White slavery narratives -stories about white women forced into prostitution -played an important role in the construction of racial distinctions in the early twentieth-century.
This study examines the sources of strength and mobilizing impetus in the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in the early twentieth century. Both the ASL and the WCTU played essential roles in the establishment of national prohibition. The quick demise of the ASL after the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1933 and the endurance of the WCTU cannot be explained only by the structural conditions that confronted the two movements, as suggested by the resource mobilization approach. Using Snow and Benford's "collective action frame" concept, it is argued that a consideration of meanings constructed by the movements' leaders and their translation into strategic action provides a better account of the temporal viability of the WCTU and ASL. The critical distinction between the WCTU and ASL was in how they framed the "alcohol question." Both the relative success of the WCTU and the failure of the ASL were contingent upon their ability to adapt their rhetoric and corresponding strategies to rapid shifts in the cultural and economic climate of the late twenties and early thirties.
This article analyzes testimony about forced prostitution voiced in New York City's Court of General Sessions from 1908 to 1915. During these years, the problem of coercive prostitution—commonly called “white slavery”—received an unprecedented amount of attention from journalists, politicians, and antivice activists. Drawing from verbatim transcripts of compulsory‐prostitution trials, our research examines the relationship between cultural narratives and courtroom storytelling. We show how the white slavery narrative in popular culture oriented prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and jurors in prostitution trials. Extending the account of social control in the sociological literature on antivice activism, our analysis shows that the prosecution of forced prostitution was not simply a top‐down exercise of juridical power. Using insights from conversation analysis and cultural history, an examination of compulsory‐prostitution cases reveals a quadripartite storytelling process where judges and jurors—with different orientations to the white slavery narrative—played a constitutive role in how the defense and prosecution argued their cases.
Private water wells and municipal water supplies function as different systems of water provision, creating distinct—but understudied—patterns of water consumption. This article examines private well ownership to assess the relationships among conspicuous water consumption, cultural practices, and environmental structures. We surveyed well owners and non-well owners throughout Kansas, a state highly reliant on groundwater (n = 864). Borrowing insights from Bourdieu’s analysis of cultural consumption, this research considers the relationships between demographic variables and watering routines. We provide evidence that well ownership is a significant predictor of conspicuous water usage, and suggest attention to individuals’ hydrologic habitus—a disposition toward water usage shaped by infrastructure, class, and pertinent social variables—facilitates a better understanding of well ownership, drought-time watering, and conspicuous water consumption.
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