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

Modern Canada since 1850 HIST 2350 WDE (Winter 2026)

• Instructor: Dr. Tom Peotto

• Week 5, Lecture 1: The Jazz Age and Its Discontents

The Jazz Age’s Cultural Context

• Irving Berlin's 1928 Hit

  • Commemorates Montreal as a tourist destination for Prohibition-era individuals from the USA, particularly from northeastern states such as New York.

  • Song lyrics: “With a stein upon the table, I’ll be laughing at you all / Goodbye, Broadway– hello, Montreal!”

  • Performance Context: Performed by Ted Lewis and His Band.

Youth in Revolt

• Cultural Movements of the Later 19th Century

  • Various movements emerged that challenged the status quo. Key movements included:

    • Feminism

    • Labour Movement

    • Occultism

  • Bohemian Movement: Young individuals traveled throughout Europe seeking self-discovery and adventure.

  • Experimental Movements in the Arts: Involve major shifts in various art forms such as:

    • Music

    • Dance

    • Painting

    • Sculpture

    • Examples of this experimentation included:

      • The 1913 premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in Paris—became notorious for inciting a riot (though stories of the riot are largely considered apocryphal).

  • The rise of jazz and flappers was perceived as following similar crises faced in other cultural movements.

  • 

    • Maud Allan (1873 – 1956): A modern dance pioneer who gained her international fame with scanty costumes during performances such as The Dance of Salome and The Vision of Salome (1906).

    • After a private performance in London (1918), faced accusations of entrapment for blackmail against the male audience and successfully sued for libel.

The Jazz Age in Canada

• Origin and Popularity of Jazz

  • Jazz originated in New Orleans around the fin de siècle and evolved into a worldwide popular music genre.

  • Montreal’s St. Antoine Neighborhood: Served as a major hotspot for jazz, predominantly comprised of Black laborers, including African-American and Caribbean railway porters.

  • Socioeconomic Context:

    • Immigration policies restricted these workers from bringing wives or children, leading to large numbers of single men with disposable income, which in turn led to the establishment of jazz clubs during the 1920s.

  • Public Perception: Older generations condemned jazz clubs as centers of iniquity involved with drinking, drugs, gambling, and sexual activities; they expressed suspicion towards the Blackness associated with jazz.

    • Ladies’ Home Journal (August 1921): Published an article questioning if jazz put “the Sin in Syncopation”, asserting that jazz's rhythms were derived from voodoo, inducing brutality, and causing brain damage.

    • Montreal Herald (June 1922): Ballet dancer Theodore Kosloff declared jazz as “doomed,” criticizing its “sensual, Negroid dancing.”

    • 

    • The Canadian Ambassadors: Montreal's peak Black jazz band during the 1930s, performed for diverse audiences extending to venues like North Bay, Ontario.

Fashion, Freedom, and Flappers

• Transformation in Women’s Fashion (Early 20th Century)

  • Shift towards less restrictive clothing and short hairstyles.

  • The emergence of flappers represented a significant cultural shift, allowing women more physical freedom to engage in sports, swimming, and new dance crazes (e.g., the Charleston).

  • Goals of Flappers:

    • Pursued higher education, career opportunities, voting rights, legal equality, and personal freedoms (freedom from obligatory marriage and childbearing).

    • Advocated for rights to birth control and divorce.

    • Faced societal backlash, caricatured as frivolous or hedonistic party girls.

    • 

      • Miss Toronto Contest (1926): Aimed at traditional feminine ideals. The only finalist exhibiting modernity was Dorothy Aisling, who sported a bobbed haircut deemed too revealing for the conservative standards of the era.

F.O.F. (Fear of Flappers)

• Anxieties About Urbanization

  • The emergence of flappers illuminated broader fears surrounding urbanization as urban populations peaked.

  • Parental Concerns: Parents worried their daughters—and to a lesser extent, their sons—were vulnerable to drugs, crime, and sexual exploitation.

    • Possible repercussions cited included:

      • Illegitimacy (bastard children)

      • Sexually-transmitted diseases (VD)

      • Addiction

      • Death

    • Media sensationalism fueled these concerns, using flapper narratives to drive newspaper sales.

    • An exposé in Vancouver Sun (1922) depicted the flappers engaging in debauchery.

      • Excerpt: “Jazz, cigarettes, papa’s money tossed away at craps. Cocktails sipped in cozy corners, highballs spiked from the flapper’s own little silver stocking flask. And petting parties in secluded nooks.”

    • Definition: “Sub-deb” refers to a girl in her mid-teens who has not yet participated in her debutante ceremony.

The “White Slave Trade” Moral Panic

• Historical Background:

  • Before the 1880s, British reformers used the term “white slave trade” to describe the exploitation of workers.

  • In 1885, the Pall Mall Gazette published articles that illustrated the sexual exploitation of young girls from impoverished backgrounds perpetrated by sex traffickers targeting wealthy older men.

  • The phrase transitioned to encompass prostitution and sex trafficking in British and North American reform narratives but became increasingly fictionalized.

  • These narratives predominantly depicted scenarios whereby white girls from stable families were deceived or kidnapped by immigrants or individuals of color, ignoring abuse from known perpetrators (often family members).

    • The genuine reasons women entered sex work included poverty and lack of employment or educational opportunities.

  • References:

    • **Ernest A. Bell's