5.3: Total Mann Act Cases in Eastern Washington, 1910-1930 ……..……… 249 Chart 5.4: Total Mann Act Cases in Oregon, 1910-1930 ………………………….. 250 Chart 5.5: Total Mann Act Cases in Idaho, 1910-1930 ………………………….… 251 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to express my deepest gratitude for the work of my dissertation advisor, Rebecca Plant. I am so grateful for her support and encouragement, as well as her excellent advice and feedback. It has truly been a pleasure and a privilege to work with her. The faculty, staff, and graduate students of the UCSD History Department made the last few years a wonderful experience for me, and their knowledge and assistance made this project possible. I also want to thank all of the archivists at the Pacific and Pacific-Alaska branches of the National Archives and Records Administration. Their expertise and help were crucial to this project, and I deeply appreciate their efforts. I particularly want to thank the archivists at the Seattle NARA, for so amiably pulling hundreds of boxes for me and putting up with my presence for months. They made the archival research both possible and enjoyable. My family and friends sustained me throughout this process and filled my life with great joy. My grandparents always encouraged my pursuits and made sure I knew they were proud of me. Although all four lived to see me begin graduate work, two have since passed on, and they are greatly missed. I cannot say enough to thank my parents, Harold and Linda McCoy. They taught me to love history and writing and to care about the world around me. Their unfailing love, support, and belief in me brought me to this point and will continue to carry me forward. My husband, David, has literally been with me for the same length of time as this project—we went on our first date the same day I first searched for Mann Act cases in the archives. He has been an unwavering help in the viii years since then, and his contributions to this project are too numerous to list. His assistance and computer expertise made my work easier, and his good humor, compassion, and love continue to make my life better than I ever imagined. ix VITA 2003 B.A., History, and B.A., English Literature, Point Loma Nazarene University 2006 M.A., History, University of California, San Diego 2010 Ph.D., History, University of California, San Diego FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: United States History Minor Fields: Women’s and Gender History American Literature x ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Claiming Victims: The Mann Act, Gender, and Class in the American West, 1910-1930s by Kelli Ann McCoy Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, San Diego, 2010 Professor Rebecca Plant, Chair Claiming Victims explores the relationship between law and society through an examination of the Mann “White Slave” Act. In 1910, the Mann Act made it a felony to take a woman across state lines for “immoral” purposes. Although this federal law was ostensibly aimed at ending forced prostitution, it quickly became a way of regulating sexuality. Men who traveled interstate with women while engaged in consensual, xi noncommercial relationships were subject to arrest and, if convicted, often received significant prison sentences. Despite the consensual nature of many of these interstate affairs, the women were legally defined as “victims” of the men who transported them. This study investigates gender, class, and race in the early twentieth century through an analysis of Mann Act prosecutions in the American west, where people were charged with violations at a disproportionately high rate from 1910-1930. In the West, defendants in Mann Act cases were primarily white and native-born, despite the white slavery rhetoric that envisioned foreign-born men as the main purveyors of the trade in women. Claiming Victims argues that the Mann Act centered on the idea that women were easily victimized and needed to be protected, particularly from the men whose sexual affairs threatened to undermine the home and family. Therefore, Mann Act prosecutions reinforced a Victorian ideal of male respectability, even as late as the 1920s. The Mann Act limited the mobility of the people who seemed to pose the greatest threat to the middle-class ideal of a respectable social order: the male and female laborers who migrated in large numbers throughout the West. The use of the Mann Act to control movement and regulate sexuality was not solely an overreaching on the part of the FBI or federal government, but was demanded by the large numbers of Americans who reported potential Mann Act violations. The level of control implemented through the Mann Act was a direct result of ordinary citizens’ requests for the intervention of the federal government. Therefore, the enforcement of the Mann Act during the 1910s and 1920s was part of a larger struggle over how to define and enforce moral behavior and respectable gender roles in the midst of rapid social change. xii Introduction In 1923, Lou Ellen Dickens, a twenty-four year old stenographer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, decided to travel to the West Coast with Glenn Tobias, her thirty-nine year old boss. She knew he was married, though he and his wife were separated at the time. They began their journey in Kansas City, where they registered for a shared hotel room as “man and wife,” and subsequently traveled together to Los Angeles, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle and then back to Portland, where they stopped permanently. They occupied the same drawing room while traveling by train, but in Los Angeles and Portland, Lou Ellen stayed at the Y.W.C.A. while Glenn lodged elsewhere. They may or may not have sustained “illicit relations” with each other along the way, as their stories diverged. Lou Ellen claimed that Glenn promised to marry her, and that she “was a quiet home-loving girl” who would not have run off with him if she did not believe that they would wed and establish a home and family together. Glenn, however, insisted that she accompanied him in a purely business capacity and that their relationship was entirely proper. 1 Nevertheless, Glenn had committed a felony by paying for Lou Ellen’s travel expenses and occasionally sharing a room with her. He was arrested in Portland, charged 1 United States v. Glenn C. Tobias , Case File 10439, Judgment Roll no. 11195; Criminal Case Files; U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon; Records