Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State

by Judith R. Walkowitz

• ISBN13: 9780521270649
• ISBN10: 0521270642
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1982-10-29
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The state regulation of prostitution, as established under the Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866 and 1869, and the successful campaign for the repeal of the Acts, provide the framework for this study of alliances between prostitutes and feminists and their clashes with medical authorities and police. Prostitution and Victorian Society makes a major contribution to women's history, working-class history, and the social history of medicine and politics. It demonstrates how feminists and others mobilized over sexual questions, how public discourse on prostitution redefined sexuality in the late nineteenth century, and how the state helped to recast definitions of social deviance.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Part I. Prostitution, Social Science and Venereal Disease: 1. The common prostitute in Victorian Britain

2. Social science and the great social evil

3. Venereal disease

Part II. The Contagious Diseases Acts, Regulationists and Repealers: 4. The Contagious Diseases Acts and their advocates

5. The repeal campaign

6. The leadership of the Ladies' National Association

7. Class and gender conflict within the repeal movement

Part III. Two Case Studies: Plymouth and Southampton under the Contagious Diseases Acts: 8. Plymouth and Southampton under the Contagious Diseases Acts

9. The repeal campaign in Plymouth and Southampton 1870-4

10. The making of an outcast group: prostitutes and working women in Plymouth and Southampton

11. The hospitals

12. The local repeal campaign, 1874-86

Epilog

Notes

Selected bibliography

Index.