Crossing over the Line: Legislating Morality and the Mann Act (Worlds of Desire: the Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender & Culture) - Hardcover

Langum, David J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226468801 ISBN 13: 9780226468808

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 1994

Inhaltsangabe

Crossing over the Line describes the folly of the Mann Act of 1910--a United States law which made travel from one state to another by a man and a woman with the intent of committing an immoral act a major crime. Spawned by a national wave of "white slave trade" hysteria, the Act was created by the Congress of the United States as a weapon against forced prostitution.

This book is the first history of the Mann Act's often bizarre career, from its passage to the amendment that finally laid it low. In David J. Langum's hands, the story of the Act becomes an entertaining cautionary tale about the folly of legislating private morality.

Langum recounts the colorful details of numerous court cases to show how enforcement of the Act mirrored changes in America's social attitudes. Federal prosecutors became masters in the selective use of the Act: against political opponents of the government, like Charlie Chaplin; against individuals who eluded other criminal charges, like the Capone mobster "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn; and against black men, like singer Chuck Berry and boxer Jack Johnson, who dared to consort with white women. The Act engendered a thriving blackmail industry and was used by women like Frank Lloyd Wright's wife to extort favorable divorce settlements.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David J. Langum is professor of law at Cumberland School of Law of Samford University.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1994
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0226468801
• ISBN 13: 9780226468808
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 2
• Anzahl der Seiten: 324
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar