Promiscuity on Trial: Texas Reclamation Centers, World War I, and the Nullification of Women's Rights in Texas

During the decades leading up to World War I, many Texas cities had established flourishing red-light districts where prostitution was an accepted if not always legal endeavor. However, after the turn of the twentieth century, numerous cities began feeling pressures from progressives on the national stage that were calling for the dissolution of all tenderloin districts and an increase in legal strictures against prostitution and other forms of vice. The passage of the Mann Act in 1910 marked the beginning of a national attack on vice that culminated during World War I. Another significant aspect of this progressive change was an increase in the subversion of female sexuality through campaigns to protect soldiers from supposedly promiscuous women. Posters and other advertisements were released to warn men that women were predatory and often carriers of highly contagious venereal diseases. The spread of sexually transmitted disease was a problem during World War I, but the singular focus of women as the sole carriers was a change from former progressive attitudes of women as sexual victims. These fears attached to the moral tendencies of progressive reformers, led to the amalgamation of prostitution and promiscuity during the Progressive Era, which resulted in the denial of many women’s habeas corpus rights.

In response to the Chamberlain-Kahn Act of 1918, and the growing fears of sexually deviant women seducing and victimizing soldiers led to the creation of reclamation centers in cities across Texas, such as Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Houston and Gainesville. These detention centers were areas during the years of World War I where women could be held indefinitely, tested regularly for venereal disease, all without any reliable proof of their employment as prostitutes. In fact, after the war it was discovered that only one third of all women held in such centers were actually prostitutes. Detaining women, many of whom were innocent, in reclamation centers was an obvious infraction against their civic rights, and yet it was considered acceptable since it was done as part of a war effort to stamp out sexual deviancy and disease transmission. Numerous women filed habeas corpus lawsuits against the cities and institutions that infringed upon their rights during World War I, and this study will uncover the history of this nullification of women’s rights in Texas.

This research will be visually displayed on poster using both images and pertinent texts from the original work. Images of the War Department’s attack on women as the proliferators of venereal disease as well as their pamphlets to protect soldiers are some of the visual examples that will be displayed. Also, photos of individuals who played a role in these campaigns and images of the detention centers themselves – when possible – will be shown.